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Dear Reader,

I'd like to share something personal with you.

(Trigger warning: I'll be sharing about depression, anxiety, and trauma.)

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When the doctor told me I have depression and anxiety, I felt both denial and relief. On the one hand, I didn’t think it was true, because I’d lived with it for so long, I thought being depressed and stressed was just my personality. The relief came when I realized that “the way I am” was actually “the ways I’m suffering”.

That was over 6 years ago.

Then 2 years ago, I started learning about trauma. Thanks to doctors and therapists like Gabor Maté, Bessel van der Kolk, Julianne Shore, and Linda Thai, I discovered that depression and anxiety can signal something deeper.

A person can have mental illness without having trauma, but trauma symptoms often look like mental illness. Unless the doctor knows what to look for, and asks the right questions, trauma is easily misdiagnosed.

Once I changed my lens and saw what trauma really is, I was able to recognize my own, and to begin healing the root cause(s) of my depression and anxiety.

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From “I’m the problem” to “I have problems”

It turns out trauma is much more common than is usually portrayed in the news (just like mental illness used to be).

Trauma is more than PTSD (just like mental illness is more than depression).

Being traumatized doesn’t mean you’re a victim (just like being mentally ill doesn’t mean you’re crazy).

In reality, science shows us that:

If these definitions of trauma are new to you, you’re not alone — they’re (relatively) new in the medical community too! For example, PTSD only became an official diagnosis in 1980 (although wars have happened since the beginning of time). And Gabor Maté notes that medical schools don’t teach future doctors enough (or at all) about trauma:

No wonder we’re just beginning to appreciate what trauma is — the science on this is just starting to become known and accepted, even within the medical community.

So it’s not surprising that families, workplaces, and society in general aren’t accepting or aware of the true nature of trauma. People with trauma are being invalidated, and trauma itself remains largely invisible.

As a person with CPTSD (self-identified), I’ve experienced this first hand.

If you’ve been traumatized, maybe you have too.

Invalidation is especially likely if your trauma relates to issues from systemic inequity and oppression, such as:

• Feeling like you don’t fit in with your ethnic community or your white-majority country of residence
• Being told “hard work pays off” and “you’ll get your just rewards”…except you’re not (while others who aren’t working as hard as you are)
• Feeling incompetent, incapable, and useless because you can’t do the impossible (e.g. be a great Parent + Spouse + Leader + Person) without burning out or disappointing others

That’s why I’m dedicated to raising awareness about invisible, invalidated trauma, especially from racial/gender/financial inequity.

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Trauma is the New Mental Health

One place where trauma is particularly invisible-ized and invalidated is the workplace, even more so now that companies are ditching DEI.

Which is similar to how employers treated mental health and other “woke” initiatives when they first became known. Remember when women “overreacted” to men’s unwanted advances? When burned out employees were “weak” and “lazy”?

Sadly, these attitudes still exist against women and mental health, but they are being countered by a growing number of allies and supporters.

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At this point, I’d like to re-introduce myself:

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Reader, will you join me?

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Yours in wellness,

Rosie

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Change Your Lens

Trauma, health, and human rights are closely linked. Check out these upcoming UN International Days related to those topics:

​ ​International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, November 29​

​International Day of Persons with Disabilities, December 3​

​Human Rights Day, December 3​

​International Universal Health Coverage Day, December 12​

Career Unicorns Podcast Episode 152:

Recovering from trauma, finding self-acceptance, and leading with compassion

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Have you met Samorn Selim? She's a lawyer turned career coach on a mission for us to take our careers from dread to joy. And she's the host of the "Career Unicorns - Spark Your Joy" podcast.

On this recent episode, we discussed the challenges that marginalized communities face and how this plays out in mental health and workplace dynamics, including:

• Why mental health stigma persists, especially in immigrant communities, and what you can do to overcome these barriers.
• How trauma can be intergenerational and deeply rooted in family history.
• What to do when you face racist behaviors.
• Why systemic discrimination affects perceptions of performance and capability.

You can listen to the full episode in the embedded player below, on Apple, Spotify, Career Unicorns, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Recovering from trauma, find... Oct 15 · Career Unicorns - Spark... 49:44   ​

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