#ral told me to write it and i am but her servant..................... perhaps she has put me under the curse ? spooky

[darkouter]

barty headcanon & general meta:  surviving the imperius curse

personals don’t reblog!  if mutuals think this is interesting enough to apply to their muses who have been put under the imperius curse before, feel free to tho.

ANYWAYS, time to talk about the implications of being controlled by someone completely for long periods of time!  let’s have a psych student ramble about the symptoms of trauma that survivors of the imperius curse are likely to face.  in fact, to tie this to cecil’s psychiatric health practice that he opens up on the wizarding side of london, i’d like to think that barty in his care leads to him forming this draft of criteria for a disorder that is closely linked to that of ptsd, but specific to those who are put under the imperius curse.

quick note:  i take heavy inspiration from netflix’s jessica jones series when it comes to how mind control works, as i already have an extensive concept built around it for my kilgrave rp blog, and you’ll see that influence throughout this post if you’re familiar with the series (if you expected me to not bring mr. eggplant emoji into this, you’re a foole, as he taints everything that i do and is a pervasive parasite to my very soul).  poison ivy, too, provides some direction for this.

first:  what does it look and feel like to be under the imperius curse?

what we know:  it is pleasant to be under at the time, possible (but hard) to overcome through sheer force of will, it can last for an indefinite amount of time, harry could successfully perform the curse on the fly without having practiced on anyone ever before, and j.k. bowling ball really should have defined it more so i wouldn’t have to write this post.

i think there are three main factors that inform how someone feels, thinks, and acts under the curse:  1.) how much autonomy the spellcaster allows them,  2.) how adept the spellcaster is at the curse, and  3.) the will of the person being controlled.  each of these may impact how lucid the cursed individual is/acts.

generally speaking, victims do not find the experience to be unpleasant for the duration of the spell.  in fact, it is usually calming and enjoyable.  victims are free of stress and responsibility due to lack of control, and it’s akin to being heavily sedated.  so.  imagine being incredibly high, and that’s how thought patterns and emotions are affected.  this may be disrupted when there is a trigger of some sort that causes a victim to fight.  an example is extreme cognitive dissonance, such as in situations where the victim is so severely against performing an ordered action that they begin to fight against it.  at that point, they may become confused and upset due to conflicting desires.  the curse doesn’t simply make people do things, but it makes people feel that they want to do those things, so the artificial desire battling with real desire will cause internal distress and debate over what to do.  the caster’s ability will compete with the will of the cursed in this instance.  

casters may gain better control by actively engaging with the individual in close proximity, using their wand, and only separating for short amounts of time.  on the other hand, the cursed may have a better chance at fighting if there is distance, lack of engagement, and long intervals of separation.  the spell is liable to lose its strength over a period of time away, where it is not maintained.  i like to kind of think of the spell having a battery life:  maintaining strength when the caster is nearby, charged / being refreshed when the cursed is engaged with through use of wand, and draining at other times.  a strong will fighting, particularly if due to an outside stimulus’ influence, drains it much faster.

barty remained under control of crouch sr. during his absences, but the dark mark’s appearance and death eaters showing up at the quidditch world cup was enough of an emotional trigger to give him the desire for freedom to act.  crouch sr. was not in his presence to strengthen the spell, so he broke out of the curse.  however, after being stupefied and taken home, he went back under.  the imperius curse’s influence is something that is an active, ongoing mental battle.  with crouch sr. back in his presence and without the same motivation inspired by the dark mark, barty could not overcome it.  he had to be freed by tom.

now, the curse lasts indefinitely if it is maintained well enough.  so how do people operate when they are not actively being given orders?  how much autonomy do they have?  all of those three factors would have to affect this.  the cursed may have more autonomy if the caster gave it, if they are not competent enough with the spell to maintain control that is complex and involves the ability to set rules, and/or if the cursed has a strong enough sense of self for their personality and instinct to show through.

when harry used the imperius curse, the man he cursed (i’m not looking it up, it was some guy during deathly hallows when they broke into gringott’s) had to be given constant orders to operate.  when harry wasn’t actively making him do something, he would look mindless.  harry had to constantly be cognizant of him if he had wanted the curse to seem natural because he was not good enough at the spell to balance how much control the man had over himself.  people who are not good at the spell may have something like this happen, with someone becoming a total zombie, or with the opposite occurring, the cursed are too autonomous (think of playing a video game character normally versus the sims; both need to be actively piloted/monitored for different reasons).

crouch sr. was skilled in his use of the imperius curse, and he established specific rules that served to keep barty isolated but did not otherwise cause friction with anything unnecessary, which allowed him to operate somewhat normally.  he was still dazed and would not have been able to pass as someone who was not under the curse, but crouch didn’t need barty to fool anyone because the entire purpose of the curse was to hide him away entirely.  their house elf winky helped him function where barty needed it.  barty didn’t have a strong enough sense of self nor the will to break free under normal circumstances, as these are large flaws that have always been part of his personality.  there have been times where the curse broke by accident of some kind or because something prompted barty to will it, but learned helplessness caused him to not actually do anything about it.  with regulus gone, tom fallen from power and disappeared, his mother dead, his friends turned on him after the trial, the last loyal death eaters imprisoned, and him supposed to be imprisoned/dead, there was nothing for barty.  even during the few times he managed to gain his freedom from the curse, he didn’t actually have any freedom.  there was nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and not much of a life worth living.  frankly, being back in control of himself would allow his severe depression to come forward, so the imperius curse was preferable.  at least he would be content under it.

second:  what happens after escaping the curse?  what are its lasting effects?

there are a lot of potential issues, but some concepts i think are important:  i feel like people would struggle with their sense of self, trust in their own judgement, and feel the need to make sure they don't feel that loss of control ever again.

immediately upon coming out of the curse, people are likely to be in a fugue state or otherwise very confused.  decision making may not feel natural.  they may dissociate, as they have not had full control, may feel like they still don’t have it, and the entire ordeal may have felt like an out of body experience.  being thrust back into their own body may feel unreal, and they might suffer from depersonalization (feeling that they themself are not real) or derealization (feeling that the world around them is not real).  

they might have permanent cognitive side effects from being in a dream-like, trance state for so long (where the above symptoms become chronic).  they may have to deal with wondering how much of what they did was themselves and what was the imperius curse.  there may be feelings of guilt and general self-blaming for their behavior, for not having enough will (i.e. in their minds, being too weak) to break free, or for being caught in the first place.  they may feel violated, used, or dirty.  maybe sometimes wonder if they ever actually got out from the curse, wonder if they can trust themselves to make decisions.  deal with paranoia that they might be trapped or controlled, whether by means of being cursed again or even just in other, more subtle ways (like socially, wanting to avoid ever feeling obligated to do things for other people; physically/magically, wanting to be able to fight; emotionally/mentally, not wanting to be made to feel weak).  they could possibly become hypervigilant and anxious and/or depressed.  some may have memory issues, whether amnesia surrounding time under the curse or problems organizing timelines in chronological order.  in general, organized thought may be impaired to some degree.  it may be hard to form interpersonal relationships due to lack of trust, feeling misunderstood, insecure, and wanting to self-isolate.

the trauma is unique to the individual, as it depends entirely on what someone was made to do during their time under the curse and for how long, which can be wildly different from person to person.  someone who was controlled momentarily in order to steal something for someone versus someone who was controlled for a long period of time and committed a variety of acts like murder might not have much in common between their emotional responses.

for barty, it really just exacerbated issues he already had — he suffered from dissociation, dependency issues, and insecurities about sense of control before azkaban and the imperius curse, due to crouch’s abuse and his own latent mental illness.  because it lasted so long for barty, his brain chemistry and thought patterns have been twisted more severely than most survivors.  he suffers from disorganized thought, similar to that of someone with schizophrenia or dementia.  emotions are more likely to win over logic at times.  there are some actions he simply struggles with doing, and there was a period of time post-curse where he couldn’t write coherently and had to make moody do it for him.  he loses his train of thought at times, his memories are fuzzy, and he has no clear understanding of who he is as a person because he wasn’t able to be one for so long.  he also has a very hard time communicating with people due to the isolation.

#| OOC: HEY GHOULS! #| HC: BARTEMIUS CROUCH JR. #this is long but ive gotten a few questions abt how i view the imperius curse so here !!!!!!!! #ral told me to write it and i am but her servant..................... perhaps she has put me under the curse ? spooky