How long could you hold out under torture?

[Lancer]

There's an upside to that though. Think of how long before you have to trim them again.

[Grandpa Troll]

It is amazing how when your under duress you start finding how many layers or levels of pain one can indeed actually handle.

I was tortured as a child, held down and teeth kicked out at 13 years old, ribs broken, eyes sollen shut.

After having your body beaten severly, you feel but dont feel the trauma to your body.

Its a little hard to imagine, but you almost have this outter body experience and feel punches and kicks land but they feel almost like a dud thump hitting.

Emotionally, you withdraw and "circle" the wagons.

I share from very painful and very real experience.

Brass Knuckles pounding away on your face, eyes swollen shut, lips split open, upper teeth (Front three) ripped from your gumline, prfously bleeding, nerve endings throbbing uncontrollably, lips being torn and punctured as teeth go through your lips, and no relief in site, just when you think I cant stand it, someone runs up while you can barely see anduses a full frontal kick to land on your jaws or mouth.


It is not easy but sometimes, you find a way to survive tormenting and torture.

Gramps

[Aeson]

I was peeling an orange today and got some jammed up underneath my fingernail... it really stung... I think at some point while pleading for the pain to stop I probably compromised national security.

[chequita guevara]

Re: How long could you hold out under torture?

Originally posted by VetLegion
I've just seen some movie in which this guy was physically tortured but wouldn't "speak".

Is that even possible? Do modern armies or spy agencies even require their members to carry secrets to the grave?

Physical abuse, sleep deprivation, drugs... is it possible to hold out and not break?

I don't think it is possible, but if you know some techniques of keeping your mind intact in such a situation, let me know!

The purpose of torture is not to get you to talk, it's to break your spirit. There are many, far more sophisticated ways of getting people to talk that are far more effective.

That said, some people do hold out under torture. When I was learning about this history of Latin America, I read two books written by survivors of the Argentinian regime. As Grampa Troll relates, at a certain point, you begin to disassociate with your body and the torture.

As for me, I doubt I could hold out long.

Back when I was in a clandestine communist organization, the expectation was that you should hold out 48 hours before you talk. That gives anyone you could harm by talking time to get away. Then you can sing like a canary. It was extreme BS paranoia, but as the group had originally been part of the French resistance, I could see where they picked it up.

[Lancer]

Just start pleading for more, they'll stop.

[chequita guevara]

You wanna test that theory?

[BeBMan]

About what form of torture are we talking here? You know I could resist the Spanish Inquisition torturing me with soft cushions much longer than the AQ guys threatening to cut off my head!

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll

I was tortured as a child, held down and teeth kicked out at 13 years old, ribs broken, eyes sollen shut.

[VetLegion]

Yeah, I can't believe what Grandpa Troll just wrote either.

[Pekka]

Not too long. The problem is, I would realize I would break eventually, so why take all that crap for nothing? I'm not an idiot.

BUt like Kuci said, if there's value in holding up for a known period of time, I would try. As in if I keep my mouth shut and it would save like the lives of my buddies, I'd give it a shot and try to hold. If there's no value, forget about it, I'd just tell them when it comes obvious that it'll be torture and not just threats of torture.

At least that's how I think I would function. Who knows, I might spill my beans earlier, I don't think the actual situation would make me more silent. You do what you do to survive. Maybe you become worthless after that but you'd still be worthless after all the torture and cracking at the end so I'd take my chances being worthless and not THAT much tortured. I'd focus on escaping. I think my chances of escape becomes less if I'm tortured and thus injured even more. Who knows, maybe there would be a moment to run for it or try to overpower some dudes. Who knows, but at least then there's odds even if they're very bad so I'd like to maximize those odds by trying to keep myself as healthy and uninjured as possible. I think I'm more valuable alive to my friends than tortured and dead. So whatever I think will keep me alive and give me the most hope of escaping at some point.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by embalmer42
Depends how I was being tortured.

Exactly. If anything gets anywhere close to my phobias (Room 101 in 1984) I'd crack in a second, if its other things I'd probably be able to hold out quite a bit longer...

(for example if I'm tied down and someone approached me with a scalpel I'd break in a second, if with a baseball bat I'd do better)

[Provost Harrison]

In that case threaten to give me body piercings...you'd find out everything you need to know in seconds.

(damn, now you know how to extract information out of me. I am incredibly squeamish about piercings).

[Alinestra Covelia]

I did bowl a cricket ball once on hard ground and I did it badly. My hand did a full circle forward and I released the ball, but my fingers kept going and my fingernails made contact with the ground.

The resulting jolt ripped two nails right off and "hinged" the third one so it was pointing 90 degrees from the nail bed.

I remember looking at that in surprise for a few seconds and then thinking "Okay, it's going to start bleeding, and then it's going to start hurting like hell. Before that happens I want to be back at the house with a bucket full of ice cubes, pronto!"

All the rest of the girls froke out but I did manage to get back to the house before the pain came.

[Wezil]

"froke"? Past tense of "freak"?

[Pekka]

Sounds to me like some nasty lesbian sex move.