Why we need to talk about trauma at work.
And why should we care in the context of neurodivergence in the workplace?
First of all, let’s explore what trauma is.
What Is Trauma
Trauma is the body’s reaction to uncontrollable events or threats, either perceived (because they are based upon experiences of the past) or real.
Trauma is stored in the body if we don’t have the skills or mechanisms to process it, but more on that later. Events that can trigger trauma are wide and varied. Events like abuse, war, neglect are the obvious situations that can trigger a trauma response in humans. But other events, like having a medical or dental procedure, the birth of a sibling or having a sibling who is thought of as smarter or more achieving, or being rejected by a friend can all be traumatic in their own right.
This is because trauma can happen very quickly, acutely. Or over a long period of time, chronically. Trauma can happen in key developmental stages when we are growing up. Or be termed complex trauma, which is as the result of many different factors taken into consideration over a long period of time.
The reason we are discussing trauma in this journal entry is because disabled and neurodivergent people are far more likely to have experienced a traumatic event or have complex trauma. This is partly down to their neurobiology, but also down to the stereotypes, stigmatisation of their condition, internalised and externalised ableism, and attitudes around disabilities within society.
Even our own government traumatises disabled people by making it extremely difficult to get access to and retain life saving financial benefits, and cutting essential services that disabled people rely on. For example, it takes on average 3-5 years to get a diagnosis of ADHD or Autism in the UK through the NHS.
Why Does it Matter at Work?
Even the process of diagnosis is traumatising, because the medical model focuses entirely on deficits. This creates a deep sense of shame and self-loathing, heaped upon the shame neurodivergent people already experience by being the ones that ‘don’t fit in’ or have had to mask their true identities their entire lives.
Given that it is estimated that at least a fifth of your organisation is made up of neurodivergent folk, this is why the conversation of trauma, and how trauma manifests and shows up, is crucial for organisations to open up.
Trauma in the Body and Mind
Unresolved trauma is the problem here. And trauma ends up unresolved and stored in our brains and bodies when the experience that traumatised us caused us to become immobilised.
That freeze state happens when our nervous systems go beyond fight or flight. That little squirt of adrenaline that you experience in a stressful situation, or when you are surprised or frightened in the moment, is galvanising. Adrenaline gives us the energy to fight back or escape - run away to safety.
But if our ability to fight back or flee is compromised, then our agency to do anything about that situation has been taken away.
Immobility can happen for two reasons:
Our brains sometimes put us into that freeze state. It isn’t a conscious thing, and we have no control over it. Something about that situation is so terrifying that the brain decides that to ‘act dead’ is the safer option. It is a completely base survival instinct. Do nothing, the predator will go away.
Sometimes we are restrained. Either physically. Or sometimes psychologically. This psychological restraint happens due to social conventions, hierarchies, and power plays by people who use their position to get what they want. Think of abuse and how coercive control and psychological manipulation are used as weapons to keep a survivor under the control of the abuser.
In the context of immobilisation, we have lost our agency. Our freedom to act.
That trauma stays in our bodies. Every time something happens that feels a bit like that original trauma, it layers more immobilisation upon us. It builds up and becomes something frustratingly intangible, but nonetheless extremely detrimental to our physical and mental health.
Trauma and Neurodivergence in the Workplace
Let’s make a working assumption that a fifth of your workforce is neurocomplex, let’s call it, and is likely to have experienced more than one moment of immobilising trauma in their lives.
Because of this on its own - removing their neurodivergent needs for a moment - they may have stronger, more emotional reactions to certain triggers than someone who doesn’t have the same neurocomplexities and traumatic experiences to navigate. You might not see those emotional reactions for a long time, because neurodivergent people, especially women, are conditioned to highly mask their differences. All you may see is someone whose performance goes up and down. Or takes time off sick regularly. Or works part time. Or who sometimes acts differently, or has significant mood changes.
Have you ever become truly curious about what is really causing these behaviours?
It doesn’t take a huge leap to consider that this group of people would benefit from a compassionate, kind approach. And gentle curiosity from their managers and people teams.
What would happen if we started to talk about trauma more often at work? Started to put psychological safety first. Started taking a look at how certain attitudes, approaches or behaviours can re-trigger and re-traumatise, especially if there are power imbalances inherent in the culture of your workplace.
A great place to start is to start to actively listen to your workforce. What are the conversations they are having, the concerns they are raising, telling you about their state of mind? Their sense of safety at work?
Because if you have a culture that is re-traumatising, putting those employees in a place where they feel immobilised and have lost their agency, your organisation is in danger. You risk losing the greatest asset you have. All those wonderful, complex, out of the box, problem solving, meta thinkers who if you nourish them well, will thrive and grow into brilliant leaders and change makers of the future.
It’s time we started a different conversation about trauma.
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