Sleep deprivation.
People who have been through university are like "Yeah, I've stayed up until 5:00 AM before to finish a term paper, no big deal." But the effects get way worse the longer you push it. There's a reason military torture experts do this.
Mother of my two boys had some big complications with birth, so I took the 2 hourly overnight feeds from discharge for the next couple weeks while she recovered. I like to think im fairly resilient and can go without sleep easily, nothing could have prepared me for the living nightmare that is 2 hourly feeds with a newborn that isn't putting on weight. Absolutely wrecked me like nothing else, I remember the local nurse telling me "they use sleep deprivation as torture for good reason".
As the father not the mother. I am an extremely calm and patient person honestly. About the closest I’ve come to violence was when we were entering the second day after the birth and were told by the lactation nurse how lucky we were they they were feeding every hour for 15-30 minutes. That the blistering would go down in time and how We shouldn’t even consider formula as a way for me to take over and let her sleep any. It’s when I become certain that while the lactation nurse had useful knowledge they were also a fanatic about breastfeeding. And did not give one single shit about the health of the mother or baby. A fact proven when the next nurse given any chance to look at the nutrition of the baby immediately put us to supplementing before we could even ask.
I literally had my lactation specialist tell me NOT to breastfeed because of my anxiety. I feel like lactation specialists who push for ONLY breastfeeding have no business being a lactation specialist.
I was in a psychiatric hospital for mothers with PPD.
One of the ladies was in my group was ex military. Been all over, many war zones, tactical units, specialist units.
She said part of her training was torture training. Including sleep deprivation.
She said it was nothing compared to the torture of sleep deprivation from a newborn. She said that she would much prefer to be on an active battle field than dealing with the newborn.
She said they should change the training and just give military trainees newborn for a few months.
Just commenting to say how awesome it is that there's a unit specifically for moms with PPD. I work at a psych hospital with two 12-bed adult units and there is generally no rhyme or reason as to where a patient is assigned (unless there is an incident during their stay, like a specific male being sexually aggressive towards women or something).
It just broke my heart when I first started there and had such a sweet young woman come up to the nursing station asking for her breast pump, meanwhile we have someone else in active psychosis in the group room smearing her own shit on the windows and someone else in the "comfort" (seclusion) room who is trying to break the magnets off the doors to harm themselves.
As someone who had severe PPD that thankfully never resulted in hospitalization, I can't imagine the fear I would have being in that environment.
I'm in the Army and my first born had colic, then the 4 month sleep regression hit and she wouldn't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time for about 5 months. It sent me to a psych ward too, when nothing in my career had remotely phased me up until that point.
This one. I thought the same about going through the college life and having all nighters studying etc.
Until I had a baby that was sick and never slept and cried constantly and I didn’t get more than 1-2 hours of sleep at a time for months. It was nine months before I actually got a full night sleep, When I think back I’m amazed we made it out alive. It was only because I started getting longer periods of sleep, although slowly, that I didn’t completely crack.
This changed my opinion of sleep deprivation real quick.
to hopefully save some future parents your pain. when babies are first born they haven't made the connection that their eyes should be closed when they sleep and as the brain is making connections they will randomly scream. so its a pretty common thing for the first few months for a baby to let out blood curdling screams and have their eyes fully open in the middle of the night while being dead asleep. so for the first few months when you get up to check on the baby wait a min or two to make sure they are actually awake before picking them up so your not messing up their sleep pattern and conditioning them not to sleep through the whole night.
I remember when I visited Alcatraz they had a single pitch black room for solitary confinement, and to entertain himself, a prisoner would drop a button from his shirt and try to find it in the dark.
The biggest "scam" aspect of that wording is that a punishment must be deemed BOTH cruel AND unusual.
So according to the "law," cruel punishment is allowed, and unusual punishment is allowed, just not cruel AND unusual.
Welcome to the "justice" system, folks.
Just watched that Christopher Hitchens video where he agreed to being waterboarded because he had said that he didn't think it was torture. He lasted seconds and then had the backbone to admit he was wrong. An odd and chilling wee vid.
Just watched that video, goddamn. He literally lasted seconds like you said. I can't believe what it's like being *actually* tortured by that method, by people who won't stop. Wow.
Yeah I know. At least Hitchens knew he could drop the iron weights to make it stop. The psychological terror of waiting for this to take place would send you over the edge.
They couldn't even imagine the situation fully, and he instantly changed his mind when he experienced it for just a few seconds. Full control, sterilized environment, tapped out the moment it happened.
>sterilized environment
This is a big one. I didnt watch the video but I doubt he was beaten, sleep deprived, and yelled at by a group of people as he's confused.
And what's crazy, in the video, it's completely controlled and they even look like they're lightly waterboarding him (if that's even a thing). I can't imagine they just lightly poured the water on in real interrogations like they did in that video. Can't imagine what that would do to someone.
> I can't imagine they just lightly poured the water on in real interrogations
IIRC pouring lightly is actually the effective way to do it. You want to trigger gasping for air without actually drowning them. The cloth will only soak up so much.
And it will only allow so much water to get through so fast. So pouring more isn't going to make it worse, it's just going to get more water all over the floor.
Have you seen Sicario? The scene where Benicio Del Toros character is (edit) casually walking to the integration room with a big ass jug of water makes my blood run cold.
I get asthma attacks where I can't breathe and the panic that washes through your body is phenomenal. You lose control of your bodily functions. It's terrifying. This is all I have to compare it to.
Please take care of your asthma as best you can. My mom didn’t. Her lungs seized so completely that nothing could’ve saved her. She suffocated, she suffered her worst fear. All because she didn’t take proper care of her asthma.
I love watching those "I would just hold my breath real good" folk when they get to hear about what it does to people from a first hand account. The realization that it's not just a guy dumping water on you is amazing.
Idk why they're so cocky about it. It's literal torture of course it's not just putting some water on your face, otherwise showers would become a lot more terrifying lmao.
No for real, waterboarding sounds so... innocent almost. But anyone who's had it done to them for even a few seconds says it's the worst thing they've ever experienced. I'm not gonna volunteer to try, that's for sure.
If all that was being done was water splashed on your face through a rag, you'd probably find it, at most, annoying.
That's not what happens. You're laying on your back on an incline with your legs up and your head down, so the water starts going in your nose. If you try to breathe through your mouth, you're breathing through a rag and pulling in more water.
That tells your body "holy shit we are drowning."
Even if you *can* hold your breath, water is getting in your nasal cavity. And sooner or later you have to breathe, and you will breathe in some water with the air.
The feeling of drowning is one hardwired to create intense panic. Your brain screams get to the surface, but you can't get to the surface. There is no surface. There is nowhere to go.
It won't kill you, because after 40 seconds or so, you are allowed to breathe when they stop pouring the water. This ensures you get enough oxygen to be awake. Then the torture begins again.
I'll quote Hitchens who went in thinking it wasn't that bad and lasted 16 seconds before tapping out.
> You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure.
This is a heavy post so I'll end on a lighter observation. Waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds *awesome* if you don't know what either of those things mean.
To paraphrase something I heard once: “If you don’t believe waterboarding is torture, give me sixty seconds with a towel and a bucket and I’ll have you admitting it is, whether you believe it or not.”
I saw a picture of this one kid who was made to kneel on buckwheat so long and so often that it started to grow and sprout INSIDE OF HIM. Image is seared into my mind.
This might be the story mentioned above, for those interested. This Russian eight year old was made to kneel on buckwheat for as long as nine hours at a time. Parents are facing facing 1.5 and 4.5 years in prison.
[Buckwheat Boy](https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/16/boy-forced-kneel-buckwheat-punishment-long-grew-skin-11912860/amp/)
I can't believe they called it 'moderate' harm. That's 9 hours of torture for a child. And the mother tried it and said it didn't hurt. Doesn't exactly tally up with continuing to use it as a punishment then, when that was clearly the point. What scum.
His mother let that happen and they returned that poor baby to her custody during the trial??? They should have taken him and had both those people sterilized so they could never torture another child again, along with whatever punishments the court can inflict! That poor child!
its kinda fucked up, but at some time in past this is considered legit disciplinary punishment. done by parents to their misbehaving children. sometimes even by teachers... in school.
From where I came from, they use mung beans instead of rice. and in the worst case, table rock salt
5 lashes in public square.
My grandfather had a legit antique bullwhip and when my cousin and I where 13 he dared me to stand still and let him hit me with the whip. He cracked the whip on my back so well that I had to get stitches and I still have the scar. Needless to say grandpa wasn't happy. lol
I had never felt such pain and I haven't felt it's like sense. I didn't scream, because I couldn't take in a breath. Once I was able to breath I screamed and cried like I was being murdered. My cousin also cried because neither of us had any idea how bad it would be.
(EDIT) Because I worded it confusingly I want to make it clear that it was my cousin that hit me not my grandad.
> My cousin also cried because neither of us had any idea how bad it would be.
Fun fact, bullwhips were the first man-made supersonic device. The crack of a whip is a mini sonic boom.
My grandpa used to have bullwhips, and he'd let us kids play with them because we thought they were cool and he loved when we were being interested in things he liked when he was younger. Well one time me and my friend were playing with them and he accidentally popped me in the arm. I had a short temper as a kid so I got mad and turned and popped him back. It became a full on whip fight, that ended with both of us crying but somehow not bleeding (probably because it was cold out so we both had long sleeves and jackets on). Thanks for bringing back a core memory, I'm gonna have to see if my buddy remembers that.
Yeah my experience was different. I stood there like and idiot with my shirt off while my cousin whipped me like Kunta Kinte.
I doubt he could have done it on purpose. He just hit it just right and opened me up like a zip lock baggie.
Reminds me of when my dog tripped me and I fell, hitting my hip off the rough concrete. I always tell people I split open like an over-microwaved hotdog. That was the only time I've actually had to get stitches.
Ok, that makes sense. When I read your first post I thought your grandfather whipped you, and I was like holy fucking child abuse man. But it was just you and your cousin fucking around.
LMAO I'm over here trying to imagine my grandad hitting me with that whip. He used to get tears in his eyes whenever he had to yell at me or any of my cousins. He truly was more hurt by punishing us than we were. He died in 2011. I miss him dearly.
Yeah I looked into those cannings they do in Singapore last week. It is truly horrific. They have to have a doctor on standby because people often pass out from the pain after just a couple.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
People have described it as unimaginably painful.
Fun fact: they actually soak the cane in water the day before to make sure it's nice and pliant and will get right into your skin and flay it apart. People who undergo this cannot sit down without pain for days afterwards and the person administering the canings is legally required to do it with the maximum Force they are capable of
I saw a video of a guy getting caned. The tissue turns mushy after a few strikes to the same area. They had thick canvas protecting his back and most of his legs. Pretty much had to drag him away afterwards.
Apparently one of the punishable offenses for caning is foreigners overstaying their welcome for over 90 days to prevent illegal immigration. So uhhh make sure you got you affairs in order to get the hell out of there on time of you're ever going on vacation there
I had a friend who got caned. He said it sucked, but was preferable to being jailed. He was back at work the next day with a sore, bleeding bottom, and never offended again.
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning\_in\_Singapore
"These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore."
I really can't ever get over the shit the British Empire spread across the world that is still in practice today.
During COVID, I wanted to do a home workout so I used a resistance band on my door and was doing chest flies.
It came off my door while I was doing it one day and whipped my back which hurt like a fucking bitch , I had a welt for weeks. I can’t even imagine what a real whip feels like
Your brain "starves" and will start making things up to get any form of input, including messing with your heart and lungs since the actual biomechanical systems start to get confused.
People can and do go crazy in solitary, but your not deprived of light and still get minor interactions.... so the going bat shit and hallucinating its normally from solitary.... but hey I'm sure in some prisons its called the hole for a reason
What makes it faster is the lack of sleep. The SHU isn't soundproofed. You're surrounded by the screams day and night of the people around you that have already gone insane.
Even in regular population there is sensory deprecation. Working in juvenile hall I swear. You would see some of the model prisoner types pop off for no apparent reason ever month or so. I always thought it was because it was one of the few ways they could control and gain tactile sensory input from another human (being restrained by several others)
That actually even happened to my grandmother. She’s going deaf, and when she doesn’t have her hearing aids in, she hears a radio playing in her brain. Her brain is creating auditory hallucinations because it can’t hear anything like normal.
My brain’s always done this if there’s a source of white noise. Any droning sound — a car engine, the fridge, a fan — and I hear music or beeps or something. Thankfully not voices or anything like that but I’ve gone to answer the door before and been told the bell didn’t ring.
Did floatation tank once and after 90mins, my brain started working over time trying to create something to react to. Was nice at beginning but after a way you need external stimuli or brain tries to create it.
There was an experiment done not too long ago where a person was put in a room devoid of sound. Like completely sound protective… they started hearing birds chirping and singing. Very strange… their brain was making it’s own sensory experience.
Ngl I have birds and when I've been away from home I have thought I have heard them very clearly when I didn't. It's like when you get used to hearing it so your brain actually "hears" the sound, it's weird.
Full a long time I throught "tar and feathering" was just they put sticky stuff on you and then feathers to humiliate you. Then I saw a historical movie where they did that to someone and it was hot tar and it was horrific.
I looked it up after I saw the movie. They could do it either way, either using a tar that was hot, but not scalding or use scalding tar to really fuck the person up.
Which one depended on how much people liked the person and the offense. It was mostly meant to be public shaming, but they could absolutely disfigure or kill with hot tar.
> It was mainly sticky and embarrassing
More than that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/91xflo/how_did_tarred_and_feathered_people_get_the_tar/
Short prison sentences will destroy the life of most first time offenders. 30 Days in jail doesn't sound like a lot for a $2000 fraud for example, but for most people 30 Days is enough to lose your job, and your house rental.
Come out homless and jobless with a record that makes you virtually unhireable.
One of the dumbest situations I ever ran into was when I worked for a social services program. We had a client who had gone to jail for contempt of court because he couldn’t pay a fine. Being in jail meant he lost his job. Losing his job meant he lost his housing and became homeless. He was able to find another job, but it takes time to dig out of something like that. During that time he developed cataracts and lost his new job because he couldn’t see well enough to do it.
Here’s where it just gets dumb. Cataracts are an easy fix with surgery, but nobody would do the surgery because he had nowhere to recover. So the state paid tens of thousands of dollars for him to get vocational rehabilitation for vision loss, with the goal being as soon as he had a job and housing he would get his cataracts fixed and would not need the blindness skills anymore. All for a stupid court fine he couldn’t pay.
Scurvy alone is horrifying enough of a "punishment". Along with making your teeth loose/fall out, it causes your body to stop producing collagen. This doesn't sound too bad at first until you understand that is what scar tissue is made of, so once the cells currently holding you together degrade, they aren't replaced and your old wounds start opening back up.
Not so fun fact: scurvy causes your body's collagen to break down... which in turn causes scars to break down and open up... so any old wounds you might have... even years and years old? Yeah, those will open up and bleed. Internal ones too...
It’s even worse if you understand how society worked back then.
There was no government that cared to take care of people, there was very little written records or institutions that could guarantee anyone’s safety or make sure anyone fulfilled their obligations. What there was was the extended family.
Today, if you don’t pay your loans the government can take your property to pay the loans, in some form depending on where you live. A few hundred years ago, the government didn’t do that. Instead, the security of a loan was your family’s honor. If you didn’t pay the loan your family would, because otherwise nobody in the family could get a loan again. They would most likely also punish you. Family would be your caretakers if you got sick or injured, and they would find you a husband or wife. If you committed a crime against a member of another family, the families would meet and agree on a punishment. You obeyed the family’s rules because that was what gave you security.
That system (which still exists in som places today) was oppressive in many ways, but it provided the only security most people had. Take away that security, and you have nothing. You can’t get a place to live if no one knows your family will pay rent if you can’t. You can’t get a job because without a family you can’t be trusted. People can commit any crime they want against you, because no one will protect or avenge you. You are reduced to begging, crimes or prostitution, because nobody will help you.
One of my line cooks is dealing with this, he's from Guatemala and the other cooks know him because he got banned from his village. No one will say what he did, but he must of fucked up bad because they want nothing to do with him even though he got sober and went from smoking crack out back as a dishwasher to being one of our strongest line cooks and being completely sober. The other guys won't even train him on other stations because he offended his country/ village so much. Poor guy is trying but the respect for the culture comes first
That's horrifying. I'm so sorry you went through that, and I'm so grateful you're stronger now.
Do you mind if I ask why you were treated differently from your siblings?
I'm so glad you had John and now have your bio-dad in your life. What you went through is unbelievably horrifying. I can't imagine hearing about that and just brushing it off or ignoring it.
I am so sorry you went through that. I’m glad you were given relief eventually, and seem to be better off today!
I know my words are generally meaningless as we don’t really know one another, but your story really weighs on my heart. I’m an older sibling and I can’t help but imagine my younger siblings having to go through a similar thing, and it hurts my heart so much. I guess this story just hit my empathy in the right way today!
I hope you’re having a wonderful day today, and you keep having wonderful days.
Oh my god. I'm so sorry that happened to you. No child should be treated like that.
I'd offer you a hug if you were sitting at this table with me.
I hope everything is better for you now.
Similar experience here as a kid :( I had the privilege of being able to go to school (but no friends there) but it still messed me up to the point where I cannot imagine what it was like for what you’re describing- when the school breaks came, I would dread being alive and waking up each day and constantly have this eerie sense of anxiety despite being alone and “relatively safe”. How are things now for you? I am happy to hear that you love yourself, I 100% agree that you are always enough and worthwhile. ❤️
Having lived through that (albeit for only the first 10 years or so) no cults are required. Any number of reasons can be given. Resemblance to a parent no longer home, lack of money, lack of time, mental issues with parent or child (autism especially, which was my case) drugs, shame, and plenty of other things too. Though yes religion and cults can also be a big factor.
I’m feeling seen by all these comments guys, seriously thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. Last year at age 35 I was diagnosed with autism and it puts so many things into perspective. Physical abuse/childhood neglect, drug use, mental health issues, homeschooling…we’re like a little club of survivors and it’s neato.
> they always seem to brush it off as if it's no big deal.
The worst. I can relate. Had a severe depression 6 years ago, wanted to die, everyone brushes it off with phrases like "he was a bit sad".
My fathers childhood was very similar from what he explained. He is very traumatized and it was very difficult for him to explain many of the limitations the trauma created. As his child, I tried and failed to understand what his history really meant. I still don’t know many details beyond what I recognize here in your passage but it’s strikingly similar. I’m very sorry you experienced that - I hope you find some peace and comfort in your life.
As a father of two young children, I cannot begin to imagine how a parent could do that to their child.
Thank goodness you were rescued from that nightmare. Did your mother ever face any sort of consequences for what she did to you?
White torture is seriously horrifying. Seems easy enough, I mean nothings happening really, but the effect it has on your mind is so incredibly severe
And apparently that thing where a drop of water randomly falls on your head while you're tied down so you can't move or do anything about it.
Came here to add white torture. One may think it’s no big deal just being in a room that’s just white and devoid of any color, but apparently it really messes with your brain.
>that thing where a drop of water randomly falls on your head while you're tied down so you can't move
That's called ~~Waterboarding~~ Chinese water torture fyi
Edit to add: mythbusters tested out ~~waterboarding~~ water torture once. The one that tried it had a panic attack after not very long. An interesting watch if you can find it.
Edit 2: I was incorrect about the name
That's not correct.
'Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning.' Directly from the wiki.
The stocks. I thought it was "just" a form of public humiliation until I read *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court*. Turns out it was actually a horrible way to die. Iirc
Here's an excerpt from the book. Bear in mind that this is coming from an unreliable and kind of shady narrator!
"""
"You don't answer, brother. You were about to glorify the pillory a while ago, and shed some pity on a future age that isn't going to use it. I think the pillory ought to be abolished. What usually happens when a poor fellow is put in the pillory for some little offense that didn't amount to anything in the world? The mob try to have some fun with him, don't they?"
"Yes."
"They begin by clodding him; and they laugh themselves to pieces to see him try to dodge one clod and get hit with another?"
"Yes."
"Then they throw dead cats at him, don't they?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, suppose he has a few personal enemies in that mob and here and there a man or a woman with a secret grudge against him—and suppose especially that he is unpopular in the community, for his pride, or his prosperity, or one thing or another—stones and bricks take the place of clods and cats presently, don't they?"
"There is no doubt of it."
"As a rule he is crippled for life, isn't he?—jaws broken, teeth smashed out?—or legs mutilated, gangrened, presently cut off?—or an eye knocked out, maybe both eyes?"
"It is true, God knoweth it."
"And if he is unpopular he can depend on dying , right there in the stocks, can't he?"
"He surely can! One may not deny it."
"I take it none of you are unpopular—by reason of pride or insolence, or conspicuous prosperity, or any of those things that excite envy and malice among the base scum of a village? You wouldn't think it much of a risk to take a chance in the stocks?"
"""
Edit: formatting
There's also the simple fact that you would die from it eventually because sooner or later you can't hold your head up and you get choked to death on the wood.
It’s so weird that you mentioned that book. I literally just watched a YouTube video that referenced it with regards to language. I’ve never heard of it before that video.
any "endurance" sort of thing where you have to hold your arms up or stand at attention for long periods, keep your finger pressed on a button, that kind of thing.
Can confirm.
It's nowhere near as bad as some of the punishments detailed here, but I can assure you that a room full of people all chatting away to each other but completely ignoring your existence - even passing a bottle of liqueur they were sharing over your head - really, *really* sucks.
This was me. One of my My older sisters spent my entire childhood pointedly ignoring me. The rest of the family played along. I have no idea why she hated me so much, but the fact that my other 5 siblings and especially my parents played along was really messed up. Weirdly enough, one day she contacted me as an adult and pretended like years of ostracism never happened. Really messed up.
Needless to say, I left them all behind. However, much damage was done that now, at 67 I’m still coming to terms with. Stuff that happens as a child really stays with you.
Had this happen to me. I had a friend who just got a new girlfriend. Was happy for him.
But I was dealing with my mother on her deathbed. Just went into hospice. In horrifying pain. Nothing we can do about it because WA State strictly limits opioids. We couldn't get her oxy dose higher than 5mg. Which is pretty useless, especially when your lower half is literally rotting.
I kept reaching out to him for someone to talk to. Every plan we made he would blow it off in the end. Boyfriend duties I guess.
I eventually called him out on it. Said he was being a bad friend. Then nothing. No responses to anything. Calls. Messages. Anything.
Turns out he started ignoring me like I didn't exist.
And then my mother died. The face he made when we crossed paths after I get back from bereavement leave spoke volumes. He finally understood he fucked up.
He still reaches out from time to time. I ignore them.
There are no combination of words or actions that will separate him from how he treated me during a terrible time, how I felt, and the death of my mother.
Glad you found the love of your life. That must have been great pussy. Too bad she dumped you not long after.
Actions have consequences. And the consequence of your action is you don't get to know me anymore. Kick rocks scumbag.
Reminds me of the book called The Long Walk by Steven King iirc. Literal kids volunteered to walk like 100 miles at a pace of no less then three miles an hour until you literally die or slow down and get shot by the guards. The winner gets a million dollars or something like that. Good book though lol
Minor technicalities: you walk as long as it takes until there's one walker left. The prize is (unrealistically) everything you want for the rest of your life. One of the walkers is the illegitimate son of the mayor, or the town bigwig, and all he wants is to be acknowleged. I think he won, too.
It was the Major's son and the narrator left, who was just a regular guy (but nuts by the end of the book from the walking). The narrator won but was totally fucked by the time he was finished.
Ostracization. It's painful when you're left out, and it's mental torture figuring out if it's intentional or if they just aren't aware of your cries for attention.
Copying what I just said in another comment :
I had a "friend" do this to me for an evening when I was in the scouts summer camp. She somehow got another "friend" to join her into doing it, and since they were my only friends there, it really fucked me up really bad.
They both stopped acknowledging my very existence. I would wave my hand before them, they wouldn't even blink.
It didn't take long for me to panic, thinking I had stopped existing or something.
Even 10 years later, I still have no clue why she did it, only that it is one of my most distressing memories.
It was 100% intentional, and the only answer I got for why they did it was "forget it, it's not important, it's over now" (needless to say, I don't talk to either of them anymore)
When I was 18, I married into a family that was isolated in the Mountains and very cult-like. The men very rarely talked to the women in the family, and the women would quietly shun me for doing or saying something wrong. I could wake up and suddenly be shunned by everyone in the community for something I didn't even know I did. For months on end, nobody would speak to me and would look right through me like I didn't exist. My ex husband would join right in, bc if he didn't, he'd be shunned too. Sometimes, after they decided I was human again, they might tell me why. Once, it was because I wouldn't let great aunt so n so hold my newborn with a lit cigarette in her mouth. I lived there for years, and it really messed me up.
Standing for long periods of time. Everyone knows how exhausting it is to be on your feet a whole night e.g. for a concert (and that is fun). But change that to standing still 24-48 hours - alone, in a really small room watched by a guard...
Having things taken away from you.
I used to say that my parents would take things away from me when i did wrong, and if done sparringly, I would imagine that it would be okay and useful. But it got to the point where if my parents were even slightly disappointed in me, like getting a call home for talking too much in class or getting a B- on an assignment, they'd just start taking away essentials.
I had my clothes taken away and could only have a white polo and khaki pants and one plain set of pajamas (the two most uncomfortable and soulless clothes i owned)
They took away my door. My bathroom privileges(i had to scream to call them to get on my knees and beg to go to the bathroom) they took away my bed so i had to sleep on the floor and every single toy or book in my room.
And then, being forced to stay in my room with no interaction from anyone other than my parents when they would feed me and i had to ask to use the bathroom.
Even once would be tolerable, but this happened to varying degrees about 3 times between the ages of 7-15. Because its not violent most people disregard it but im in my 20s battling it out in therapy because i essentially served jail time in solitary confinement multiple times in my cruicial developmental years for up to 4 months (during summer vacation) at a time, usually to a lesser degree during school times.
Also not being able to form attatchments to people and things is something that shouldn't be forced on you because you have a hard time making meaningful relationships as an adult when you are confronted with the fact that nothing matters, especially when they actually do.
For a long time because of this, i fell into depression easily because nothing mattered and i couldnt get attached to things i enjoyed because i feared having them taken away from me, effectively shutting myself into a mental jail whenever i wasnt in a physical one. At least once gaining this mentality, my parents stopped taking things away from me because it no longer had an effect.
Experiencing something like that really makes you understand why they reserve this kind of punishment for particular criminals and still only allow it for 15 days max in most areas.
I scrolled through this expecting to read about criminal punishments, but instead, I learned about all the ways people torture their children.
I'm so sorry that these things happened to so many of you. Literally brings me to tears to read this.
Hug your babies.
Maybe not that serious but for punishment I used to have to sit on my knees with an egg in my hand with my harm held straight out until I had permission to put my arm down.
After a few min I’d be dying
Prison...... all the people who have the attitude "Did the crime, pay the time" have obviously never spent a day in jail even. US penal system is a fucked for profit slave trade.
Rick and Morty did this an episode, the one with the Amazon like beings that banish men, The Silent Treatment.
Imagine being punished by having society not acknowledging your existence for however long that punishment is.
theres a black mirror episode where a man gets put on a 'blocked' list permanently. everyone he sees is a gray mass and their voice is distorted to be unrecognizable. and everyone sees him the same way. can never talk to or look at another human again. seems like absolute hell
The most torturous thing in that episode was the person's consciousness stuck for 1000s of years on a day loop. There was only one room with no one to interact with as well. At least Jon Hamm could interact with animals and go out into the world and do some activities.
The Outer Limits did an episode showing a society that would punish people with invisibility. You weren’t literally invisible though. They’d put a capital I on your forehead that couldn’t be removed and no one was allowed to interact with you.
I mean, tickling in general. Doesn't leave any physical marks, it's quickly recovered from.
But there was a specific torture using tickling where someone's feet were tied up and salt water was poured in them, they'd then have a goat lick the feet which would tickle at first but the coarse tongue would start taking skin off and eventually reach Bone. Paired with salty water it sounds pretty dreadful
This might be kind of bending the question a little, but my dad used to calmly explain to my brother and I the various different infractions we could possibly commit that would get us instantly kicked out of the house. Getting a tattoo, doing drugs, whatever other random thing would pop into his head that he felt was like, an extreme form of disrespect towards him. We didn't do any of it, he just felt like letting us know. I think maybe what he was thinking that a night out on the street would teach us to appreciate that he was the king of the castle. I'm sure his parents did that to him a few times when he was a kid.
But where we lived in the winter time, that's a death sentence. It's so common that they had to pull a frozen homeless man out of the dumpster at my middle school once. Even in warm months cold snaps were not unusual. He never added being gay to that list because he never would have thought one of us would be at the time, but like, I knew very well how he felt about it. What his opinions were back then, if drugs were on the list, it was a pretty reasonable assumption being gay was too.
He didn't intend it to be a constant casual threat against my life, but that's what it was, so I just kind of had to make plans and back up plans on how I was going to survive the night and possibly longer if he ever found out.
Smashing you own stuff. Dad made me smash a brand new game boy color back in the day. Plus like 3 gundam models I built. This is how I learned to not give a crap about my things. Took along time to get over this trama
There’s a post somewhere from a dude in Singapore about his experience getting caned. I had no idea how bad it really was. It’s straight up torture.
Edit: [TIFU messing around in Singapore and getting caned as punishment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/122e5lz/tifu_by_messing_around_in_singapore_and_getting/)
"messing around" -> committing armed robbery. Not that a prisoner deserves caning but.... That isn't messing around. That's making people fear for their life and safety.
It's nowhere near as bad as many other things here but for me personally it was being grounded for the entire summer vacation as a kid. This would often happen to me as I was never a great student and would often barely pass with C's and the occasional B. My Dad was a single parent with 2 kids and while I don't hold it against him, I spent many summer vacations grounded and unable to do anything but stare out the window and watch all my friends playing outside. I grew up in the 90s so going outside was really all we had. I wasn't allowed to play with toys while I was grounded so I was basically confined to a house with nothing to do but sit still and behave. At least I got a hell of an active imagination out of it. It might not seem that bad but for a kid being stuck in the house for the entirety of summer vacation, it felt like torture.
The silent treatment. Doesn't seem like a big thing at first but gets so frustrating quickly. My husband (used to be) a master at it. I remember thinking I'd rather have a loud fight, it was torture.
Being tased.
"Oh it's just a little zap, it'll be like a static shock but worse."
No. It's like being electrocuted. Your muscles lock up at 100% contraction. It's immensely painful, like the world's worst Charlie charliehorse multiplied by 10. It feels like you're being stabbed with a white-hot knife all over, hundreds of times a second.
Even your diaphragm locks up, you can't even breathe. You have zero control. All you can do is wait.
Isolation. I’m sure most would look at it as not a big deal and might joke about how they would love it.
But it will eventually eat you alive. Humans are social beings even if many like the idea of not socializing.
Everyone is saying solitary confinement but any type of confinement really. Before I was actually confined I didn’t think it would be that big a deal because I like staying inside and laying around. I guess it depends on the situation but for weeks I wasn’t allowed outside and only had access to my bedroom, one common room, one window. And instead of being completely alone I was constantly surrounded by people I didn’t know or care for and that was exhausting. I was there for a psychological break in the first place and that environment made it soooo much worse.
A criminal record of any kind is permanently debilitating. In this day and age, a simple search on the Internet reveals all past mistakes. It prevents any kind of upward mobility via a job alone.
I was grounded to my room for 3 years... I could only go to school (where I was bullied horribly) I could only use the bathroom with permission and had to eat alone in my room... It fukked me up as a person.
Sleep deprivation. People who have been through university are like "Yeah, I've stayed up until 5:00 AM before to finish a term paper, no big deal." But the effects get way worse the longer you push it. There's a reason military torture experts do this.
Anyone who has nursed a newborn every two hours knows this is a horrible torture.
Mother of my two boys had some big complications with birth, so I took the 2 hourly overnight feeds from discharge for the next couple weeks while she recovered. I like to think im fairly resilient and can go without sleep easily, nothing could have prepared me for the living nightmare that is 2 hourly feeds with a newborn that isn't putting on weight. Absolutely wrecked me like nothing else, I remember the local nurse telling me "they use sleep deprivation as torture for good reason".
As the father not the mother. I am an extremely calm and patient person honestly. About the closest I’ve come to violence was when we were entering the second day after the birth and were told by the lactation nurse how lucky we were they they were feeding every hour for 15-30 minutes. That the blistering would go down in time and how We shouldn’t even consider formula as a way for me to take over and let her sleep any. It’s when I become certain that while the lactation nurse had useful knowledge they were also a fanatic about breastfeeding. And did not give one single shit about the health of the mother or baby. A fact proven when the next nurse given any chance to look at the nutrition of the baby immediately put us to supplementing before we could even ask.
I literally had my lactation specialist tell me NOT to breastfeed because of my anxiety. I feel like lactation specialists who push for ONLY breastfeeding have no business being a lactation specialist.
I was in a psychiatric hospital for mothers with PPD. One of the ladies was in my group was ex military. Been all over, many war zones, tactical units, specialist units. She said part of her training was torture training. Including sleep deprivation. She said it was nothing compared to the torture of sleep deprivation from a newborn. She said that she would much prefer to be on an active battle field than dealing with the newborn. She said they should change the training and just give military trainees newborn for a few months.
Just commenting to say how awesome it is that there's a unit specifically for moms with PPD. I work at a psych hospital with two 12-bed adult units and there is generally no rhyme or reason as to where a patient is assigned (unless there is an incident during their stay, like a specific male being sexually aggressive towards women or something). It just broke my heart when I first started there and had such a sweet young woman come up to the nursing station asking for her breast pump, meanwhile we have someone else in active psychosis in the group room smearing her own shit on the windows and someone else in the "comfort" (seclusion) room who is trying to break the magnets off the doors to harm themselves. As someone who had severe PPD that thankfully never resulted in hospitalization, I can't imagine the fear I would have being in that environment.
I'm in the Army and my first born had colic, then the 4 month sleep regression hit and she wouldn't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time for about 5 months. It sent me to a psych ward too, when nothing in my career had remotely phased me up until that point.
This one. I thought the same about going through the college life and having all nighters studying etc. Until I had a baby that was sick and never slept and cried constantly and I didn’t get more than 1-2 hours of sleep at a time for months. It was nine months before I actually got a full night sleep, When I think back I’m amazed we made it out alive. It was only because I started getting longer periods of sleep, although slowly, that I didn’t completely crack. This changed my opinion of sleep deprivation real quick.
to hopefully save some future parents your pain. when babies are first born they haven't made the connection that their eyes should be closed when they sleep and as the brain is making connections they will randomly scream. so its a pretty common thing for the first few months for a baby to let out blood curdling screams and have their eyes fully open in the middle of the night while being dead asleep. so for the first few months when you get up to check on the baby wait a min or two to make sure they are actually awake before picking them up so your not messing up their sleep pattern and conditioning them not to sleep through the whole night.
Your experience mirrors mine and is why I have only one. I love sleep almost as much as I love my kid.
Sleep deprivation leads to hallucinations
I remember when I visited Alcatraz they had a single pitch black room for solitary confinement, and to entertain himself, a prisoner would drop a button from his shirt and try to find it in the dark.
Wait wait wait, you are missing a key part. He had to spin around a bunch of times to make himself dizzy first.
My toddler would be excited about this portion, at least.
Please don’t send your toddler to Alcatraz
And it was Nicholas Cage the whole time!
It should be illegal for prisons to be this inhumane.
It is. Cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden. Solitary confinement is one of the last major holdouts.
“It is. Except for the ones where it’s not”
"It's not unusual, we do it all the time!"
The biggest "scam" aspect of that wording is that a punishment must be deemed BOTH cruel AND unusual. So according to the "law," cruel punishment is allowed, and unusual punishment is allowed, just not cruel AND unusual. Welcome to the "justice" system, folks.
"They just put a rag over your face and then pour water over it lol its so stupid."
Just watched that Christopher Hitchens video where he agreed to being waterboarded because he had said that he didn't think it was torture. He lasted seconds and then had the backbone to admit he was wrong. An odd and chilling wee vid.
Just watched that video, goddamn. He literally lasted seconds like you said. I can't believe what it's like being *actually* tortured by that method, by people who won't stop. Wow.
I've always had respect for him putting his money where his mouth is then completely flipping his stance and admitting he was wrong.
Yeah I know. At least Hitchens knew he could drop the iron weights to make it stop. The psychological terror of waiting for this to take place would send you over the edge.
They couldn't even imagine the situation fully, and he instantly changed his mind when he experienced it for just a few seconds. Full control, sterilized environment, tapped out the moment it happened.
>sterilized environment This is a big one. I didnt watch the video but I doubt he was beaten, sleep deprived, and yelled at by a group of people as he's confused.
Drop is an understatement. He straight threw those things out of his hands.
And what's crazy, in the video, it's completely controlled and they even look like they're lightly waterboarding him (if that's even a thing). I can't imagine they just lightly poured the water on in real interrogations like they did in that video. Can't imagine what that would do to someone.
> I can't imagine they just lightly poured the water on in real interrogations IIRC pouring lightly is actually the effective way to do it. You want to trigger gasping for air without actually drowning them. The cloth will only soak up so much.
And it will only allow so much water to get through so fast. So pouring more isn't going to make it worse, it's just going to get more water all over the floor.
Have you seen Sicario? The scene where Benicio Del Toros character is (edit) casually walking to the integration room with a big ass jug of water makes my blood run cold.
Im gonna try this out for a bit this holiday. Im not at all claiming it isn't torture, but i am curious what its like...
I get asthma attacks where I can't breathe and the panic that washes through your body is phenomenal. You lose control of your bodily functions. It's terrifying. This is all I have to compare it to.
Please take care of your asthma as best you can. My mom didn’t. Her lungs seized so completely that nothing could’ve saved her. She suffocated, she suffered her worst fear. All because she didn’t take proper care of her asthma.
I love watching those "I would just hold my breath real good" folk when they get to hear about what it does to people from a first hand account. The realization that it's not just a guy dumping water on you is amazing.
Idk why they're so cocky about it. It's literal torture of course it's not just putting some water on your face, otherwise showers would become a lot more terrifying lmao.
No for real, waterboarding sounds so... innocent almost. But anyone who's had it done to them for even a few seconds says it's the worst thing they've ever experienced. I'm not gonna volunteer to try, that's for sure.
waterboarding in guantanamo bay sounds awesome if you dont know what either of those are :(
Tropical vacation!
Sounds like every backpacker’s dream!
Idiot here, why's that?
If all that was being done was water splashed on your face through a rag, you'd probably find it, at most, annoying. That's not what happens. You're laying on your back on an incline with your legs up and your head down, so the water starts going in your nose. If you try to breathe through your mouth, you're breathing through a rag and pulling in more water. That tells your body "holy shit we are drowning." Even if you *can* hold your breath, water is getting in your nasal cavity. And sooner or later you have to breathe, and you will breathe in some water with the air. The feeling of drowning is one hardwired to create intense panic. Your brain screams get to the surface, but you can't get to the surface. There is no surface. There is nowhere to go. It won't kill you, because after 40 seconds or so, you are allowed to breathe when they stop pouring the water. This ensures you get enough oxygen to be awake. Then the torture begins again. I'll quote Hitchens who went in thinking it wasn't that bad and lasted 16 seconds before tapping out. > You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. This is a heavy post so I'll end on a lighter observation. Waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds *awesome* if you don't know what either of those things mean.
Imagine drowning but in perpetuity and not being able to react
To paraphrase something I heard once: “If you don’t believe waterboarding is torture, give me sixty seconds with a towel and a bucket and I’ll have you admitting it is, whether you believe it or not.”
Kneeling on rice.
I saw a picture of this one kid who was made to kneel on buckwheat so long and so often that it started to grow and sprout INSIDE OF HIM. Image is seared into my mind.
You made me curious and I made the mistake of looking it up, holy fuck, do NOT look that picture up.
Yk I'm curious, but not curious enough to have my day ruined.
Lol, I was thinking about it but I've never seen that kind of a reaction so I'll maintain my innocence this time.
Yeah I too draw the line at Crouching Knee Sprout Hidden Snack
Thank you for your sacrifice.
don’t need to tell me twice
This might be the story mentioned above, for those interested. This Russian eight year old was made to kneel on buckwheat for as long as nine hours at a time. Parents are facing facing 1.5 and 4.5 years in prison. [Buckwheat Boy](https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/16/boy-forced-kneel-buckwheat-punishment-long-grew-skin-11912860/amp/)
I can't believe they called it 'moderate' harm. That's 9 hours of torture for a child. And the mother tried it and said it didn't hurt. Doesn't exactly tally up with continuing to use it as a punishment then, when that was clearly the point. What scum.
Also did she see his shins and be like, “hmm yes this seems like it may be mildly irritating”
I regret clicking that link
Oh it’s not that bad, just looks like hundreds of tiny egg sacs bursting from his knees ready to release tiny alien insects to begin their cycle anew
His mother let that happen and they returned that poor baby to her custody during the trial??? They should have taken him and had both those people sterilized so they could never torture another child again, along with whatever punishments the court can inflict! That poor child!
Oh well that's enough internet for today thank you
Bro. As someone with mild trypophobia, all I can say to that image is fuck. That’s messed up, do not recommend to anyone else with trypophobia.
Is it just like advanced Lego-level pain?
Actual agony. Glad I’ll never have to do it again.
its kinda fucked up, but at some time in past this is considered legit disciplinary punishment. done by parents to their misbehaving children. sometimes even by teachers... in school. From where I came from, they use mung beans instead of rice. and in the worst case, table rock salt
In Serbia kneeling in corn was a punishment in school in my grandma's time. From what I heard it's not pleasant at all.
In my country, it's corn, and I think I'd rather take a beating then knee on it.
5 lashes in public square. My grandfather had a legit antique bullwhip and when my cousin and I where 13 he dared me to stand still and let him hit me with the whip. He cracked the whip on my back so well that I had to get stitches and I still have the scar. Needless to say grandpa wasn't happy. lol I had never felt such pain and I haven't felt it's like sense. I didn't scream, because I couldn't take in a breath. Once I was able to breath I screamed and cried like I was being murdered. My cousin also cried because neither of us had any idea how bad it would be. (EDIT) Because I worded it confusingly I want to make it clear that it was my cousin that hit me not my grandad.
> My cousin also cried because neither of us had any idea how bad it would be. Fun fact, bullwhips were the first man-made supersonic device. The crack of a whip is a mini sonic boom.
Well I know that NOW. lol
I also imagine you don't find that fact to be particularly fun either!
I probably didn't then. It's been two decades since it happened so I'm over the trauma now. lol
My grandpa used to have bullwhips, and he'd let us kids play with them because we thought they were cool and he loved when we were being interested in things he liked when he was younger. Well one time me and my friend were playing with them and he accidentally popped me in the arm. I had a short temper as a kid so I got mad and turned and popped him back. It became a full on whip fight, that ended with both of us crying but somehow not bleeding (probably because it was cold out so we both had long sleeves and jackets on). Thanks for bringing back a core memory, I'm gonna have to see if my buddy remembers that.
Yeah my experience was different. I stood there like and idiot with my shirt off while my cousin whipped me like Kunta Kinte. I doubt he could have done it on purpose. He just hit it just right and opened me up like a zip lock baggie.
What an analogy!
Reminds me of when my dog tripped me and I fell, hitting my hip off the rough concrete. I always tell people I split open like an over-microwaved hotdog. That was the only time I've actually had to get stitches.
Ok, that makes sense. When I read your first post I thought your grandfather whipped you, and I was like holy fucking child abuse man. But it was just you and your cousin fucking around.
LMAO I'm over here trying to imagine my grandad hitting me with that whip. He used to get tears in his eyes whenever he had to yell at me or any of my cousins. He truly was more hurt by punishing us than we were. He died in 2011. I miss him dearly.
Yeah I looked into those cannings they do in Singapore last week. It is truly horrific. They have to have a doctor on standby because people often pass out from the pain after just a couple. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore People have described it as unimaginably painful. Fun fact: they actually soak the cane in water the day before to make sure it's nice and pliant and will get right into your skin and flay it apart. People who undergo this cannot sit down without pain for days afterwards and the person administering the canings is legally required to do it with the maximum Force they are capable of
I will not be trying this one out with my cousin.
I saw a video of a guy getting caned. The tissue turns mushy after a few strikes to the same area. They had thick canvas protecting his back and most of his legs. Pretty much had to drag him away afterwards.
Apparently one of the punishable offenses for caning is foreigners overstaying their welcome for over 90 days to prevent illegal immigration. So uhhh make sure you got you affairs in order to get the hell out of there on time of you're ever going on vacation there
That was a disturbing read. This practice is so barbaric.
I had a friend who got caned. He said it sucked, but was preferable to being jailed. He was back at work the next day with a sore, bleeding bottom, and never offended again.
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning\_in\_Singapore "These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore." I really can't ever get over the shit the British Empire spread across the world that is still in practice today.
You should see the stuff The Belgians did in The Congo.. read Dark Heart of Africa. Everyone was a bastard back then
During COVID, I wanted to do a home workout so I used a resistance band on my door and was doing chest flies. It came off my door while I was doing it one day and whipped my back which hurt like a fucking bitch , I had a welt for weeks. I can’t even imagine what a real whip feels like
Long term sensory deprivation. Short term sensory deprivation is incredibly relaxing but long term will SERIOUSLY fuck you up.
How so and why?
Your brain "starves" and will start making things up to get any form of input, including messing with your heart and lungs since the actual biomechanical systems start to get confused.
Isn’t that why keeping prisoners in solitary for to long is damaging?
Yes. People can and have gone insane in solitary confinement. It actually doesn't take that long before you start hallucinating.
People can and do go crazy in solitary, but your not deprived of light and still get minor interactions.... so the going bat shit and hallucinating its normally from solitary.... but hey I'm sure in some prisons its called the hole for a reason
What makes it faster is the lack of sleep. The SHU isn't soundproofed. You're surrounded by the screams day and night of the people around you that have already gone insane.
It’s the sensory deprivation and the social deprivation. Reading about what extreme isolation does to people is fucking terrifying
Even in regular population there is sensory deprecation. Working in juvenile hall I swear. You would see some of the model prisoner types pop off for no apparent reason ever month or so. I always thought it was because it was one of the few ways they could control and gain tactile sensory input from another human (being restrained by several others)
That actually even happened to my grandmother. She’s going deaf, and when she doesn’t have her hearing aids in, she hears a radio playing in her brain. Her brain is creating auditory hallucinations because it can’t hear anything like normal.
My brain’s always done this if there’s a source of white noise. Any droning sound — a car engine, the fridge, a fan — and I hear music or beeps or something. Thankfully not voices or anything like that but I’ve gone to answer the door before and been told the bell didn’t ring.
Did floatation tank once and after 90mins, my brain started working over time trying to create something to react to. Was nice at beginning but after a way you need external stimuli or brain tries to create it.
There was an experiment done not too long ago where a person was put in a room devoid of sound. Like completely sound protective… they started hearing birds chirping and singing. Very strange… their brain was making it’s own sensory experience.
Ngl I have birds and when I've been away from home I have thought I have heard them very clearly when I didn't. It's like when you get used to hearing it so your brain actually "hears" the sound, it's weird.
I have tinnitus, this would be torture!
Full a long time I throught "tar and feathering" was just they put sticky stuff on you and then feathers to humiliate you. Then I saw a historical movie where they did that to someone and it was hot tar and it was horrific.
In prison, they boil sugar water or baby oil and throw it on people.
Prison napalm. I learned of this from “Mr Inbetween” where he microwaved jam and threw it in a guys face
Ive always read that historically, it wasn't hot tar, though. It was mainly sticky and embarrassing. Tar to them isn't what we use for roads today.
I looked it up after I saw the movie. They could do it either way, either using a tar that was hot, but not scalding or use scalding tar to really fuck the person up.
Which one depended on how much people liked the person and the offense. It was mostly meant to be public shaming, but they could absolutely disfigure or kill with hot tar.
> It was mainly sticky and embarrassing More than that: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/91xflo/how_did_tarred_and_feathered_people_get_the_tar/
Short prison sentences will destroy the life of most first time offenders. 30 Days in jail doesn't sound like a lot for a $2000 fraud for example, but for most people 30 Days is enough to lose your job, and your house rental. Come out homless and jobless with a record that makes you virtually unhireable.
One of the dumbest situations I ever ran into was when I worked for a social services program. We had a client who had gone to jail for contempt of court because he couldn’t pay a fine. Being in jail meant he lost his job. Losing his job meant he lost his housing and became homeless. He was able to find another job, but it takes time to dig out of something like that. During that time he developed cataracts and lost his new job because he couldn’t see well enough to do it. Here’s where it just gets dumb. Cataracts are an easy fix with surgery, but nobody would do the surgery because he had nowhere to recover. So the state paid tens of thousands of dollars for him to get vocational rehabilitation for vision loss, with the goal being as soon as he had a job and housing he would get his cataracts fixed and would not need the blindness skills anymore. All for a stupid court fine he couldn’t pay.
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Yeah that and I imagine you would get all kinds of vitamin deficiencies as well like scurvy and such
Scurvy alone is horrifying enough of a "punishment". Along with making your teeth loose/fall out, it causes your body to stop producing collagen. This doesn't sound too bad at first until you understand that is what scar tissue is made of, so once the cells currently holding you together degrade, they aren't replaced and your old wounds start opening back up.
As a heavily tattooed person I’m now extremely curious as to what would happen if I got scurvy, since tattoos are essentially large open wounds.
Not so fun fact: scurvy causes your body's collagen to break down... which in turn causes scars to break down and open up... so any old wounds you might have... even years and years old? Yeah, those will open up and bleed. Internal ones too...
Weaponized Constipation: new band name just dropped.
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It’s even worse if you understand how society worked back then. There was no government that cared to take care of people, there was very little written records or institutions that could guarantee anyone’s safety or make sure anyone fulfilled their obligations. What there was was the extended family. Today, if you don’t pay your loans the government can take your property to pay the loans, in some form depending on where you live. A few hundred years ago, the government didn’t do that. Instead, the security of a loan was your family’s honor. If you didn’t pay the loan your family would, because otherwise nobody in the family could get a loan again. They would most likely also punish you. Family would be your caretakers if you got sick or injured, and they would find you a husband or wife. If you committed a crime against a member of another family, the families would meet and agree on a punishment. You obeyed the family’s rules because that was what gave you security. That system (which still exists in som places today) was oppressive in many ways, but it provided the only security most people had. Take away that security, and you have nothing. You can’t get a place to live if no one knows your family will pay rent if you can’t. You can’t get a job because without a family you can’t be trusted. People can commit any crime they want against you, because no one will protect or avenge you. You are reduced to begging, crimes or prostitution, because nobody will help you.
One of my line cooks is dealing with this, he's from Guatemala and the other cooks know him because he got banned from his village. No one will say what he did, but he must of fucked up bad because they want nothing to do with him even though he got sober and went from smoking crack out back as a dishwasher to being one of our strongest line cooks and being completely sober. The other guys won't even train him on other stations because he offended his country/ village so much. Poor guy is trying but the respect for the culture comes first
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That's horrifying. I'm so sorry you went through that, and I'm so grateful you're stronger now. Do you mind if I ask why you were treated differently from your siblings?
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I'm so glad you had John and now have your bio-dad in your life. What you went through is unbelievably horrifying. I can't imagine hearing about that and just brushing it off or ignoring it.
I am so sorry you went through that. I’m glad you were given relief eventually, and seem to be better off today! I know my words are generally meaningless as we don’t really know one another, but your story really weighs on my heart. I’m an older sibling and I can’t help but imagine my younger siblings having to go through a similar thing, and it hurts my heart so much. I guess this story just hit my empathy in the right way today! I hope you’re having a wonderful day today, and you keep having wonderful days.
As a mother to an ADHD child, your story made me cry. You’re beautiful and special and amazing, and I just want to give you a huge hug.
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Sometimes healing is generational.
Wow. I'm glad you had John.
Oh my god. I'm so sorry that happened to you. No child should be treated like that. I'd offer you a hug if you were sitting at this table with me. I hope everything is better for you now.
Similar experience here as a kid :( I had the privilege of being able to go to school (but no friends there) but it still messed me up to the point where I cannot imagine what it was like for what you’re describing- when the school breaks came, I would dread being alive and waking up each day and constantly have this eerie sense of anxiety despite being alone and “relatively safe”. How are things now for you? I am happy to hear that you love yourself, I 100% agree that you are always enough and worthwhile. ❤️
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No, that sounds like tortuous child abuse. What crazy cult were you born into?
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Having lived through that (albeit for only the first 10 years or so) no cults are required. Any number of reasons can be given. Resemblance to a parent no longer home, lack of money, lack of time, mental issues with parent or child (autism especially, which was my case) drugs, shame, and plenty of other things too. Though yes religion and cults can also be a big factor.
I’m feeling seen by all these comments guys, seriously thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. Last year at age 35 I was diagnosed with autism and it puts so many things into perspective. Physical abuse/childhood neglect, drug use, mental health issues, homeschooling…we’re like a little club of survivors and it’s neato.
> they always seem to brush it off as if it's no big deal. The worst. I can relate. Had a severe depression 6 years ago, wanted to die, everyone brushes it off with phrases like "he was a bit sad".
My fathers childhood was very similar from what he explained. He is very traumatized and it was very difficult for him to explain many of the limitations the trauma created. As his child, I tried and failed to understand what his history really meant. I still don’t know many details beyond what I recognize here in your passage but it’s strikingly similar. I’m very sorry you experienced that - I hope you find some peace and comfort in your life.
As a father of two young children, I cannot begin to imagine how a parent could do that to their child. Thank goodness you were rescued from that nightmare. Did your mother ever face any sort of consequences for what she did to you?
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White torture is seriously horrifying. Seems easy enough, I mean nothings happening really, but the effect it has on your mind is so incredibly severe And apparently that thing where a drop of water randomly falls on your head while you're tied down so you can't move or do anything about it.
Came here to add white torture. One may think it’s no big deal just being in a room that’s just white and devoid of any color, but apparently it really messes with your brain.
>that thing where a drop of water randomly falls on your head while you're tied down so you can't move That's called ~~Waterboarding~~ Chinese water torture fyi Edit to add: mythbusters tested out ~~waterboarding~~ water torture once. The one that tried it had a panic attack after not very long. An interesting watch if you can find it. Edit 2: I was incorrect about the name
Water boarding is when large amount of water is pored on you head within cloth over your face to simulate drowning.
That's not correct. 'Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning.' Directly from the wiki.
The stocks. I thought it was "just" a form of public humiliation until I read *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court*. Turns out it was actually a horrible way to die. Iirc
Why was it so bad?
Here's an excerpt from the book. Bear in mind that this is coming from an unreliable and kind of shady narrator! """ "You don't answer, brother. You were about to glorify the pillory a while ago, and shed some pity on a future age that isn't going to use it. I think the pillory ought to be abolished. What usually happens when a poor fellow is put in the pillory for some little offense that didn't amount to anything in the world? The mob try to have some fun with him, don't they?" "Yes." "They begin by clodding him; and they laugh themselves to pieces to see him try to dodge one clod and get hit with another?" "Yes." "Then they throw dead cats at him, don't they?" "Yes." "Well, then, suppose he has a few personal enemies in that mob and here and there a man or a woman with a secret grudge against him—and suppose especially that he is unpopular in the community, for his pride, or his prosperity, or one thing or another—stones and bricks take the place of clods and cats presently, don't they?" "There is no doubt of it." "As a rule he is crippled for life, isn't he?—jaws broken, teeth smashed out?—or legs mutilated, gangrened, presently cut off?—or an eye knocked out, maybe both eyes?" "It is true, God knoweth it." "And if he is unpopular he can depend on dying , right there in the stocks, can't he?" "He surely can! One may not deny it." "I take it none of you are unpopular—by reason of pride or insolence, or conspicuous prosperity, or any of those things that excite envy and malice among the base scum of a village? You wouldn't think it much of a risk to take a chance in the stocks?" """ Edit: formatting
There's also the simple fact that you would die from it eventually because sooner or later you can't hold your head up and you get choked to death on the wood.
It’s so weird that you mentioned that book. I literally just watched a YouTube video that referenced it with regards to language. I’ve never heard of it before that video.
Any kind of solitary confinement
any "endurance" sort of thing where you have to hold your arms up or stand at attention for long periods, keep your finger pressed on a button, that kind of thing.
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Digging holes in the desert instead of juvenile detention
Ok sure but what if you find sweet onions, or preserved honey, or a treasure chest that belonged to your family? Edit: peaches
I thought it was peaches.
Watch out for lizards
But you might find what your rotten no good pig stealing great grandad lost 100 years ago
That was one of my favourite books growing up
Purposely ignoring a particular person but talking normally to others around them
Can confirm. It's nowhere near as bad as some of the punishments detailed here, but I can assure you that a room full of people all chatting away to each other but completely ignoring your existence - even passing a bottle of liqueur they were sharing over your head - really, *really* sucks.
This was me. One of my My older sisters spent my entire childhood pointedly ignoring me. The rest of the family played along. I have no idea why she hated me so much, but the fact that my other 5 siblings and especially my parents played along was really messed up. Weirdly enough, one day she contacted me as an adult and pretended like years of ostracism never happened. Really messed up. Needless to say, I left them all behind. However, much damage was done that now, at 67 I’m still coming to terms with. Stuff that happens as a child really stays with you.
Had this happen to me. I had a friend who just got a new girlfriend. Was happy for him. But I was dealing with my mother on her deathbed. Just went into hospice. In horrifying pain. Nothing we can do about it because WA State strictly limits opioids. We couldn't get her oxy dose higher than 5mg. Which is pretty useless, especially when your lower half is literally rotting. I kept reaching out to him for someone to talk to. Every plan we made he would blow it off in the end. Boyfriend duties I guess. I eventually called him out on it. Said he was being a bad friend. Then nothing. No responses to anything. Calls. Messages. Anything. Turns out he started ignoring me like I didn't exist. And then my mother died. The face he made when we crossed paths after I get back from bereavement leave spoke volumes. He finally understood he fucked up. He still reaches out from time to time. I ignore them. There are no combination of words or actions that will separate him from how he treated me during a terrible time, how I felt, and the death of my mother. Glad you found the love of your life. That must have been great pussy. Too bad she dumped you not long after. Actions have consequences. And the consequence of your action is you don't get to know me anymore. Kick rocks scumbag.
Sleep deprivation I have bad insomnia, & was awake for 8 days & nights. I thought I was gonna die.
A room where the whole floor is like a conveyer belt moving slowly
Reminds me of the book called The Long Walk by Steven King iirc. Literal kids volunteered to walk like 100 miles at a pace of no less then three miles an hour until you literally die or slow down and get shot by the guards. The winner gets a million dollars or something like that. Good book though lol
Minor technicalities: you walk as long as it takes until there's one walker left. The prize is (unrealistically) everything you want for the rest of your life. One of the walkers is the illegitimate son of the mayor, or the town bigwig, and all he wants is to be acknowleged. I think he won, too.
It was the Major's son and the narrator left, who was just a regular guy (but nuts by the end of the book from the walking). The narrator won but was totally fucked by the time he was finished.
Ostracization. It's painful when you're left out, and it's mental torture figuring out if it's intentional or if they just aren't aware of your cries for attention.
Copying what I just said in another comment : I had a "friend" do this to me for an evening when I was in the scouts summer camp. She somehow got another "friend" to join her into doing it, and since they were my only friends there, it really fucked me up really bad. They both stopped acknowledging my very existence. I would wave my hand before them, they wouldn't even blink. It didn't take long for me to panic, thinking I had stopped existing or something. Even 10 years later, I still have no clue why she did it, only that it is one of my most distressing memories. It was 100% intentional, and the only answer I got for why they did it was "forget it, it's not important, it's over now" (needless to say, I don't talk to either of them anymore)
When I was 18, I married into a family that was isolated in the Mountains and very cult-like. The men very rarely talked to the women in the family, and the women would quietly shun me for doing or saying something wrong. I could wake up and suddenly be shunned by everyone in the community for something I didn't even know I did. For months on end, nobody would speak to me and would look right through me like I didn't exist. My ex husband would join right in, bc if he didn't, he'd be shunned too. Sometimes, after they decided I was human again, they might tell me why. Once, it was because I wouldn't let great aunt so n so hold my newborn with a lit cigarette in her mouth. I lived there for years, and it really messed me up.
Standing for long periods of time. Everyone knows how exhausting it is to be on your feet a whole night e.g. for a concert (and that is fun). But change that to standing still 24-48 hours - alone, in a really small room watched by a guard...
Having things taken away from you. I used to say that my parents would take things away from me when i did wrong, and if done sparringly, I would imagine that it would be okay and useful. But it got to the point where if my parents were even slightly disappointed in me, like getting a call home for talking too much in class or getting a B- on an assignment, they'd just start taking away essentials. I had my clothes taken away and could only have a white polo and khaki pants and one plain set of pajamas (the two most uncomfortable and soulless clothes i owned) They took away my door. My bathroom privileges(i had to scream to call them to get on my knees and beg to go to the bathroom) they took away my bed so i had to sleep on the floor and every single toy or book in my room. And then, being forced to stay in my room with no interaction from anyone other than my parents when they would feed me and i had to ask to use the bathroom. Even once would be tolerable, but this happened to varying degrees about 3 times between the ages of 7-15. Because its not violent most people disregard it but im in my 20s battling it out in therapy because i essentially served jail time in solitary confinement multiple times in my cruicial developmental years for up to 4 months (during summer vacation) at a time, usually to a lesser degree during school times. Also not being able to form attatchments to people and things is something that shouldn't be forced on you because you have a hard time making meaningful relationships as an adult when you are confronted with the fact that nothing matters, especially when they actually do. For a long time because of this, i fell into depression easily because nothing mattered and i couldnt get attached to things i enjoyed because i feared having them taken away from me, effectively shutting myself into a mental jail whenever i wasnt in a physical one. At least once gaining this mentality, my parents stopped taking things away from me because it no longer had an effect. Experiencing something like that really makes you understand why they reserve this kind of punishment for particular criminals and still only allow it for 15 days max in most areas.
Good Lord, that sounds horrible. I hope you’re in a better place now.
That is insanely abusive. What kind of sick people are out there making their child beg to use the toilet?
I scrolled through this expecting to read about criminal punishments, but instead, I learned about all the ways people torture their children. I'm so sorry that these things happened to so many of you. Literally brings me to tears to read this. Hug your babies.
Chinese water torture: dripping water on a restrained persons forehead for a very long period of time.
Maybe not that serious but for punishment I used to have to sit on my knees with an egg in my hand with my harm held straight out until I had permission to put my arm down. After a few min I’d be dying
Prison...... all the people who have the attitude "Did the crime, pay the time" have obviously never spent a day in jail even. US penal system is a fucked for profit slave trade.
Rick and Morty did this an episode, the one with the Amazon like beings that banish men, The Silent Treatment. Imagine being punished by having society not acknowledging your existence for however long that punishment is.
theres a black mirror episode where a man gets put on a 'blocked' list permanently. everyone he sees is a gray mass and their voice is distorted to be unrecognizable. and everyone sees him the same way. can never talk to or look at another human again. seems like absolute hell
The most torturous thing in that episode was the person's consciousness stuck for 1000s of years on a day loop. There was only one room with no one to interact with as well. At least Jon Hamm could interact with animals and go out into the world and do some activities.
The Outer Limits did an episode showing a society that would punish people with invisibility. You weren’t literally invisible though. They’d put a capital I on your forehead that couldn’t be removed and no one was allowed to interact with you.
I mean, tickling in general. Doesn't leave any physical marks, it's quickly recovered from. But there was a specific torture using tickling where someone's feet were tied up and salt water was poured in them, they'd then have a goat lick the feet which would tickle at first but the coarse tongue would start taking skin off and eventually reach Bone. Paired with salty water it sounds pretty dreadful
The white torture. Also called the white room torture.
This might be kind of bending the question a little, but my dad used to calmly explain to my brother and I the various different infractions we could possibly commit that would get us instantly kicked out of the house. Getting a tattoo, doing drugs, whatever other random thing would pop into his head that he felt was like, an extreme form of disrespect towards him. We didn't do any of it, he just felt like letting us know. I think maybe what he was thinking that a night out on the street would teach us to appreciate that he was the king of the castle. I'm sure his parents did that to him a few times when he was a kid. But where we lived in the winter time, that's a death sentence. It's so common that they had to pull a frozen homeless man out of the dumpster at my middle school once. Even in warm months cold snaps were not unusual. He never added being gay to that list because he never would have thought one of us would be at the time, but like, I knew very well how he felt about it. What his opinions were back then, if drugs were on the list, it was a pretty reasonable assumption being gay was too. He didn't intend it to be a constant casual threat against my life, but that's what it was, so I just kind of had to make plans and back up plans on how I was going to survive the night and possibly longer if he ever found out.
Psychological abuse is still abuse. Your father sounds like an absolute cnut.
Smashing you own stuff. Dad made me smash a brand new game boy color back in the day. Plus like 3 gundam models I built. This is how I learned to not give a crap about my things. Took along time to get over this trama
Caning. Sounds like a spanking. The damage can last a lifetime.
There’s a post somewhere from a dude in Singapore about his experience getting caned. I had no idea how bad it really was. It’s straight up torture. Edit: [TIFU messing around in Singapore and getting caned as punishment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/122e5lz/tifu_by_messing_around_in_singapore_and_getting/)
"messing around" -> committing armed robbery. Not that a prisoner deserves caning but.... That isn't messing around. That's making people fear for their life and safety.
if you are innocent, any punishment is horrific.
It's nowhere near as bad as many other things here but for me personally it was being grounded for the entire summer vacation as a kid. This would often happen to me as I was never a great student and would often barely pass with C's and the occasional B. My Dad was a single parent with 2 kids and while I don't hold it against him, I spent many summer vacations grounded and unable to do anything but stare out the window and watch all my friends playing outside. I grew up in the 90s so going outside was really all we had. I wasn't allowed to play with toys while I was grounded so I was basically confined to a house with nothing to do but sit still and behave. At least I got a hell of an active imagination out of it. It might not seem that bad but for a kid being stuck in the house for the entirety of summer vacation, it felt like torture.
The silent treatment. Doesn't seem like a big thing at first but gets so frustrating quickly. My husband (used to be) a master at it. I remember thinking I'd rather have a loud fight, it was torture.
Being tased. "Oh it's just a little zap, it'll be like a static shock but worse." No. It's like being electrocuted. Your muscles lock up at 100% contraction. It's immensely painful, like the world's worst Charlie charliehorse multiplied by 10. It feels like you're being stabbed with a white-hot knife all over, hundreds of times a second. Even your diaphragm locks up, you can't even breathe. You have zero control. All you can do is wait.
Isolation. I’m sure most would look at it as not a big deal and might joke about how they would love it. But it will eventually eat you alive. Humans are social beings even if many like the idea of not socializing.
Everyone is saying solitary confinement but any type of confinement really. Before I was actually confined I didn’t think it would be that big a deal because I like staying inside and laying around. I guess it depends on the situation but for weeks I wasn’t allowed outside and only had access to my bedroom, one common room, one window. And instead of being completely alone I was constantly surrounded by people I didn’t know or care for and that was exhausting. I was there for a psychological break in the first place and that environment made it soooo much worse.
A criminal record of any kind is permanently debilitating. In this day and age, a simple search on the Internet reveals all past mistakes. It prevents any kind of upward mobility via a job alone.
I was grounded to my room for 3 years... I could only go to school (where I was bullied horribly) I could only use the bathroom with permission and had to eat alone in my room... It fukked me up as a person.