I’ve found a lot of help and comfort reading through the literature on healing from torture - there’s a lot of reputable organizations with great resources and information for people like us who deal with torture every day. We may not be out of our torture programs yet, but we can still get a lot of helpful information from this literature.

One thing that helped me is a discussion of no matter what you do, they’re going to torture you. There’s no way to please them, if you give in to their demands they will torture you for being weak and giving in to their demands. If you don’t, they will torture you for being stubborn and not letting them “help you.”

Another thing that helped is a lot of us get angry, depressed, hateful, resentful, and that’s all normal. We have been tortured and people deal with it in all kinds of ways - whatever helps you stay alive and keeps the people around you safe is perfectly fine - you did and do what you can to survive. Way to go!

Lastly, another concept that really helped me is that they try to make you think that the torture is your fault, that you’re responsible for them torturing you. You’re as responsible for being tortured as a rape survivor is responsible for being raped. They’re the messed up ones with the problem. Any time I catch myself thinking why, or any time they try to tell me “that’s why we’re doing this!” I just remind myself that the way is because they’re sick sadistic monsters, and this is more about them being fucked up than it is about me being imperfect.

Go on google and search “surviving torture” or “healing from torture.” And let the nice reputable organizations explain why they’re monsters and how you don’t deserve this and how you can work to heal from this even if they’re still doing it to you.

https://www.cvt.org/resources/for-torture-survivors/