I feel like I very often read that death, rape and destruction was rife from the stone-age to victorian times and history never seems to touch on the trauma caused by this.
Woman lost so many children it was normal, but that didn't mean they weren't traumatised? I think historians and authors miss this out.
Also, were marriages and partnerships so loveless? Did cave people fall in love? Or did the man just grab a woman?
Disease before antibiotics were was incredibly common, and often fatal, but did that mean people weren't distressed when their loved ones became ill?
I just feel the human element of history is often overlooked. Or am I wrong? I hope I am.
I just feel the human element of history is often overlooked. Or am I wrong? I hope I am.
I submit that, given the premises of your question, you've largely been looking at the wrong things. No surprise, considering what Common Knowledge throws at people.
I unfortunately have a very pressing deadline at present, so I'm afraid I can only do a rather basic search on the matters you ask about. But I do have some previous threads for your attention. Also, warning for emotional content in the first two links, dealing as they do with grief.
Also, this is clear bias showing, but if you want the human element of history - with a special focus on the Middle Ages - I highly recommend u/sunagainstgold's flair profile and top-voted posts. I binged them a few weeks ago and am most assuredly much richer for the experience.
The era I'm most familiar with, the three kingdoms of China (184/190-280) was undoubtedly a brutal civil war with much suffering to millions. Focus on those coming into the era can be very much on the big battles, the politics that shaped the empire, a few "great man" figures for people coming into it, not on the trauma when people come across the era. The "big" or the "exciting" rather then the personal (also on dealing with history vs the influential novel romance of the three kingdoms).
With the primary sources of Chen Shou, Pei Songzhi and co there is that "normal things didn't get recorded because they were normal". Entire SGZ biographies (the main source SGZ is constructed as a series of biographies and rulers biographies acting as annals) could give the impression that such figures didn't eat, sleep, mourn, joke, love because these weren't always recorded.
It was assumed that the person lived, ate, slept, mourned and so on, no need to record such unremarkable basic things, mourning was entirely expected and there were ways to mourn properly so would be scandals if one didn't. What would get recorded if something happened during it or what they did was unusual or it caused some sort of problem (or if they didn't do such things). With that there is still plenty of mourning, concerns, pain that was recorded. Modern historians like Rafe De Crespigny and Michael Farmer do point to the personal incidents, the love and the mourning, what incidents say about the characters and the times they lived in.
There are examples of the things you seek. Woman losing their child and mourning? Woman in the era were not well recorded with only Empresses getting biographies but one example stands out. In a Weilue annotation in Empress Bian's SGZ: Lady Ding, wife of the warlord Cao Cao, had no children but took over the care of eldest son Cao Ang and loved him dearly. In 197 the warlord Zhang Xiu surrendered the city of Wan but as Cao Cao behaved arrogantly, Zhang Xiu feared for his life and attacked.
Cao Cao was caught off guard, Cao Ang gave up his horse so Cao Cao (at this time, son sacrificing self for father was expected rather then other way around) could escape and was killed. Ding was deeply unhappy and did not forgive Cao Cao (possibly made worse by Cao Cao sleeping with Zhang Xiu's aunt being one of the behaviors that went down badly with Zhang Xiu), they had many arguments. Cao Cao sent her back to her parents to cool things off then later went to visit, she sat at her loom and kept her back to Cao Cao rather then speak to him. He stroked her back and asked if they could get back together, he got no reply, on leaving he turned at the door and asked if it was over, getting no reply he agreed to a divorce.
Marriages were mostly arranged, the Jin senior officer Jia Chong's eldest daughter Jia Wu did marry Han Shou for love but usually it was arranged marriages or select into harem. We do get examples of partnership and love (or were it went horribly wrong) but mostly marriages just, as far as the records go, happened. We don't get to see behind the curtains as it were.
Yet we do see things, of Han Emperor Ling composing a rhapsody for concubine Wang when she died after giving birth (possibly killed, possibly complication from said childbirth). We have figures like Tang Ji (lead concubine to short lived Han Emperor Bian) or Wu leading official Zhuge Jin refusing to remarry after their spouse died. He Shao's biography of the scholar Xun Can talks of the provocative scholar marrying the daughter of the general Cao Hong, of lavishing money, time and gifts upon on her and when she died of a fever despite his best efforts, he mourned so deeply that it raised concerns among his friends before he died just over a year after her.
In terms of people getting worried about someone falling ill, one that comes straight to mind is Lu Meng (the fatally ill) and Sun Quan (the worried). In 219 Lu Meng masterminded and led the seizure of Jing but always sickly, he became fatally ill afterwards. His lord Sun Quan was nearby and took him into quarters next to his own lodgings at Gongan, summoning every medical expert he could with promises of gold if Lu Meng could be saved. From Rafe De Crespigny's translation of the relevant passage in Lu Meng's SGZ in his work Generals of the South
When acupuncture was applied, Sun Quan was miserable for him.
He constantly wished to see Lü Meng's face but was afraid to
be a nuisance, so he would peer through a hole in the wall to see how
he looked.
If he saw Lü Meng could eat a little, Sun Quan would turn and
smile to those about him and would even laugh. If Lü Meng refused
his food, however, Sun Quan would sigh, and at night he could not
sleep.
Then Lü Meng got better, an amnesty was given in celebration,
and all Sun Quan's ministers sent in their congratulations.
Later, however, he had a relapse, and Sun Quan went in person
to attend him, and he ordered Taoist masters to pray under the stars
on his behalf.
Lü Meng died, at the age of forty-two, in the inner apartments.
Sun Quan was struck with the utmost grief and distress.
This is just one era of history in one country and a few examples of such things. These people, as did other ancient peoples, felt such emotions, they loved, they mourned, they worried, they hurt, they rejoiced. Such things were not recorded in every instance but plenty of examples in the sources exist be it in the hands of historians or their own writings. It perhaps is just not always the first thing people coming into the history find or look for but I hoped this helped in some way.
Sources:
Rafe De Crespigny Generals of the South and A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms 23–220 AD
Empress and Consorts by William Cromwell and Joe Cutter
Howard Goodman's Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third-Century AD China
Zhuge Jin SGZ by Chen Shou translated by Yang Zhengyuan