The Jill Carroll Story: Q&A - csmonitor.com
Q. “What is it that those of us who have never been through such a thing [as a kidnapping] need to understand, or can never understand?”
– Kate, Rockville, MarylandA.”It seemed to me that people didn’t seem to understand how it really affects you, mentally. How you have to be so complicit and be so … you just have to be able to do whatever it is they want you to do to survive. People seem to think you should stand up for your … if they want you to do something that you find to denounce your country, for example, you should just say, “oh, no, I can’t do that.” That’s suicide. People need to understand that, … I think they sort of forget that, literally, these are people that will kill you at any moment. So, especially after a few months or a few weeks, you are not thinking normally. Even after a few days you are not thinking normally at all, and you are just in sort of a massive survival mode. So, on the one hand, you are thinking hard all the time, and trying to find ways to survive, and try to relate to these people and make them see you as a human, and at the same time you have to be so complicit and you have absolutely no control over anything. When you sleep, when you eat, when you go to the bathroom, what you say, whether you stand up, whether you sit down, nothing. So, over time, you lose yourself. You don’t have any self-will, or self-determination, or decision making ability, or ability to say no. All those boundaries we have in a normal life are gone. And you are just whatever anyone else around you wants you to be. Because you know that’s how you have to be to survive. People seem to forget, when I came out, why I was so … why I was what I would describe as mushy, or complacent. You do whatever you have to do to survive. And they do whatever they want to you. And you have to let them do whatever they want to you, if you ever want to get out. Aside, of course, from killing you.”
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