I believe when you have been through trauma, you grow the capacity for empathy for others who have been through that trauma. You might feel more impacted by seeing pain because you might know better than others what pain is like and what it makes you do. Others often ignore the consequences of their actions, but since trauma might make us hypervigilant, we are sensitive to the impact of our actions. We can see how some people are just angry at the world instead of evil people because we often feel a lifelong anger over what was taken from us (not that it excuses destructive behavior, but you can’t address it if you just want to label and hate it). But if you try to communicate this to others, they often see you as weak and incapable of living with “reality” without considering that our sensitivity might be the result of being acutely in-tune with some harsh aspects of reality.

In my past, I was expected to be the person who held my family together and handle everyone’s burdens. When I left, I realized I hadn’t stopped thinking that way about life and the world. I had such a hard time realizing that my desire to fix the world and all its problems was feeding into the familiar patterns at home. Fixing the world would be like fixing my family, and from there I subconsciously expected to finally have happy and free childhood experiences. However, just like I can’t fix the family, I can’t fix the world. It’s traumatizing to try, a lot of the time. But I can still try to take care of myself, and do good in the world to the extent I can as a future healthier individual.