Are there levels to trauma?
The answer is yes, although perhaps not in the way we often imagine.
Pain itself is not something that can be neatly measured or compared. I can say my father’s death was easier than the humiliation I’ve felt by the neglect imposed by past lovers. The humiliation of racism I’ve felt has not been necessarily more painful than the humiliation of classism, because they’ve always coexisted together.
Human suffering resists ranking. Yet while pain may not be hierarchical, our exposure to violence certainly is.
Again, I’ll speak from experience:
