What’s your biggest work-related fear or nightmare? The prevalence of virtual meetings has likely made some of them come true – not wearing pants to a meeting and being seen, forgetting where you are and doing God knows what on camera, etc.? These are things that can obviously traumatize you (possibly others too). Can you live this stuff down and go on? Have you ever experienced trauma related to your job or career? If you haven’t yet, consider yourself lucky. If you think it won’t happen to you, think again…it can happen to anyone and when it does, the impact can take some time to fade.

Let’s dive in a little on how one experiences trauma at work. Here is a list, by no means comprehensive, but some ways in which we can experience trauma in the workplace.

• You get fired or laid off
• You get physically hurt on the job
• You get reprimanded or corrected in front of others
• You get ignored or feel invisible
• You aren’t making any friends at work – you don’t fit in
• You’re passed over for promotion losing out to someone less qualified
• You’re being harassed or bullied at work or observing harassment or bullying behavior that never gets addressed

I’m sure there are many other things that belong on this list that I haven’t thought of and if you’re wondering what criteria has to be met to qualify as trauma, I’ll share that with you. The APA (American Psychological Association) defines trauma in the following way:

“Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. While these feelings are normal, some people have difficulty moving on with their lives.”

Even though this definition is relating to things not related specifically to work, I’d say from my own personal experience that it does apply here. We spend most of our time working. One of the first questions you get asked when meeting someone new is “what do you do?” or “where do you work?” What happens to us at work, both positive and negative, we may tend to carry around with us after-hours. 

You can see by the APA definition that the reactions can be both physical and psychological. Our bodies have an interesting way of manifesting our emotions. Ever had a stomachache or headache on Sunday night thinking about going back to work the next morning? That’s a real sign that something’s not right. You might not categorize that as trauma, but there’s something going on there to cause that physical reaction.

The APA definition also defines PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as symptoms that can include flashbacks, sadness, nightmares, anger – all things that can occur with trauma on the job. It manifests itself differently for different people and has degrees of severity. It can be mild and show up on occasion and make you momentarily sad, or it can be triggered and cause you to want to fly into a rage – and usually at someone completely unrelated to the issue.

Recognizing trauma in your life is critical. Sometimes you can just have a bad day, right? You might come home and yell at your partner when they really don’t deserve it, or you may lose sleep for a night or two, due to whatever messed up your day. But, if you’re consistently coming home and taking things out on your partner or losing sleep and it’s triggered by the events of the day, it could be trauma for you and it’s definitely trauma for your partner. Recognizing your emotions and patterns of behavior related to those emotions are critical in assessing and managing the situation.

There are going to be different ways of managing trauma from work depending on the circumstances. If it has to do with harassment or bullying, it needs to be reported to and investigated by your HR department. There should be no retaliation whatsoever for pursuing this and if there is, please bring those to the attention of HR as well.

Another method to manage a trauma at work is to evaluate and get some perspective on the situation. Sometimes what happening or has happened and your perception of the situation isn’t necessarily what’s true. What’s true is how that perception makes you feel. It’s easy to make assumptions about what others are thinking or talking about. It’s easy to misinterpret the written word – emails are classic for being misinterpreted. Also, something that seems bad for you that happens isn’t necessarily your fault or some kind of failure on your part. If you could have done something different or better, acknowledge that, but don’t dwell on it. Hindsight is 20/20 and either way, you are headed down a different path and likely a better one for you in the long run too. Think instead about the value that you added and will continue to bring with you. Focus on your capabilities and capitalize on those. There are other companies, people, etc. out there too that need exactly what you have to offer. You do have options.  

Depending on the circumstances though, you may want to seek counseling in order to work through trauma, especially in the case of harassment and bullying. You have to take care of yourself and that means both your physical and mental well-being. We shouldn’t even separate the two because you need both and they impact each other. Even if you think you’re fine, and you tell everyone that you are, your subconscious may not be convinced. It’s amazing how our minds can harbor emotions, fears and sadness so we can continue to function. It does fester though and can hit you like a ton of bricks out of nowhere physically and really take you out of commission. Anxiety, for example can be very debilitating and can come on completely unprovoked. It can mimic symptoms of a heart attack and can trigger panic attacks. It isn’t fun to deal with, trust me. My point is, do what’s right for you and get help if you need it from a doctor, therapist or coach.  

Organizations are made up of people, people make mistakes, including you. It’s impossible to avoid all traumatic events that can be part of your life at work. Some things we can control and some we can’t.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that your instincts will start to whisper, then talk, then shout at you when something’s not right. That can be trauma past, present or future trying to tell you something. Listen to your instincts and be honest with yourself about what’s driving that. Is it within your sphere of control? Can you do something about it, can you do something about you that might renavigate things? Is it too much, not working anymore and time for a change of scenery? Take the time to really think about and evaluate it as if you were doing so for a very good friend. Likely that will give you the perspective you need to do what’s best for you that will help you emerge wiser, stronger and happier. Fear not!

J