Here’s for all of you who feel guilty for having ptsd, and feel like it couldn’t have been that bad, and that it couldn’t possibly compare to what soldiers have:
It’s very much different and in many ways worse than what soldiers deal with. For once, soldiers are adults, who are trained for combat, who have entered the war on their own will, conscious and aware of what they’re getting into, with an ideal in their head, and they’re fighting together, with bunch of team mates and entire country on their side. They know they have warmth and family home to come back to. They’re not alone.
However you as a child, you are not yet even developed, you are at your most fragile and defenseless you’ll ever be, you’re not trained or capable of fighting or defending yourself. You are at war with the people closest to you, your family, there is nobody on your side, there is nobody waiting to comfort and heal you, you are alone against world, your very own home is where your horrors are happening. I would argue child abuse is much worse. Done to a child, who has no way of coping or fighting, who has to watch their own family destroy them, and accept that nobody in the world cares enough to protect and care for them.. that is worse. that’s plenty worse.
