TW: mentions of torture, programm*ng (no details)

Please note that this is my point of view (Alex) and it doesn’t have to be yours if you are in the same situation as me and it’s not the same as other parts in this system who went through torture… Your experience may be very different and if you want to comment or write to us to explain how you healed, I’d love to hear about it (with TW / no details though – I’m saying the healing process).

I don’t think any one of us thought we’d ever have to deal with this question. We are sons and daughters of two doctors, it felt like our life was going to be safe and for a lot of us, the absurdity of having been hurt this bad even if our parents were kind of not bad seems like a ridiculous concept. But here I am, and I am far from being the only part in this system that has been tortured.

In the DID community, it is a common topic that is raised and I have seen more people use the word torture than anywhere else in my life. People don’t talk about torture. They don’t seem to understand it happens to people.

As I witness more and more people talk about torture, I start wondering about the definition of it. Wikipedia says “torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person”. But it can take so many forms at some point it feels like it loses its strength somehow. The extreme at which people can go is also limitless and we have not survived (by far) the worst torture you can survive in this world. But we have definitely endured things that fit this definition.

Sometimes, it’s said it’s for a specific purpose, in which case I guess my suffering (as a part) was torture but inhumane and barbaric treatment. For others in the system though, it was torture as their purpose was to obtain the creation of another part or programming.

Surviving torture is somewhat of a miracle on so many levels. First off, because it never seems possible and no one talks about it per se. The reality of it is so deep and hard that it often feels like walking on extremely hard ground (like frozen ground). You’ve got no bouncing and the ground doesn’t welcome your footsteps. Each step hurts.

We have helped several parts begin their healing journey from torture in the past few days and I think on my side, I would say that our reactions are similar. First off, we don’t want to be saved. We’re not really sure what’s the point and even worst, we just don’t feel like it. We’re empty (I very much so was and still am) and nothing really fills in our emptiness. I mean, in a way, it’s a lot like we’re a pasta drainer and all the attention you have for us goes through the drain without really touching us, so a lot of words feel empty and a lot of empathy or compassion or kindness feel completely alien. The emotions are like water on a duck, it doesn’t soak in. It’s almost like we’re looking at someone from another planet. We don’t really understand what the words mean and we don’t read the faces the way the others read the faces. There is a barrier between the others (the ones who didn’t go through this) and us which (at least from where I stand) is extremely difficult to bypass.

As a part of the DID system, I have the marks from the torture that other parts do not have. I am very little emotional, I am numb a lot, I speak slow and I have trouble breathing right especially if I am speaking English or to someone outside of our boyfriend. It is extremely complicated for me to be out and about walking in Paris. It takes so much effort and strength I often lack the energy to put myself out there. Writing this is probably going to be the last thing I do in a while (except for helping the new parts who showed up with torture trauma).

As I told the others, the way forward to helping torture survivors is to not bypass the hatred and harm done and never sugarcoat it. If you sugarcoat it, even just a little, with your words or if you try to manage yourself in this situation, you will not obtain any results. We are extremely secretive and scared and scarred. In a way, it’s almost like we actually are scar tissue. If you pull on it or try to work on it more than it’s supposed to, it’s going to hurt even more than it did at the beginning. If you aren’t right in your words or in the way you talk to me, not only will I not relate but I will shut down completely.

What worked with me was to listen to a song sang by the host at the time over and over again and feel warmth in the body. Feeling the body is extremely difficult but in our case, warmth helps. It makes us feel some positive feelings and less uncomfortable. We don’t like words but some words sometimes can speak to us. We don’t need to be explained the catastrophe of what happened, we already know, but we need perspective often. Perspective is lost on us and we can very often find ourselves catastrophizing or feeling like what happened to us is the worst thing that can ever happen in the whole world. Sadly, it isn’t. But it surely doesn’t feel that way when it’s happening or as you are healing from it. The perspective allows for the refusal to fall into a victim mindset for life. It’s not about negating the reality of being tortured, it’s about telling yourself that your experience isn’t the worst one in the whole world. At least that mindset helped me feel less lonely and like I could not throw a pity party for myself for life (as in “I’m the worst off in the world, this is the worst it can ever be etc.”) – I could for a while, but not for life.

Right now, we are struggling as a whole to know that our body has suffered this much pain in such a precious place (our sex). I think sometimes the story itself is so bad that it eats at you in itself. I heard the other day someone say that the trauma isn’t the story but what happens afterwards but with torture, I really beg to differ. I do not think having pain up until my psyche fails me is something that I can really “forget” or that feels “not so bad” and even if someone had then made me feel better (that did not happen), I still think the pain would be unbearable to remember and the feeling that someone dared to do something this despicable to me would be written in my soul and DNA.

That being said, the recovery from extreme trauma can happen, I’m proof of that. I’m one of those parts who didn’t want to be seen, I wanted to be left “there” in the trauma in my head. I didn’t want anyone to see me, it was so humiliating and shameful, I wanted to self-harm by remembering over and over again. I didn’t think anything was left in me to save or to see. I didn’t think I was remotely interesting or wanted. When they found me, Caroline (our host at the time) spent a long time with me, looking at me, wanting me, desiring me in a good way, almost like a mother would a child that has yet to be born. In a lot of ways, coming out of torture was a lot like losing everything and not being born anymore. I had to “come back to life” (I have yet to do so but it’s better now than it was before). It’s very hard to have a place in this world though. The place that torture survivors have is remote, empty, non-existent. They don’t really fit anywhere, and as a 15 year old in an adult body, I also don’t fit anywhere anymore. I’m no longer 15 in body. I’m an oddity. Torture made me a kind of glass vase that if I drop, I break. I am extremely fragile and breakable. I am also extremely slow and unable to have what the others have – a sense of belonging with those who are “normal”. I do not feel that, I really do not. I don’t feel welcomed in places where people are just “normal”.

One thing I know for a fact is that I don’t know what my life is going to be like from now on. For a very long time, I was lost in the inner world and I never fronted and I was very jealous of parts who were getting what seemed to be “special treatment”, but the truth is, I was just not asking for help either. Parts thought I had gone dormant, which wasn’t true. I was brooding in a way. I felt misunderstood and very dead inside. I recently came out of this to talk to the others and to our therapist. New memories are giving me a purpose inside. Our therapist told me yesterday that I could be there for others and maybe that’s where my life is going, I definitely feel like I’m in the right place to help other torture survivors, even if it’s not really filling the emptiness I feel (it’s a pasta drainer remember, I have holes inside where the good filters through).

Please note this essay was written in November 2023, during Nanowrimo and we are posting it right now as we found this morning 5 parts who also survived torture. We are reeling from the weight of the crimes that were committed against us and as the shame essay says “we have got to find a way to talk about it”. So here’s to hoping we can feel something different compared to today over time; the weight of all this is really heavy.