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scripttorture · 5 years ago

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My character was born in a Christian cult, the child of the "prophet." Due to being both mute and intersex, they and their mother were confined to a small damp room for the next 15 years, to be prevented from "corrupting" the rest of the faithful. Other than their mother, no one showed them any physical or emotional affection growing up and they weren't allowed to learn how to read or write. They weren't fed enough or allowed outside. What would their mental state be like after escaping at 16?

I think we should start with the character’s physical state because this kind of abuse starting at a young age causes lasting problems.

Starvation or lack of proper nutrition at a young age can be deadly. But more often poor nutrition for young children results in developmental set backs, life long health problems and lower intelligence.

There’s an example of a recent case that made the news here. The WHO statistics on child malnutrition can be found here. The WHO’s guide to identifying malnutrition in infants and children is here and their guide to treating it can be found here.

Children who are not fed properly in their early years are shorter, weaker, more prone to disease and less intelligent then their well fed peers.

This holds true for relatively short periods of malnutrition in infancy (6 months to a year), even when children are well fed later in life. You’re talking about a character being malnourished for pretty much their whole childhood.

I don’t think they’d die but depending on the degree of malnutrition I’d expect to see some pretty severe disability. This would typically include being behind in all developmental milestones, significantly lower intelligence, being prone to disease and infection, weak bones and being short.

It might also include putting on a lot of weight later when their food isn’t restricted. Stress, abuse and lack of food early in life can lead to obesity. This has generally been explained to me as the body compensating for lack of food by storing as much energy as possible; it thinks another famine’s coming.

The dampness in the room is likely to encourage infections and disease. Combined with a lack of food I think this character would be seriously ill most of their childhood and that a lot of these infections would recur on release.

An idea of how small the room would have been helpful in this scenario because- well askers have used that term to refer to anything from a box to a good sized cell and there’s a considerable difference in outcome in those cases.

If the character can’t stand or pace they might never learn to walk. If the room is so small they can’t lie flat then they wouldn’t survive to reach 16.

Assuming it is a room- they’d likely be much weaker then expected for their age, even accounting for their lack of food. I’d expect lasting joint problems, coordination problems and possibly problems involved with response times.

Also poor eyesight.

I haven’t even started on the problems caused by isolation and an inability to communicate caused by severe neglect. Or the long term psychological effects.

At this point I think it’s worth asking if this is the kind of character you want to write.

I think it’s important to include disabled characters in our stories, they’re one of the most under represented groups in fiction. But I also believe that we should try to make sure that representation is good. That it reflects the people it portrays.

And when you’re talking about so many intersecting complex disabilities and conditions that’s a big ask.

Each of these conditions individually asks for its own research. They effect each other. And finding sensitivity readers or just people with all these conditions talking about their lives- that’s a big task.

And the way readers interpret the character will also be effected by the fact most of these disabilities are deliberately inflicted.

How much are you prepared to read about how society treats people with intellectual disabilities and how those people feel about the way they’re portrayed? Do you feel confident tackling the way they’re almost universally portrayed as victims in fiction when you’re writing a character who is victimised?

I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t write this character. What I’m saying is that the lasting effects of the abuse you’re putting this character through are complicated. I think you’d have a much easier time writing the character realistically (and in a way that’s respectful to people who have all these conditions or disabilities) if you cut down on the abuse.

If you do really want to go through with this I have a post on the effects of solitary confinement here. I’m including it because it’s not clear from the context of the question that this character has more then two hours of daily, positive and enriching human contact.

At the ages you’re talking about isolation, even for short periods of a week or two, would have a severe impact. I can’t tell you exactly what that impact would be. Thankfully the experiment has not been performed. But I would expect another hit to the character’s ability to learn, lower intelligence, less ability to interact with others and serious mental health issues lasting the rest of their life.

Those mental health issues would be compounded by the mental health issues they’d develop because they’re being abused.

I’ve got a post on the common symptoms of torture here.

Given the extent of the abuse and the really really long period it’s occurring over- I’d suggest picking out more symptoms then usual.

Given the way you’ve described the cell conditions and the overlap with starvation and solitary confinement symptoms I’d strongly suggest including chronic pain, significant difficulty learning new skills, significant difficulty interacting with others and memory problems (which you can read more about here). I’d then suggest picking at least 3-5 more symptoms from the list of common symptoms.

Remember you need to balance these with the physical problems I described earlier.

If this sounds like too much then I’d suggest cutting back on the abuse the character is put through.

Give them enough to eat. Give them space to run. Give them natural light. Don’t make their cell damp, too hot or too cold.

Let them be taught some form of communication, home-signs would do. Show that they had enough positive interaction growing up to learn and develop, even if it’s only coming from their mother.

The isolation alone at this age, for this time period is enough to have serious, lasting mental health effects. It’s also likely to cause eye problems and general muscular weakness.

In that scenario, I think you’d be alright picking 3-5 mental health symptoms from the list of solitary confinement symptoms. Rather then the 7-9 symptoms I think would be reasonable with your original scenario.

It’s up to you. And I think a lot of it comes down to how much time you want to spend researching. Because you can write about all of these conditions without putting them all in the same character.

I hope that helps. :)

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gorgeousloveslife · 6 years ago

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The post Why Taking Care of Your Body and Health Is Important appeared first on Forever Fearless Magazine.

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scripttorture · 6 years ago

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Would treating a prisoner like an animal (limiting clothing, making them wear a collar, sleep in a cage, eat bland food out of bowls on the floor, and crawl everywhere) have any long term physical affects on the prisoner? Or could it be done purely as humiliation so long as the captors are being careful not to physically harm the person? If it would cause harm, would you qualify it as visible or clean torture?

Yesthis would cause someone harm.

However-there’s a huge amount of difference in what ‘like an animal’can imply.

Let’s…take dogs because Westerners seem to like them a lot. It’s notuncommon for me to hear about people treating their dogs like kidshere. An older couple I know has a Labrador and it’s hardly everleft alone, lavished with attention and toys. They never hit it orraise their voices and it’s remarkably friendly well trainedanimal.

Icontrast this to some of the dogs I saw growing up at home. It wasextremely common for animals to be hit and they were often mistreatedin other ways. There was huskey kept in a compound near us. A huge,furry, arctic creature that needed to be walked at 4-5am because theheat easily reached 30-45oCduring the day. There was a ‘puppy’ that a family friend found onthe streets. It wasn’t fully grown and was bigger than me, evenwhen starving. It’s ears had been clipped to erect points. It hadlikely been breed to attack humans.

WhatI’m getting at here is that there’s a good chance ‘like ananimal’ means lessharm to you then it does to me. And thank you for giving me someexamples of what you want it to mean, that’s very helpful.

There’sa bit of debate about what counts as ‘physical’ injury in thiscontext.

Thesymptoms torture causes are a result of measurable physical changesin the brain. I tend to talk about this as psychological damagebecause I think that’s the terms most writers and people wouldunderstand it most easily. Butit’s causedby physical injury.

Infact O’Mara describes it as a form of organ failure. And this is aguy who specialises in neuroscience. Which I feel gives a lot ofweight to that description.

WhatI’m driving at here is that you could argue, based on soundscientific study and the opinion of experts, that any tortureincluding ‘humiliation’ causes profound physical injury.

It’sjust not the kind of injury we (the general public) are used totreating as physical injury.

Buthow visible and obvious the damage would be probably depends on howlong this goes on for.

Continuallycrawling would cause joint injuries and repetitive strain injuries.If it went on for long enough it could effect the structure ofskeletal muscles and make it difficult for the character to walkupright. It could even effect the shape of the bone.

AndI think a lot of the injuries from this scenario would be a bit likethat: obvious due to expression and movement rather than obvious inthe sense of visible scarring.

Itwouldn’t necessarily be obvious what the causeof these differences was.

Soa character seeing a survivor that had been kept like this forseveral years would probably see something was ‘wrong’. They’dsee a character who struggles to stand, struggles to walk. They mightnotice behaviours to do with sensory issues- the survivor mightfidget a lot, pick at clothes, they might layer on a lot of clothes(to compensate for feelings of cold or physical discomfort). Theywould probably appear physically unhealthy, malnourished, pale andill. There might be small injuries, bruising, sores and patches ofirritated skin.

Dependingon the observer they might read those signs as symptoms of physicalillness or mental health problems, or poverty ratherthen systematic abuse. Or they might just not notice, especially if asurvivor is trying to conceal their impairments. For example if thesurvivor knows they can’t stand upright and walk unaided they mightchoose to remain seated through the entire interaction.

Youcould argue that that is a clean torture. The injuries are notvisibly obvious. They’re not injuries that the average person onthe street would see and think ‘that’s torture, no argument’.

Youcould also argue it’s a scarring torture. Because the injuries arethe sort of things that courts see as ‘provable’. They’re alsoinjuries that are unlikely to be caused in combination by anythingotherthen abuse.

I’llcontrast that with some things that are definitely clean tortures togive you an idea what I mean. The swelling and sores stress positionsoften cause can alsobe caused by disease, malnourishment and inactivity. Proving in courtthose injuries are from torture means ruling out every other possiblecause. And the obvious signs of starvation can be treated similarly:extreme weight loss can be due to disease and stress.

Atorture survivor can be seen to be chronically malnourished anddangerously underweight butthat still isn’t necessarily court-quality ‘proof’ they weredeliberately starved. Because it could be due to so many othercauses.

Ithink it would be a good idea to cycle back to the first question nowbecause I haven’t quite covered all the possible injuries this kindof abuse could cause.

Limitingclothing can easily become a temperature torture and lead tohypothermia. Especially in a cold climate or if the victim is wet forany reason.

Constantlywearing a collar can increase the risk of strangulation. If thecharacter isn’t usually restrained using the collar then I thinkthe likelihood of death is pretty low. But it’s there and it’sworth mentioning. If they’re restrained using the collar, ie aleash connected above their head, then there’s a pretty high riskof accident strangulation and death.

There’sa reason that people using collars and leashes in a BDSM contextusually don’t leave restrained partners alone.

Cages,like crawling, can have serious long term effects on a person’sability to move normally. Ifthey’re too small.

Picturewhat you had in mind. If the character can’t lie flat, stretch outtheir limbs and stand up straight then it’s probably too small. Ifthey’re lying down inside with their legs and arms bent at alltimes that’s going to combine with the crawling to effect theirmovement and muscles in the long term.

Ithinkthis damage isn’t permanent (I’m not a doctor, double check bylooking up repetitive strain injuries). I believe it can be treatedwith physiotherapy and gradual recovery of full mobility would bepossible.

Thecombination of limited clothing (with the possible temperaturetorture that means), the cage and crawling means that I think longterm joint problems and chronic pain in the joints would be prettylikely here.

Thelack of clothing combined with the cage could also lead to sleepdeprivation which can cause a lot of long term problems. Youcan read about it here.

Thefood couldresult in undernourishment but wouldn’t necessarily do so.

Whenpresented with bland and unappealing food- well people can startstarving themselves. Whichis also incredibly bad for people.

Thiscombination of tortures isn’t necessarily lethal. It can be,especially over a period of years, but if the captors are trying tokeep the victim alive then I think that would be possible with littleeffort.

Butthey would cause a lot of long term problems, physical as well aspsychological. Sleep deprivation (a possible effect here) can causeheart problems in the long term. Long term starvation, even at a lowlevel, can cause problems with the immune system making disease andinfection more likely.

Ithink joint pain would still be pretty likely if a character was keptlike this for a month. Over the same period consistently poor sleepincreases the likelihood of a huge range of health problems.

I’dalso suggest thinking about the hygiene facilities in your set up.Because the less provision for that there is the more likely deathfrom disease is going to be; it’s the combination of poor sleep andpoor eating both suppressing the immune system while the character isexposed to pathogens.

Soif you’re picturing this as something the character is trapped infor a prolonged period think of a way to deal with waste.

Ihope that helps. :)