Most My Knowledge Is From 2003 - Tumblr Posts

He sfjckinh newly 13 and be had to dea wigh this shit. That's zmth a lot of people don't seem to realize, how old Ed is throughout the series amx what shit he had to go through.

His dad abandoned him and his brother, his mom died, he had to raise Al himself basically, he went through the trauma of literally watching his brother fade from existence (at least on a physical level), he lost two limbs, he had to go through one of the more evasive anx painful surgeries there was, he joined the military, he ended up getting kidnapped and nearly murdered (along with Winry), he basically helped tucker make Nina as a chimera, he dealt with getting poisoned, stabbed a few times, shot at, watching a guy's brains go explode on the pavement, having his automail forcibly disconnected from his nerves a few times, he had his arm blown up while it was still connected to him, he was threatened with either himself dying or both he and his brother, he nearly killed a whole group of people as means of creating a philosopher's stone, he had been hunted by the homunculi and probably regular people too; And this is only some of the shit! It's not even all of it!

That boy has been through hell and back, he's got a lot of trauma and then some.

Remember, he is just a child. (In fmab, leading up to the Promised Day, he's only 15-16. In 03, ep 51, he's 15. Even still, in COS he's only 18, just barely an adult!) A severely traumatized child at that.

03 vs Brotherhood: An Alchemist’s Anguish (Part 2)