i've read some stuff that suggests that there is controversy over what 'trauma' is - in particular, whether trauma is a property of events (e.g., hurricane, being held hostage, being hit etc) or whether trauma is a property of a persons psychology (e.g., when external events exceed ones coping ability).

there are some people who get through fairly extreme events without developing a mental disorder whereas other people develop a mental disorder seemingly in response to those same events. conversely, there are some people who develop a mental disorder seemingly in response to fairly ordinary events (e.g., changing jobs, moving house, in response to the death of a loved one etc) even when the majority of other people do not.

the prevalence of trauma has gone up significantly from previous years. some say this is due to increasing awareness of events that are objectively traumatic whereas before the trauma simply was not recognized (e.g., we learned that there were more mammals than we had supposed when we learned that whales really were mammals all along rather than fish). others say that we have extended the concept of trauma such that more people fall under the concept (e.g., if we change the concept of 'adolescence' so instead of it applying to people 13-19 it applies to people 11-20 then there are more adolescents in the world even if we hold the population and their objective ages fixed).

if you read about what life was like for the average peasant in the medieval period then events certainly seem to be more objectively traumatic than they are for the average mental health patient in todays society. perhaps even more people were mentally ill then than they are today or perhaps we are subject to more distress since we have more developed cognitive capacity / capacity to suffer or perhaps... a concept that was once applied to events such as surviving natural disaster and war have come to apply to events such as parents breaking the bones of animals (and then later, children), and eventually emotional neglect and sexual relations with minors etc etc etc. (Ian Hacking has an account of this in "multiple personality and the sciences of memory" if you are interested). Calling events 'abuse' (where 'abuse' is thought to be a major cause of psychological distress / trauma) is precisely about trying to get people to condemn those events and rehabilitate and / or punish those who bring those events about... To describe yourself as the victim of 'trauma' or 'abuse' is typically to attempt to justify or validate ones suffering. Conversely, to describe oneself as a victim of 'trauma' or 'abuse' is to take it on board that one must suffer and continue to do so (otherwise, if one moves on, then that seems to condone the acts that were committed - one simply has to suffer since that is what legitimates the thought that the reason why trauma and abuse are so bad is precisely the point that they are thought to cause suffering and harm that persists long term).