ENTERTAINMENT 

~ There are certainly more than listed below, but this is giving you an idea of what I mean by traumatic superpowers.

Superman- When Kal-El was a baby, he not only lost his family, he lost his whole planet. Krypton blew up moments after his parents sent him barreling through the cosmos to Earth in a spaceship.

Batman- In his youth Bruce Wayne witnessed the brutal murder of his father and mother by a street hoodlum. He vows to avenge their deaths by declaring war on all criminals and dons the bat cape and cowl to frighten his enemy. And thus is born this weird figure of the dark 

Avengers Acadamy- most of the kids, except for Reptil and Finesse, manifest their powers in such a way, with the crowning example probably being Striker manifesting his to fend off his child-molesting manager.

FLASH - He experienced tragedy early in life. When he was a child, his mother was murdered and his father was blamed for it. As a result, his father has been in jail for most of Allen’s life, despite maintaining his innocence. Allen believes his father and strives to find the real guilty party. While it isn’t until years later that a lightning bolt causes Allen to develop super-speed, his early experiences inform his desire to use his new abilities to fight for justice. He realizes his powers can help prevent others from suffering the loss of a loved one, either due to crime or miscarriages of justice.

WOLVERINE-The mutant powers of Logan, aka Wolverine, are often more of a curse than a blessing. His powers first manifest themselves when the former groundskeeper of his parents’ estate kills his father. Logan has been experimented on and used by people with nefarious ends. HULK - Bruce Banner is a brilliant scientist, but when he’s exposed to gamma radiation as a result of his research, he gets more than he bargains for. He triggers his transformation into the Hulk, a green rage-monster that dwells inside him.

Spiderman - Peter Parker was orphaned as a baby and was raised by his poor but loving Uncle Ben and Aunt May. As a teenager, Parker develops superpowers after he’s bitten by a radioactive spider. 

Stranger Things-The girl — whom we call Eleven after the tattooed “011” on her arm — turns out to be an escapee from the government lab suspected by Joyce and Detective Hopper. As we learn, she was taken from her drugged-out mom — a willing participant in the CIA’s famed Project MKULTRA — and experimented upon for her telekinetic abilities. Through nightmarish flashbacks, we see how a man whom she calls Papa experimented on Eleven for her entire childhood, subjecting her to psychologically damaging tests to assess the extent of her powers which, as we soon find out, enable her to access an alternate dimension habituated by a carnivorous beast.

THE OA -  The OA: An Allegory for Healing Trauma

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW-  Started in the 1960’s by Dr. Mercurio Arboria (Hylands), the Arboria Institute helps people achieve “true happiness” and aims to link science with spirituality. In 1983, the facility is run by an odd man named Dr. Barry Nyle (Rogers). Nyle also keeps a young girl named Elena (Allan) under heavy sedation in the complex where she has developed very strong, often lethal, mental powers. Only a strange prism-like structure is able to keep her at bay. Nyle conducts strange experiments on Elena, who seems to be suffering in this place. Eventually, Elena starts to come out of the fog she is being kept under medically, and tries her best to escape the Arboria Institute.