I have the same resistance you have. The only advice I can give is just a reminder that "abuse" doesn't have to mean something big and horrific or long-lasting. A gun shot wound is an injury. So is a sprained ankle. Being beaten to a pulp by a parent is abuse. So is being called a horrible name.

My father can be cruel too, and he got physical with his violence when we were coming up. Do I think of him as an abusive parent? No. Do I identify myself as a survivor of child abuse? No. Do I think I suffered some abuses? Sure. I don't have to characterize my entire childhood by those incidents, but I'm not going to forget them either just because I love my father.

Many children will experience some abuses growing up, and only a subset will rise to the level of having an "abusive childhood". But that doesn't mean that isolated or not-so-frequent episodes can't still be traumatic.