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?

Have you actually seen how bad the services are for people who you perceive as lazy? I've asked 8 times for help on something that might make my circumstances easier. The only response I've got so far has been to give me advice (out of date advice at that) of something I've been doing for 25 years.

I recently received a message which ironically relates to the help I've been asking for but is pure coincidence. The message states reply to this message with #message but there's no way to reply.

If my experience is a reflection of how others are being treated then it's no wonder people just give up. Are these people stuck through lack of effort or stuck because the system is skewed in such a way that it's virtually impossible to get help.

@paradisecityx or it could have been the way you look at it.

The boss who basically bullied me when I was starting out by making me repeat menial tasks countless times (think something similar to, but not, having to take all pieces of stationary out of a cupboard and put them back again because one pen was out of place). I took it as a lesson in perfect organisation. Or the person who wanted to destroy my reputation and ended up having to leave the industry because I basically challenged them to bring it on….

Clearly serious abuse or the such is not included in this but I am not talking about that. I am talking about people having absolutely no resilience or ability to get on with things that are much more common than people think.

This is a great analogy.

Yes, I’m disabled and I agree - some people just make excuses not to do anything.🤷‍♀️

Who?

Sure, some people can be "stuck" due to fear of the unknown, low self esteem, feeling what they are "stuck" with isn't necessarily worth the effort or upheaval of change, not seeing any examples of things being done differently, peer pressure, fear of judgement, there being a balance of things where if one thing gets better something else could be worse...

But yes trauma is a big way to be stuck, physically stuck in the body, disassociated from your life and yourself, with the nervous system feeling constantly under attack. You can see why it's easy to feel "stuck" when you are struggling to function at all.

Also sorry to state the obvious here but if someone is stuck in some way and says it's due to trauma it would be pretty inappropriate to assume they are lazy. Once you have experienced life changing trauma you would have no problem empathising. Trauma doesn't always look the way you think it might and could easily be someone stuck in functional freeze. I've spent years there after experienceing a big life rupture including fleeing abuse and sexual violence. To the outsider I was functioning but trauma affected absolutely everything.

Lovely characterisation of people who have experienced trauma. Trauma doesn't always look like someone curling in a ball and saying "I'm triggered". As I've said many people function with severe trauma reactions for years and you wouldn't know unless they told you.

Baffled by the logic of the OP. Unless someone explicitly tells everything about where the trauma came from and how it made them feel, how would you know they are truly traumatised or just avoiding? How exactly?

This is one of those stay in your lane and mind your own business threads.

I see where you are coming from here, and agree that trauma isn't 'hassle' or wishing something had 'gone differently'. And unfortunately Mumsnet provides ample proof that many people are indeed now assuming everyone's taking the piss. 😒 However, the sneering tone of your first sentence suggests to me that you yourself think a lot of them are taking the piss? There's a whole plethora of life experiences that may not cause a person actual trauma but nevertheless be very difficult for them to work through. That isn't the same as having 'no resilience' as you claimed in another post. A little more compassion wouldn't go amiss, but I'm sensing you might be a pull-yourself-together type so I may be wasting keystrokes here.

I have created a visual guide to help OP

Yah, and actually, in my experience people who have had clearly horrific traumas I many cases don't expect social support - they want to do things like work or otherwise keep busy and productive.

Not everyone is the same obviously but there seems to have been a big jump in the last few years of people claiming they can't work due to trauma, despite their having been no similar increase in horrific events in people's life.

What some people overlook is that often with trauma the first casualty is trust, be it in people around you and / or your environment. And the knock on effects leave you with fear / hypervigilence. In the case of bereavement often there is guilt, usually misplaced. The body reacts physiologically to shock. It took over a year for me to come down off a feeling of what I can only describe as "fizzing" that was relentless during my waking hours after my DP died unexpectedly, 18 months after my Mother died of cancer during Covid in my arms.

As a result of DPs death I lost my home, and my business. My Father died about three weeks ago after a year of stress revolving around his health and my batshit SM. I'm under a DRO, am waiting on the Coroners office and my only routine priority is looking after my cats.

So yes, I'm lazy, procrastinating and unhealthily numb. Three of the most important people in my life all gone in individually traumatic circumstances. Five years might seem "adequate" to get over it, but time is meaningless to me.

And the sadmin shitshow has to be dealt with, which is dependent on external forces beyond my control.

To remind myself how shit and lazy I am, sometimes I watch Holocaust documentaries or other doom filled content to keep things in perspective.

Does this qualify as trauma, or do I need bigger girl pants, which are already marquee sized?

For the love of God, no faux sympathy from the "lack of resilience" crew, or "but we don't mean you" platitudes. I'm in hell, and I am dealing with it.

But one thing I've learned is not to dismiss or minimise other people'sexperiences, even if i can'tfully understand them, because trauma responses are unique to everybody, and things like poverty, dysfunctional family life and a host of other things influence how people deal with life challenges, whether big or small.

@ruethewhirl i am very much like that so i guess you are right

I agree. I wish people would reserve the word for actual trauma, and not just discomfort. Or even distress.

Cruel title for a thread. Awful and goady.

Is my trauma acceptable op? I was raised in a Catholic care home by nuns from 3 months til 10 years of age. Terrible place that still gives me nightmares 40 odd years later.

When you start threads like this people who are just trying to survive click on them. We shouldn't, but we do. I hope, as many people do, respond with empathy. But the only messages I absorb are the judgemental ones. It might as well be the nuns ranting at me that I should stop crying and be grateful.

Please stop.

Oh you mean the effort of going through very painful therapy- that doesn’t actually exist.

I’d say the line is a diagnosis by a psychiatrist, such as PTSD or complex PTSD or EUPD (often connected to trauma) or some other mental health diagnosis in DSM 5 or ICD 11.

IMO, lay people such as OP are not qualified to go round giving advice on what people with genuine problems should be doing to get over it. If it was as easy as “pulling yourself together” or “making an effort”, we wouldn’t need mental health services.