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Notes -
I resonate with this and a lot of the replies, being someone who has kind of gone in and out of the trauma narrative. I would characterize the problem we have in front of us as not having a great paradigm for getting people through generations of "my parents are emotionally-distant, lying bullies with/without an addiction problem" combined with "I am emotionally distant, I have to lie/bully others when they say things that confront my weaknesses, and I may/may not have an addiction problem too." I think part of the story is that as life has become more comfortable, these aspects in people are less likely to be aggravated by traumatic external events, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that this could result in people sort of settling into emotionally-distant lives kind of devoid of color, not knowing what they're missing, but raising kids who do feel something missing, finding the trauma narrative, which is directionally true in a sense of putting blame on parents depriving them of something.
And the trauma narrative is seductive via providing victimhood, because these kids are basically looking for relief and via CBT etc. are being told that actually you need to opposite, you need to be more resilient and deal with this as part of life. I think making stoicism attractive is something masculine men and old been-through-hell lady-boss women are better at doing, but those types are basically absent from education and therapy roles in lieu of the "sensitive" types who I feel like subconsciously get into these roles because it benefits the weak-minded to kind of be able to sap energy from children via malformed projections of "concern" and "compassion" that are more like a form of soma than something that would help the kid.
Which is all to say I do think it's a real problem and when people say they are traumatized there is something to be taken seriously there, even if you don't necessarily want to validate their view of it.
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