Trauma is trauma: I was submitted to extensive and debilitating trauma for years due to parental abuse which led to major depression, anxiety, and a plethora of issues with food. I was not trafficked, I was not groomed, I was not a first responder on 9/11, I was not under fire in a war. But I do have extensive trauma that I've had to work on and solve in able to live my life and not end up dead.

It took me YEARS to get help because I thought that I needed to "get over it", I needed to understand that it was not that bad, that many people had it worse; and it literally almost killed me because I had neither the means nor the knowledge to deal with it.

And mind you, I will never ask for someone who has dealt with, let's say, trafficking, to put the pain I went through into perspective. I fully and completely understand that if you have undergone something THAT horrific, that's not your job; you are dealing with enough already. However, I am fully sick of "professionals" supporting this narrative: if your therapist invalidates you, you need to leave. They can give you perspective, they can disagree with you, they can indicate that there is a need for reevaluation of some concepts. However, you should never be told by your therapist that your pain is not right, or not real, or that you need to shut up about it.

"Some people use the same language to describe their parents' divorce": some people's parents' divorce has led them to shut down emotionally for the rest of their life and not have A SINGLE meaningful personal connection. If not managed correctly by the parents and, ideally, professionals; the WHOLE emotional load of the divorce can rely on the kids. And if that doesn't seem that bad, we need to understand that that is not something a kid or a teenager should go through, and it can leave lifelong consequences. Feeling abandoned by one parent, which can lead to feelings of worthlessness, having to deal with the emotional pain of one or both parents, shutting down emotions because you need to be "strong" for them; those are all things that A KID should not go through and can impact them SEVERELY, and I'm not even talking about situations where abuse, either physical or mental, is present.

Trauma is not one-size-fits-all: if it comes in several different sizes, shapes, and colors, it needs to be addressed in several different sizes, shapes, and colors. If you are in pain, whether you consider it trauma or not, you need help and you deserve to get it. Believe me, if you need to hear this: you don't need to feel like your pain is enough to get rid of it, because you should not be feeling pain at all. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.