Crossposted to Lesswrong here When I mention my dad’s abuse, I usually mention salient things – physical pain, insults, and controlling behavior. These are “clearly bad” – if I tell that he you often told me I was lazy and would fail horribly at life once I left home, you know it’s bad, because it’s concrete, easy to imagine and obviously unkind. But this wasn’t the worst of the abuse; the most terrible parts were extraordinarily hard to understand or describe.