She has clearly not healed from the trauma of this, and her mother is 100% to blame.

Sometimes, people are unaffected by events that would be life-altering for others. Some plane crash survivors can get back on a plane days after their crash, and others are unable to ever get on a plane for the rest of their lives. Obviously, both of these cases require some mental health intervention, because nobody is totally unaffected by something like that, but everyone is built differently. Freaking out at the merest suggestion of turbulence does not make you a weak person, nor does being completely stoic in an emergency make you a strong person.

If an event was traumatic for you, ignoring the trauma and letting it fester for years is only going to make it worse. Everyone has a different idea about what «overcoming your fears» looks like. Who could forget those episodes of Maury where he would brandish pickles in front of women who were deathly afraid of pickles? I think most of us can agree that that’s not the most ethical strategy, but if not that, then what? Exposure therapy works in a lot of cases, but some are way too severe for that to be the first step.