Psychology of Victim of Torture and Abuse

Everything you Need to Know about Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Abuse - click on this link: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq1.html

Torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and time are warped by sleep deprivation. The self ("I") is shattered. The tortured have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually, they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel alien -- unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with others.

Torture splinters early childhood grandiose narcissistic fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence, invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign) other -- the inflicter of agony. The twin processes of individuation and separation are reversed.

Torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The torturer invades the victim's body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the prey bonds with the predator. "Traumatic bonding", akin to the Stockholm Syndrome, is about hope and the search for meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the torture cell.

The abuser becomes the black hole at the center of the victim's surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer's universal need for solace. The victim tries to "control" his tormentor by becoming one with him (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster's presumably dormant humanity and empathy.

This bonding is especially strong when the torturer and the tortured form a dyad and "collaborate" in the rituals and acts of torture (for instance, when the victim is coerced into selecting the torture implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose between two evils).

(From the book "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited" by Sam Vaknin - Click on this link to purchase the print book, or 16 e-books, or 3 DVDs with 16 hours of video lectures on narcissists, psychopaths, and abuse in relationships: http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/thebook.html)

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[Pippisongbird]

I think it is important to tell the painful stories, the horror stories, but people often live and breathe their horror stories and become wounded and angry when other people shy away because they don't want to keep hearing them. The survivor is making themselves and others re-live the horror over and over again. We need to remember and tell good stories too while never forgetting the bad stories.

[singerofsilence]

I appreciate your videos. They have given me some very precious understanding.

[LylaPierson]

My narcisist when farther that just devaluing me. When he changed into a girl (and changed his name), she said, "I understand you must hurt over the loss of James (he had become a gay transexual" the perfect woman?) but it was OK because she had lost "her DeLyla" And she was right. She has.

[JenniferPHendrix]

This is me.... I feel a bond with my abuser(s). I crave pain sometimes... Just to feel that I'm alive.

[Kathydrel]

Damn auto correct , if i crashed my car,is what I meant to

[Kathydrel]

If I can't stop my abuser treatment because I don't recognize it as abuse ,then if I "moved on" I'm sure that in my next relationship I would end up being treated the same way. If I created my car because I don't know how to drive it , getting a new car is not going to solve the problem ! Right ? I need to learn how to recognize abuse and how to refuse to be treated that way. If he can't accept that he can move on.

[Kathydrel]

Giving me a choice between a rock and a hard place is what I said "NO" to this weekend , but I didn't think of it as torture I thought of it as "him being mean" and that is ,I guess in my mind, is okay ? Not !!! I did not think of it as torture until I heard you describe my weekend : (( .Sam , your words are proof of my pain ,thank you for explaining it so well so that anyone could understand .

[depress0r]

That's me in a nutshell. Very well spoken.

[galacticious]

This is an almost incredible exposition. We are at the outer edges of human introspection here.

[95688kage]

This pretty much sums up my many transfers in high school.