by Bill Scott – 2026
In the 1970s television series Kojak, the title character uttered a line that has stayed with me for years:
"You can't tell a hurt man how to holler."
It is one of those rare statements that reaches beyond the circumstances in which it was spoken. It reminds us that pain is personal. We can observe it, sympathize with it, even attempt to measure it, but we can never truly experience another person's suffering. Learn more about this in The Mind That Remembers Everything: How the Subconscious Shapes Loss, Healing, and the Human Experience.
The same is true of the human mind. Learn more about this in Unlocking Your Brain’s Gatekeeper: The Reticular.
Today we recognize Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, as a legitimate psychological injury. Most people associate it with soldiers returning from war, first responders, victims of violent crime, or survivors of catastrophic events. Those wounds are real, and they deserve every ounce of understanding and treatment we can offer.
But I wonder if we've made a mistake.
Perhaps the mistake isn't recognizing PTSD. Perhaps it's believing that only certain kinds of emotional injuries deserve to be recognized.
Every human being carries memories that changed them. Some were wounded by war. Others by abuse. Others by neglect. Others by rejection. Some carry scars from events no one else even remembers. The human mind doesn't consult a diagnostic manual before deciding what it will remember or what it will bury. Learn more about this in Get ting to Know Your Sidekick.
Some wounds remain hidden for years— sometimes decades. Then a smell, a song, a familiar face, or a chance conversation opens a door that we thought had been locked forever. Suddenly, emotions return with surprising force, leaving the person wondering why.
The mind keeps remarkable records.
One person survives combat, loses the use of his legs, and goes on to live a joyful life. He raises five children, spoils three grandchildren, serves his community, and perhaps even becomes President of the United States.
Another grows up in a home where she is ignored, ridiculed, or made to believe she has little worth. By thirteen, she already feels invisible. Every rejection confirms what she has come to believe about herself. Years later those unseen wounds contribute to addiction, abusive relationships, and a lonely death on the floor of a brothel with a needle in her arm.
Which one suffered the greater trauma?
We cannot know.
We are tempted to judge pain by the ending of the story rather than by the experience that began it. We assume the survivor healed completely and the broken person was injured more deeply. But life rarely works that way.
Human beings respond differently to similar injuries. Personality, family, genetics, opportunity, faith, love, resilience, and countless other influences shape what follows. Two people can experience nearly identical trauma and arrive at entirely different destinations.
The outcome tells us something about the journey.
It does not necessarily measure the original wound.
Medicine must classify illnesses. Doctors need names, definitions, and diagnoses because treatment depends upon them. Those labels are useful.
But the mind does not think in labels.
It knows fear
It knows shame
It knows grief
It knows helplessness
It knows abandonment
And it remembers …
Perhaps instead of asking who qualifies for PTSD, we should ask a different question.
Why do we reserve our deepest compassion for suffering that carries a recognized diagnosis while overlooking the invisible burdens carried by countless others?
The greatest tragedies are not always the ones we see on the evening news. Sometimes they unfold quietly over decades behind a smile, inside a successful career, within a loving family, or behind the closed door of a lonely apartment.
The neighbor interviewed after an unexpected tragedy often says the same thing:
"He was a nice guy. Kept mostly to himself. He never caused no trouble."
What they could not see was the silent conversation taking place inside a wounded mind.
You cannot tell a hurt man how to holler.
Neither can you tell a hurt mind how to heal.
Perhaps the wisest course is to stop trying to rank human suffering altogether. We cannot measure another person's pain with any certainty. We cannot know which memory still haunts them or which unseen burden they carry.
But we can choose compassion.
Because every person we meet is fighting a battle we cannot see.
