Irina Ratushinskaya, a political prisoner, describes the methods of her captors:
All those norms of human behavior which are inculcated in one from the cradle are subjected to deliberate and systematic destruction. It's normal to want to be clean? . . . Contract scabies and skin fungus, live in filth, breathe the stench of the slop bucket – then you'll regret your misdemeanors! Women are prone to modesty? All the more reason to strip them naked during searches. . . . A normal person is repelled by coarseness and lies? You will encounter such an amount of both that you will have to strain all your inner resources to remember that there is . . . another reality. . . . Only by a maximum exertion of will is it possible to retain one's former, normal scale of values.
"Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror" - Judith L. Herman, MD