Those who grew up in difficult situations can often discover the intensity of what they went through from the reactions of the people they tell their stories to.
After all, it's very possible to get used to circumstances that would horrify others because we were exposed to them at a young age. This goes double if everyone around us at the time also didn't react like anything out of the ordinary was happening.
But while this is something that people can spend a lifetime dealing with, it's also possible to experience this realization on a much smaller, more fleeting scale. For instance, we can take a photo next to something incredibly dangerous and not realize it until months, if not years later.
It's hard to express that resulting discomfort in picture form, but these images are probably the closest we can get.