Is it trauma or Trauma?
I was speaking to someone recently, who disclosed some workplace harassment from a previous workplace that was still affecting them. I offhandedly mentioned that workplace PTSD is a thing that people in general are slowly looking at and writing about and she was surprised that this concept exists.
(She then asked if I would be interested in writing about it in a newsletter, and I am always open to ideas and requests if it's a subject I think I can write about. Got a request for me? Let me know!)
We associate PTSD with big events, like war or abuse or natural disasters. But there's not scale of traumatic events that you have to reach on order to be diagnosed with PTSD. There's certainly not a scale of what counts as a traumatic event. Anything can be traumatic, depending on what happened, the environment, the individual person, and the consequences of that experience. See more here: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/trauma/about-trauma/
Anything that is frightening and out of your control can be traumatic for you. It might not rise to the level of diagnosis, but that doesn't mean you don't experience trauma and the effects of trauma, including trauma responses.
Let's look at workplace harassment. It can be anywhere from 'people are bullying' to 'harassment that rises to a legal issue'.
If you're being bullied due to a protected characteristic, that can be a legal issue.
If you're being bullied just because, that won't rise to a legal issue, but it's still an issue that should be taken seriously.
Environment and individual history and circumstance can also make a difference in how you experience things. If you've been bullied or harassed in the past, the bullying you received at work might trigger memories and feelings from the past, compounding the issues.
If the bullying is coming from someone in power, there could be fears about keeping your job or developing at your job, which adds more fear and secrecy to the issue.
If you're going through something stressful outside of work, bullying can compound your feelings of being stressed, overwhelmed, or not safe, which can make things more traumatic.
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Then there's the ongoing consequences. If you learn to never ask a question of your boss because the answer comes with a side of snark, then you may carry this forward to new roles, which can affect your performance at the new role.
See more examples at Ask a Manager: https://www.askamanager.org/2014/11/are-you-haunted-by-your-last-bad-job.html
The effects of trauma can resolve by getting out of the environment and moving to a safer one, or it may need some work to move through them. Knowing how trauma can affect you and what trauma responses are can help you learn your own habits, see when you're having a trauma response, and allow you to respond with compassion and care.
Downplaying trauma, or your responses to those events doesn't make those feelings go away. Getting perspective can absolutely be helpful if something is overwhelming your thoughts and feelings. The reminder that this is a small part of your life and you have so much more going on can help make the feelings more manageable, but it doesn't mean you don't have to feel those feelings and work through them.
I think we think of Trauma as a big thing that is life altering and we don't like that idea, which leads us to downplay anything that we can, because it's not like we were at war, so it can't be Trauma. Just an event. A thing that happened.
You don't need to have a diagnosis to need to work through things, and you don't need to be forever defined by your trauma. You can show yourself compassion, sit with those feelings, and move through them to be a more centred, calmer space.
This is getting super long, so I'm going to wrap this here. I'll add some related reading, and I will expand on trauma in the next free newsletter (subscribe so you don't miss it!)