[intull]

OP and commenter have experienced opposite ends. Commenter wants to make sure that one’s life experience isn’t extrapolated to everyone else’s and generalized. You can relate more with OP than commenter but they are your individual experiences. Doesn’t mean they’re uncommon. It could be that commenter’s experiences are rarer. Commenter’s ask is to not treat OP’s, yours or even their own life experiences as inevitable facts of life.

[yesenadam]

Thank you, yep. Also, I've had many awful things happen to me in life, don't get me wrong! (e.g. years of bullying at home and school, years of schizophrenia, homelessness/losing everything etc) My point was just that a lot of the changes I've made, in myself, my beliefs, self-beliefs, my actions etc happened absolutely "without trauma". In my 20s mostly I read a lot of self-help, psychology, spirituality etc books and put a lot of it into practice, which was work, but it wasn't traumatic at all. It was wonderful. I just know that "Nowhere in life change happens without trauma" is very far from true. (But possibly I totally misunderstand what they meant by that)