Trauma In The Workplace
Workplace Trauma
The increasing emotional strain in the workplace can impact our mental health.Trauma can happen in any employment industry from professionals, healthcare workers, first responders, and caregivers. Stress at work can exacerbate your mental health symptoms as well as lead to anxiety or depression.
For instance, first responders can suffer inadequate or low staffing, working long shifts, and exposure to everyday trauma, making it increasingly more difficult to find a calm head-space while at work and at home. Encountering frequent critical occurrences, exposes first responders to emotional, cognitive, and behavioral struggles that can impair their ability to perform their jobs and function how they desire in their home- life. The signs of anxiety disorders include hypervigilance, anxiety, detachment, intrusive thoughts, poor attention, isolation, and restlessness and may also lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as addictive behaviors. Additionally, some first responders struggle with microaggressions, passive-aggressive behavior, or workplace bullying.
Microaggression
Microaggressions are insensitive remarks, inquiries, or assumptions directed at socially and marginalized disadvantaged groups, and can affect anyone from any background and at any professional level.
Communities or identities that can be targeted include, but are not limited to:
- Race
- Gender
- Age
- Sexual orientation
- Disability
Some examples of microaggression:
“Wow, you're a lot different from other Black firefighters.”
“No offense sweetheart, but I would feel safer with a male [police] partner.”
“You’re over 40 year old, are you adequate for this job?”
Microaggressions can have a big impact since they fundamentally represent inequity and show disrespect; they should be treated seriously.
Passive-Aggression
Passive-aggressive behavior is an indirect form of resistance, in which a person appears to comply with the expectations and needs of others but resists them through behaviors like manipulation, inaction, or playing dumb. This behavior is common among employers and coworkers. It is a tacit but powerful method of avoiding the results of an open discussion and direct disclosure of a problem.
Some cases of passive-aggressive behaviors:
Deciding against taking any action that could stop a problem from happening
Befriending you and other co-workers, but spread rumors about them
Being dismissive about suggestions or ideas
Workplace Bullying
The constant torment is a defining feature of workplace bullying. It may affect your life, job, and even physical and mental health. Additionally, because of many power dynamics and hierarchies at work, many victims of bullying endure their suffering in silence.
Another option is more overt bullying, such as belittling, humiliating, and shunning someone in public. Regardless of the methods employed, office bullies are typically adept social manipulators who advance at work by intimidating others.
Some examples of workplace bullying:
Persistent teasing and pranks that clearly go beyond that of affectionately including someone as “just one of the guys”
Holding targeted officers to higher, even impossible, standards of performance than the rest
Ways for overcoming trauma at work:
Give yourself room to finally experience all of your feelings.
Take a break. Giving yourself time to recuperate is the first step in getting over a distressing professional event.
Report to human resources about the possible discrimination or harassment and how it impacts your work and day- day life.
Seek out the assistance of close friends, family, and professionals in your place of employment.
What is trauma?
What is trauma?
Trauma is the emotional, physical or cognitive reaction as a result of a distressing or disturbing situation that you may have experienced. Although, learning about an horrific event or witnessing it can be enough to feel overwhelming. When people think about trauma and its definition, the initial thought is believed that trauma only occurs as a result of abuse or a natural disaster. At Invisible Wounds Therapy and Wellness, we define trauma as "anything that has had a negative impact on you," acknowledging that no experience is too big or too small to deserve healing.
Understanding trauma, its triggers, and how to recover and manage it is critical. Trauma can transform the way a person views themselves, others, and the environment around them. Everyone's emotional, physical or cognitive response is different and the factors that influence it are distinct. Trauma can occur in adults as well as in children. Traumatic incidents can occur at any age and can have long-term consequences. While we can often “bounce- back” from experiences that have left a negative impact on us, without support, or left untreated, it can turn into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other “clinical” concerns such as depression or anxiety.
There are three categories of trauma: acute, chronic, and complex. Acute trauma is often caused by a single “recent” occurrence (often within the last 3 months). If the trouble you are experiencing as a result of it is left unsupported and untreated, it can lead to chronic trauma (reactions or symptoms lasting 3 months or more). Complex trauma is often the result of multiple exposures of “negatively impacting events,” within a short time- frame or life- time. For instance, childhood abuse or neglect.
First responders, for example, can suffer from chronic trauma and may be subject to complex trauma as a result of their life-experiences as well as demanding and dangerous work environments. According to National Alliance on Mental Illness, “it’s estimated that 18-24% of dispatchers and 35% of police officers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder”. Being the first to arrive on the scene, putting their life at risk and assisting people in challenging situations over long periods of time, including possible lack of sleep and self- care, can be very taxing.
The same is true for caregivers who may experience caregiver burnout or compassion fatigue, resulting in physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. Caregivers may witness traumatic incidents such as a loved one's medical emergency, repeated hospital emergency room and ICU visits, acute confusion, or devastating falls and injuries. These events can also be classified as a form of trauma. Caregiver burnout occurs when stressed caregivers do not receive the help they require, or when they attempt to do more than they are capable of, resulting in a shift in feelings from caring to compassion fatigue, a type of stress caused by caring for others. Unlike burnout, compassion fatigue strikes immediately leading to emotional and physical exhaustion and grows over time.
While all of the stress and traumatic events are occurring, it is best to seek help and healing.
Being honest with yourself, seeking support from family and friends and ultimately a professional can begin the step to healing. If you find yourself reacting more quickly than is helpful, experience difficulty sleeping, over or under- eating, nightmares, find yourself sad, isolating or very irritable, and often “triggered,” we encourage you to seek help. In therapy, the goal isn’t to judge or to discriminate, but to offer a safe space for you, a platform to process your history and a way to learn how to manage and experience well-being.