> I was agree with you until I came to this.

Fair enough.

> I don't believe most people truly want to identity with being a victim of abuse. I wish I could change that aspect of my past life.

You can't change the events that you go on to describe. I think you are right about that.

What were things like for the average peasant child in the middle ages, do you think? In that society such acts weren't described as 'abuse'. They weren't condemned, really, either.

To us today those seem to be pretty obvious cases of events that we would consider objectively traumatic. Today the battle is over extending the concept of 'abuse' to cover emotional abuse and neglect. We have already accepted that physical and sexual violence is objectively traumatic. The point was that... Things haven't always been seen in that way.

How much were people harmed in the past when these things weren't considered 'abuse'? One thought is that they were significantly harmed - and those acts were abusive all along it was just that those cultures were mistaken in thinking that they weren't abusive. Another thought is that there is a certain kind of harm that comes from oneself (and others) describing or labeling the acts as 'abuse'.

One can of course be harmed by things that weren't abuse (natural disaster, for example) and one can of course have those same things happen to one and yet not be terribly affected. We tend to be told that the latter cannot happen... But of course it does... Unless mental illness was more prevalent (is more prevalent) in nations where those acts are more common than they are in developed nations...

You can't change the events but you can choose how to describe those events and you can choose what significance or meaning you attribute to those events with respect to their impact on later events.

Similarly, if one doesn't feel like getting out of bed in the morning one could attribute it to 'laziness' or 'depression' or 'a well deserved day off'. How we choose to describe the objective event of 'feeling like one doesn't want to get out of bed' is something within our control. Even if it is an undeniable fact that that is how we feel there is scope for us to choose what interpretation or significance we give to that event. I think that sometimes we are taught that interpretations of events and events themselves are indistinguishable (so that there are facts about which events are abusive or traumatic, for example). I think there is a worthwhile distinction to be made, however. As with the not feeling like getting out of bed case... It makes a significant difference with respect to where to from here...