To think some people are “stuck” not because of trauma, but because they’re lazy?

[ThatRealPinkTraybake]

Obviously trauma is real and can be life-altering. But some people hide behind it when they really just don’t want to make hard changes or do uncomfortable work. AIBU to think that not every case of being “stuck” is deep - sometimes it’s just avoiding effort?

Who gets to make that assessment though, no one knows everything about someone else. You may not see any obvious trauma but it can still be there, I’ve seen the most apparently innocent situations trigger an extreme trauma response in someone. To the outside it looked like an extreme response to nothing but in the context of that persons experience it had a whole different meaning and impact.

Accessing decent trauma therapy is no easy thing, and even then something can catch you completely off guard. Instead of judging others, I’d be thankful life hadn’t dealt me such a hand.

I think to make hard changes or do uncomfortable work covers a huge spectrum of possibilities.

I have a diagnosis of ptsd and have had 2 years of therapy on the NHS. I have come a long way but I still have days when I want to die, where getting out of bed feels impossible and where I feel everyone can see how useless and damaged I am.

I'd love to go back to work properly but I've yet to figure out how to turn off the self sabotaging voices in my head. The anxiety I feel about being less than perfect and of actually being seen. The lack of sleep, the nightmares and the jumpiness are all still very present. Also the fields in which I used to work and ideally would return to, I'd need to disclose my diagnosis and we all know stigma is absolutely a thing. Plus I don't really like discussing it. Most people including mental health professionals fail to hide the look of pity and horror which slides across their faces when they hear what led to the diagnosis.

I've tried medication (SSRIs made me very ill, psychiatrist refused to prescribe any others). I've tried multiple types of therapy. I even got a psychology degree to try and better understand my issues. I run and I cook mostly from scratch. I don't know what else to try to be honest. All of the above were hard and uncomfortable. Therapy was horrendous. I'd leave feeling wrung out and so emotionally vulnerable. Then when I perhaps needed the support the most, they suspended it for 6 months because my father had just died (I was also 6 months pregnant at the time).

So yes I think I'm stuck. I understand the principles of varying types of therapy but can't seem to wrap my head around applying unjudgementally to myself. I can't take drugs they won't prescribe. I already exercise and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. I do lots of volunteering across the week so if I do reach the stage of being stable enough to work...I have lots of uptodate practical examples to give on an application.

I went through something less than 2 weeks ago, that was pretty traumatic to me. I nearly died, I needed emergency surgery, lost 2ltrs of blood. I've actually spent the day today crying on the sofa and I'm not even sure why. I'm sure I will move on from it, it's early days yet and my body is still sore but I don't know how I feel about someone else deciding what is 'actually traumatic' and what isn't. To me, my experience was traumatic, even if to someone else it might be a 'regular life event'.

Its a difficult conversation and relative to your own life i suppose. Having had real trauma if we want to call it that, i could be stuck and at times it has been debilitating but my mindset from the off is life still goes on. Therapy has helped but as has already been pointed out, unless you can afford private, it's limited resources.

I'm in no way fixed but from the outside my life looks pretty normal, even within days and weeks of the trauma i'm confident people would have said the same. You can't stay still and even if you could i'm not sure it would do you any good.

That being said someone i know is going through a difficult time that they consider a trauma. They are self sabotaging massively and continue to do so even though they know they are because through all the therapy they have had they seem to have concluded that that's ok to do that because of their trauma. I can't see them ever moving forward with that state of mind. So i can understand how that can be perceived that way.

Since you don't know people's individual circumstances it's pointless.

No and hell no.
Coping with and recovering from trauma is hard. Laziness!!

What’s your skin in the game? Why do you care?

This exactly!
Laziness, bloody cheek!!!

I’m torn. I’ve been there where I was stuck. I was thriving, I was only 20 - I had my own flat, my own car, my own job that I was moving up and succeeding in. I had a social life, I had hobbies and I was just loving life. Then I met my abuser, I ended up been abused to the point that I had severe anxiety and depression, I was suicidal and I couldn’t see a point to life anymore. I was off sick at work for months and months because I physically couldn’t get out of bed. I wasn’t lazy, but if you have ever been so depressed - you have no physical or mental energy and you cannot physically do anything: the basic tasks like even bathing you’re unable to cope with. I couldn’t even brush my hair and had to cut chunks from my hair where it had matted so bad. Everything felt heavy. So unless you experience it - you can call it lazy all you want but I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

that being said, I do know people who claim mental health and take away the resources from people who need it. This one woman openly bragged about conning the system and whilst I think she was mentally unwell in the fact that she had NPD - she openly admitted she told pip and uc that her anxiety was so severe that she couldn’t leave the house. So she didn’t work and got the adjacent benefits but it was because she was lazy and either sat in her home all day smoking weed or sitting in the pub all day drinking and going out partying every weekend.

so there are genuine people who struggle with mental health but there are also the people who make the genuine people look like liars because they’re frauding the system

That’s really sad.
Are you okay now?

🍿👀

How do you tell the difference when there is no help for mental health issues

I suspect the post was intended to compound the current narrative that those struggling have probably brought it on themselves and not tried hard enough.

Honestly, the world we live in now actively discourages seeking support, and at the same time expecting people who can barely function to be pro-active. I lurk alot on the bereavement board, and on here, and see post after post about the "needy" bereaved, about setting boundaries, about not expecting family or friends to be "emotional support humans", about how exhausting it is dealing with people going through demonstrably shitty experiences. I see post after post about people being unable to access professional support.

You can't have it all ways, you can't espouse what is basically toxic positivity when humans are far more complex creatures, and not just organic computers that need re-booting. Everyone is the product of upbringing, environment and circumstance, and some people get dealt a shittier hand than others. Some appear to get through it, but they're still scarred and perhaps just hide it well. How they get there may be a rocky road of self harm and self medication, and some people can't find their way off that road.

And yes, I am taking this all "too personally" because it is personal.

Hugs to all in the shitty club of being "stuck" or having been stuck for a time.

The big point is that when you are stuck, trauma is like industrial strength super glue, and you feel like a solitary goldfish swimming round a bowl wondering if your brain will ever let you out to swim in the big aquarium again.

@paradisecityx it affects everyone in many ways. There is the business owner who is dealing with staff who claim sickness at the slightest thing, bullying if expected to make their kpi’s or want a stupid salary without experience because they are able wish things into existence. Or the parent whose child can’t or won’t take opportunities or leave home because they can’t cope. Or the partner who ends up being on the receiving end of good old fashioned CF’ery and cock lodging tendencies because there is no sense that people should have a bit of self reliance and not sponge off other people…

It's important to highlight too that trauma is different to PTSD. Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, or natural disaster. It's the emotions you experience after a distressing event. Trauma can be everyday things like a bereavement or finding out about infidelity or losing your job, everyone reacts to things differently. PTSD on the other hand is a disorder that can develop after a traumatic event, and is very treatable. Trauma is a normal, run of the mill life experience for all humans, unless you're incredibly lucky and sheltered and cosseted.

@Yellowduster Look up the differences between PTSD and complex PTSD. Complex PTSD includes emotional flashbacks, and problems with emotional regulation. The problem is not that it’s treatable - it’s getting the treatment!

Yes, all humans suffer trauma like bereavements, car accidents, medical treatment; the difference is when the trauma is repetitive and the person cannot escape from it - like slavery, torture, domestic violence, etc.

Sometimes people keep going then fall apart later. Sometimes work is a break from the reality of the tragedy.

I kept going after a horrible tragedy, still got top grades in every module, still top of my year. Still volunteering and doing sport and socialising. It was because staying busy was easier than thinking.
I very much feel apart years later. Tragedy hits people in different ways at different times, and people cope in different ways. Working very hard and being busy doesn't make me impressive, it was just my coping mechanism

It can also be undiagnosed ADHD, depression, anxiety, etc etc etc. So many things, not just trauma.

No shit Sherlock. How vast is this topic though. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re dealing with dysfunctional ways until you’re a bit older. For example I had the shit beaten out of me by my parents and was sexually abused by an uncl. Didn’t realise that’s why I was a bit quirky until I got into my 40s. Sorry.

Avoidance can be a symptom of trauma and I’m not denying that at all. But what I think I’m asking is when does it stop being a trauma response and become a pattern of avoidance that someone’s unwilling to work through?

My post isn’t saying all trauma = laziness, I’m questioning how we distinguish between genuine trauma-based responses and when the trauma label might be used to dodge accountability or uncomfortable growth. It’s not about attacking anyone struggling. It’s about asking where the line is and how we talk about it.

i was in an accident. My foot was mangled and I had to have operations and a lot of physio. I use a wheelchair now because I can’t walk far.

i won’t drive down the road the accident happened on.

i’m not sure how that makes me lazy.

It's hard to distinguish especially when no help is available on the NHS. So self-diagnosis has spread.

surely it depends on individual situations. A relatively minor thing may have come on the back of 3 bloody awful things in a very short period of time only you're not necessarily aware of the full picture. Not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve or wants to talk (relive) about the experience. The death of a parent who had cancer for 3 years and was aged 80, dying with their closest family around them is very different to literally having your dementia ridden 80 year old mum walk out the house, take 4 days to be found and when she is found, she's clearly experienced a terrible, drawn out death all alone.

It's easier to be resilient if you have a supportive network, money in the bank and no worries about where the next meal is coming from. Harder if your house is damp, you can't afford to put the heating on and you're worrying about how you're doing to feed your children, let alone the abuse you suffered for years at the hands of an ex who has just made contact after getting out of prison for beating you to within an inch of your life.

Context is everything. Stop pretending that you know everything about everything and everyone. Some people's lives are far harder than you understand from the surface level relationship you have with them.

Oh I didn’t think that. I have childhood trauma and I’m not disabled. Perhaps I’m being naive.

a few things can be true op yes that will be true for some not for others. And some will be la y but some will be you know err traumatised and that limits their whole outlook on life.

it’s almost like trauma is different for different people abs how they react to it is different. Who knew op (well you op if you’d an ounce of emotional intelligence).

Yeah right op, why use lazy. Just crack on with your pop.