I see two reads on the above normal emotional intelligence claim. One is that normal levels of CPTSD cause reduced emotional intelligence and the other is that you need to be betrayed and subjected to gaslighting in order to know what being betrayed and gaslit feels like.https://twitter.com/ben_r_hoffman/status/1216799885158166530 …
It helps to be subjected to trauma to understand what it takes to work through trauma, and the things you encounter while doing it allow you to construct better models of the psychology of others and yourself. (But you learn best about gaslighting by manipulating others.)