Work stresses people. No one would argue with that statement. Deadlines, workload, and workplace relationships can all tax people to their breaking point. The question for me, though, is: Can work traumatize employees?
That’s a tough question. While I believe the response is debatable and can seem easy to answer within certain work environments (first responders, soldiers, therapists, etc), I think other gigs, on the surface, don’t yield obvious answers.
To me, though, I think any gig can become traumatic. Really, if a job circumstance injures someone’s perception of themselves to the point of functional impairment, the job has become traumatizing. I know several people whose work upends their life. Job duties and functions become untenable and they can no longer manage their work lives. When that happens, their families suffer, their health suffers, and there’s little hope for resolution.
Losing a sense of personal power is at the heart of trauma. When someone experiences a situation that is violent, sexually injurious, or psychologically damaging, they could meet criteria for PTSD if they exhibit certain symptoms. At the core of those symptoms is a loss of identity and a loss of a sense of safety. When people are traumatized, their functioning at even a basic level, eating and sleeping, becomes impaired.
The thing is, though, that when jobs rob people of their sense of self, they tend to exhibit similar symptoms to the soldier returning from battle. But “normal” gigs aren’t traumatizing in their nature, so when people experience impairments, they tell themselves that they need to decompress or de-stress.
Meanwhile, spouses leave. Affected employees drink more alcohol than they once did. People stop sleeping. All these happen because work gets “too stressful.”
But that’s not what’s happening.
When any situation wrecks someone’s relationship with their world, it’s traumatizing and not a simple matter of decompressing or coping. People need to rebuild themselves and restore a sense of identity. They shouldn’t continue telling themselves that work will become less stressful or that it’ll get better. Those are just bromides that don’t really help anything.
Therefore, to me, any gig can traumatize someone, if that gig robs someone of basic personal power. When that happens, I recommend that when a gig becomes traumatizing, people get help before it’s too late. Gigs are always temporary. They shouldn’t get to destroy someone’s home. To learn more about the symptoms of PTSD, please click here.
(on a whole other note, please check out this post on guitarmestizo.com…)
