Wounds that Time Can’t Heal: Life Satisfaction and Exposure to Traumatic Events

•We study the effects of exposure to traumatic life events on subjective well-being.•Life satisfaction is negatively related to some extremely adverse events.•The correlation between life satisfaction and traumatic events is domain-specific.•The effects of some events are persistent over time and mostly related to women.•Surprisingly, the effects of child death are negligible also in the short term.