Whose trauma is deeper? My position is that you cannot measure the depth of trauma by appealing to the facts of life, and here’s why. Our memories are not exactly memories of facts. Often this is a concentrate of impressions, affects, events, successes, failures, desires, fears and the rest, compressed under the yoke of time. For example, a teenager remembers as the most vivid picture of childhood the one where he and his father choose a gift for his birthday. He wants one toy, but he doesn’t even mention it, because he doesn’t want to face his father’s criticism about “she’s stupid, bad, no good.” And he agrees to the one that his father takes from the shelf. All day he pretends to be happy with this toy, and in the evening he cries because he doesn’t like it at all. Someone will say: “He found something to kill himself about! So-and-so grew up an orphan!” But you can't compare like that. This memory is just the tip of the iceberg in the sense that it is the quintessence of all experiences about oneself, one’s place in the family, and failed relationships. And what is important is not its actual content, but what it means for the teenager, what meaning for him personally lies behind this memory and everything associated with it. It may be that the situation in fact was not even like that at all. Maybe in fact the trip to the store was with mom, and not with dad. And that same toy simply did not exist. But if the psyche has transformed it into this, then this means that it is precisely this picture that best reflects the emotional, mental (and not the actual) meaning of the totality of events of the past. If you ask a teenager what this means for him, then, as an option, you can hear, that the father was very frightening and unattainable, the mother never protected, he did not feel accepted, as if he was a stranger in the family, like an adopted child, an orphan... The one with whom they reproach him. There is a psychologist in the office (the one who is a psychotherapist) deals not with the facts of life, but with psychic reality. Facts are reinforced concrete, but mental reality is plastic. It is thanks to this that changes are possible. You can ask me a question or sign up for a consultation in the site profile or by writing to me whats'app, telegram 8(918)225-25-33