Hermeneutical Injustice and Invisible Childhood Trauma

As philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Without the words to name or describe something, our ability to comprehend and communicate it becomes restricted. The absence of words to describe something doesn’t make some of our experiences any less real, but it does limit how they are understood — by others and even by ourselves.

Sometimes, society is yet to catch up with reality, and are slow to develop the language needed to articulate certain inconvenient truths. One salient example is that of invisible childhood trauma. Growing up with immature or narcissistic parents, enduring neglect or psychological abuse, or being neurodivergent in a world that misunderstands you can leave deep, unseen wounds. But if you were never given ways to name or explain your experience, you are left struggling to make sense of it on your own. You might walk through life wearing a mask of normalcy, all the while feeling as though your story is trapped within you. It is not only that others cannot understand you, but without the language, framework, information, you cannot even understand yourself. This predicament has a term not widely known outside of academia, yet so very relevant in today’s world: hermeneutic injustice.

Modern philosopher Miranda Fricke explains the idea of hermeneutical injustice with examples such as sexual harassment and PTSD. Before the term “sexual harassment” was created in the 1970s, women facing workplace abuse were often ignored because society didn’t recognize the problem. Similarly, before PTSD was understood, soldiers with trauma were seen as weak or cowardly.

When you go through invisible trauma like toxic family dynamics, gaslighting, or emotional abuse, hermeneutical injustice adds an extra layer of harm: not only do you suffer through your experience, but you are also denied the ability to grasp it yourself or have others recognize it. It is the pain of being invisible in a world that doesn’t know how to see you.

The Hermeneutical Injustice of Invisible Childhood Trauma

Invisible childhood trauma is often defined not by the presence of something, but by the absence of what should have been there — support, love, warmth, a safe space, and emotional guidance. It may not be visibly seen by everyone, like having bruises or broken bones; but there is the erosion of safety, trust, and self-worth. Perhaps your caregivers were absent, or constantly invalidated your feelings, dismissed your struggles, or burdened you with responsibilities far beyond your years. Maybe your home lacked overt violence, but the air was thick with tension, criticism, or neglect.

Imagine growing up with a parent who had narcissistic tendencies or a severe personality disorder. These parents often excel at creating a façade of perfection, charming everyone into believing they are exceptional caregivers. To the outside world, your family may have seemed enviable; they were the life of the party, applauded and adored for their generosity or charisma. But behind closed doors, you endured their control, manipulation, and narcissistic demands. You were treated as an extension of their ego, expected to perform or succeed to enhance their image, while your own needs and individuality were ignored or dismissed. When you tried to speak about your struggles, others may have responded with, “But your parent is so wonderful! You should be grateful.” Eventually, you internalized the belief that your feelings were wrong or something to be ashamed of and muted yourself.

Or perhaps your childhood was coloured by sibling envy or abuse. You had a sibling who was determined to outshine you or sought to undermine your confidence at every turn. They were not an ally but a constant rival, always sucking all the oxygen out of the room and leaving you no space to breathe. You grew up hypervigilient, constantly trying to carefully dim your light so you can avoid stepping on their toes. Yet, because sibling rivalry is often trivialized or dismissed as normal, your pain was likely ignored or invalidated. Whenever you tried to share it, people may say to you: “All siblings fight — it is normal.” The collective denial by society not only invalidate your pain but also makes it impossible for you to process and heal from your experiences.

Perhaps you went through something that is even more of a taboo than sibling envy: having parents who envy you. Instead of celebrating your achievements and encouraging your growth, they subtly or overtly sabotaged you. They minimized or ignored your successes, refused to praise you for your achievements, or deprived you of opportunities to develop your talents. They may even have tried to pursue similar interests or projects to compete with you. Over time, your unconscious mind learned that shining or showing up as your full self would only lead to punishment. Yet, because this is such a seemingly outrageous subject, society rarely acknowledges such dynamics, leaving you to wonder if your pain is even real. When you tried to share it, people might react in disbelief; they say it is impossible for parents to be envious of their children, dismissing you with comments like, “Maybe you are just too sensitive.” Even you are no longer a child and have the voice of an adult, systemic oppression has made it so that you are forced to maintain the silence you have been forced into since a young age.

Another commonly unrecognized experience is growing up with a dependent, needy parent who treated you as their emotional caretaker. This dynamic, known as parentification, reverses the natural roles of parent and child and forces you to take on responsibilities far beyond your years. Perhaps your parent confided in you about their intimate struggles, leaned on you for emotional support, or made you feel as though their happiness depended on you. While other children were free to explore, play, and make mistakes, you felt weighed down by the constant pressure to make sure they feel okay. Although parentification is a more widely recognized phenomenon these days, criticizing your parent for being immature or needy remains taboo in many cultures (micro and macro). Many children are raised to feel deep guilt at the thought of speaking negatively about their parents. This makes it incredibly difficult to explain how draining and unfair it was to grow up in this dynamic or to have others truly understand what it was like to have your childhood robbed off you.

The Cost of Silence

Toxic family dynamics such as those described above are no less damaging than more visible forms of abuse, yet they are squashed down both by institutionalised oppression and your intenral voice. This is the essence of hermeneutic injustice: it is not only the harm itself, but the way the world denies and misunderstands it that makes it so traumatizing.

To the outside world, your family may have appeared “normal.” You might have been told — directly or indirectly — that you had no reason to feel hurt. “Your parents did their best.” “They do not seem that bad.” “At least they did not hit you.” These unempathic utterances, however well-intentioned, reflect a deeper problem: a hermeneutical gap. This is a failure in society’s understanding, where trauma is too narrowly defined. As long as your pain does not fit this limited narrative, it is minimized, or outright denied.

One of the most insidious effects of invisible trauma is how it makes you question yourself. Without the cultural tools to name or explain your experience, you might find yourself asking, “Was it really that bad? Am I just overreacting? Why do I feel so broken when nothing terrible happened?” The fight to be heard is exhausting. It fractures your sense of self, leaving you doubting your memories and emotions. You begin to think, “If no one else sees it, maybe it is not real.” Now, even as an adult, you may carry an unspoken emptiness — a quiet sadness or persistent unease that feels almost impossible to explain. You feel weighed down by a constant sense of disconnection or inadequacy, even if you cannot fully articulate why. In other words, hermeneutical injustice does not just silence you externally — it fragments your internal world.

How We Begin to Heal

The first step toward healing is to understand that there is a name for the injustice you have lived. Knowing terms like hermeneutical injustice is a start. It gives language to the silence and validates the experiences you have struggled to explain.

To break this cycle, we must, as a society, expand the narrative of trauma to include emotional neglect, psychological abuse, and the wounds that are harder to see. One of the most powerful things you can do — for yourself and for us as a collective — is to share your story with your head held high.

Your pain is real, even if it does not conform to society’s narrow definitions of what “traumatic” means. Healing begins when you trust your experience, even when others cannot. You do not need to wait for society to catch up to your reality. You can start to create your own framework for understanding your story. You may be one of the first, but you can write it down, speak it out, draw it, or dance it out.

At first, this might make you feel vulnerable and exposed. Of course, you need to ensure it is indeed safe enough for you to share. But even in your isolation, if you can hold onto hope and a drive to seek connection, know that there are safe spaces — communities, therapists, and individuals — who can and will meet you in your vulnerability. Finding these spaces can feel daunting at first, but when you see your experience confirmed in others’ eyes, you will immediately know how meaningful and necessary it was for you to have done it.

Naming your experience is an act of defiance against the silence that has kept you trapped, and it is the first step toward reclaiming your voice. When you share your story, no matter how quietly at first, you challenge the existing cultural narrative and discourse. In doing so, you expand the collective understanding of pain, creating space not just for yourself but for others like you.

It’s great that our collective understanding of trauma is growing, thanks to those who have dared to speak out, challenge old narratives, and share their invisible scars. Although, many of us would also argue that in many ways we are going backward under the existing political climate and social fragmentation.

You have no reason to feel guilty, or ashamed. It is a noble act: By naming your experience and refusing to let it be erased, you are creating new knowledge for the world. You are giving voice to a slice of reality that has long been ignored. In time, the world will catch up.

So, to you, the survivor of invisible childhood trauma. Your pain is real. Your story matters. And your voice has the power to transform not just your own life but the way the world understands what it means to be real.

The Invitation to Unmute

Have you heard of the term hermeneutical injustice?

It is a philosophical concept that describes a situation where you experience something real, something painful

… but the world hasn’t caught up to the idea of it.

There is no language to name it.

Nothing exists to describe what you’ve been through.

No one sees you. Not even yourself.

This happened to soldiers before PTSD had a name:

These brave souls who came home with broken spirits, their minds still trapped in wars that had already ended.

But the world saw them as weak, as cowards,

Because there wasn’t yet a language to describe the weight they carried.

When you’ve been through invisible trauma, my dear, that soldier is you.

Maybe you have faced emotional abuse, bullying, gaslighting.

Maybe you have carried the weight of transgenerational trauma

tolerated unwanted touches, indirect threats of abandonment, been ostricised, betrayed, robbed of your innocence.

But there’s no name for it, no way to say, Hey, this is wrong.

Your pain becomes too easy for others to dismiss.

They say:

“But you were loved.”

“But they gave you everything.”

“You weren’t physically abused.”

“Where are your bruises?”

“At least you weren’t starving.”

“At least you had a roof over your head.”

The world doesn’t know how to name your pain. So it pretends it isn’t there.

Hermeneutical injustice is

what happens when society does not understand your pain.

And you — you learned to do the same.

You were taught to fold yourself small,

To bury your voice so deep that no one could ever find it.

And now, when you try to speak it aloud,

when you finally let yourself whisper the story,

Your voice is so faint, so fragile,

that you realize you no longer have the words.

You have been muted.

This is hermeneutical injustice.

It is not just the pain of what happened to you.

It is the pain of being told it never happened at all.

But you are allowed to heal, even if they don’t understand.

Your story is real.

It has always been real.

Your soul can never be forever muted. Trust it’s guide and you will find your way back.

You can find your voice again, if you let it.