It is common to question whether something was “bad enough,” especially if your experiences were minimized, normalized, or compared to more extreme situations. You may have learned to evaluate harm based on what others considered serious rather than how it affected you.
You may also have experienced gaslighting, where you were told that your experiences were not “that bad” or that you were exaggerating.
In some cases, questioning can be a way of avoiding the full impact of what happened. Acknowledging that something was harmful may bring up difficult emotions, such as grief, anger, or confusion.
Over time, these patterns can make it harder to trust your own perspective. Recognizing harm does not require it to meet a certain threshold—it is based on the impact it had on your safety, autonomy, and well-being.
This page is part of the What Counts as Abuse? section of the CommuniDID site, which helps readers evaluate past experiences and understand why confusion about abuse is common.
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