Early in my career, I participated in one of those team-building ropes courses designed to build trust, confidence, and probably a few other things I can’t remember.
What I do remember is the wall.
One of the activities required us to rappel down it.
We had the harnesses.
We were strapped in.
We had gone through the training.
I knew how the equipment worked. I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew there were people there whose job was to make sure I didn’t fall.
Intellectually, I understood that I was safe.
And then I stood at the top of that wall.
The instructor told me what to do next.
Turn around.
Back up to the edge.
Lean back into the harness.
And step into nothingness.
My mind knew exactly what I was supposed to do.
My body said, absolutely not.
I stood there trying to will my feet to move.
Everything I had just learned was still in my head.
Nothing about the instructions had changed.
The harness hadn’t suddenly become less secure.
The people holding the ropes hadn’t disappeared.
I didn’t need someone to explain the technique again.
I didn’t need another demonstration.
I didn’t need someone standing behind me saying, Just do it.
I knew what to do.
I just couldn’t get my body to believe what my mind already knew.
Eventually, I took the step.
The harness caught me.
The rope held.
And I made my way down the wall.
But all these years later, what I remember isn’t the rappel.
I remember the space between knowing I was safe and being able to act like I was safe.
There is a version of that moment that happens in our careers, too.
We know we’re supposed to speak up.
We know we should set the boundary.
We know we need to ask for the promotion, have the difficult conversation, stop overthinking the email, advocate for ourselves, or take the opportunity we’ve worked so hard to earn.
We know what we’re supposed to do.
So when we can’t seem to do it, we assume the problem must be us.
Maybe I need to be more confident.
Maybe I need to stop being so sensitive.
Maybe I need to toughen up.
Maybe I just need to push myself harder.
But what if the problem isn’t that you don’t know what to do?
What if your mind has learned the career advice, but your body still doesn’t believe it’s safe to follow it?
That’s the piece traditional career advice often misses.
In this article, we’re going to explore why knowing what to do isn’t always enough to help us move forward in our careers.
We’ll look at some of the assumptions behind traditional career advice, how the effects of complex trauma can influence the way we experience everyday workplace situations, and why career-development tools may need to be approached differently when CPTSD is part of the equation.
Most importantly, we’ll explore what changes when we stop asking,
“Why can’t I just do what I know I’m supposed to do?”
and start getting curious about what may be making it so difficult to do.
Traditional Career Advice Starts With an Assumption
Most career advice assumes an element of internal safety and security, which most trauma survivors lack.
And when safety is the biological priority, advice like “speak up in the meeting” takes a back seat, and there is nothing we can do to will ourselves to step over that ledge.
“Ask your boss for what you need” assumes that authority doesn’t activate fear.
“Set boundaries” assumes that you know how to set boundaries and that you believe you are allowed to have them.
“Take constructive feedback” assumes you can receive it as beneficial for your career rather than as a threat that is unconsciously connected to an underlying sense of shame, rejection, or abandonment.
The advice itself is not necessarily wrong. It simply doesn’t account for the obstacles that keep it from being helpful.
CPTSD Doesn't Stay at Home When You Go to Work
For those of us who’ve had difficult childhoods and have been diagnosed with CPTSD, we quickly realize that these symptoms are woven into the very fiber of our being.
We don’t get to leave it at home when we go to work. It comes with us wherever we go and whatever we do…or attempt to do.
Many of us struggle with authority and power differentials, which can lead to distrust of our manager or fawning to get their approval.
Getting feedback becomes another reinforcement that we’ve failed, we can’t do anything right, and we’re going to lose everything.
Conflict or disagreement with a coworker can activate a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response because of a hypersensitive threat response.
Presenting, interviewing, networking, or pursuing leadership can feel threatening because being visible may not have been safe in the past.
Most of us have never had boundaries. We may not know what they are, how to set them, or that we are even allowed to say “no.” Saying “no” may trigger guilt, fear, or an expectation of retaliation.
Any kind of change like reorganizations, leadership changes, ambiguous emails, or unexpected meetings creates intense hypervigilance. I’ve heard some survivors say that the devil they know is much better than the devil they don’t know.
When a Survival Strategy Looks Like a Career Problem
Most of us developed sophisticated survival strategies that helped us get through our childhoods, and have practiced these responses so often that they have become habitual…something we don’t even have to think about.
When we enter the workplace, the survival strategies that kept us alive as children are no longer viewed as adaptive, but as maladaptive.
People pleasing can look like poor boundaries or sucking up to the boss.
Hypervigilance can look like overthinking everything.
Perfectionism can look like ambition or attention to detail, until it becomes debilitating.
A freeze response can look like procrastination, insubordination, or lack of initiative.
Avoidance can look like a lack of ambition.
Fear of visibility can look like a confidence problem.
Overworking can look like exceptional commitment until it leads to burnout.
These patterns interfere with career development, but trying to correct the behavior without understanding what it’s actually protecting us from may only get us so far.
Why “Just Build Your Confidence” Can Backfire
When trauma survivors with CPTSD repeatedly receive advice that they can’t seem to implement, we tend to internalize it as a “me” problem.
I’m too sensitive.
I’m terrible at office relationships and politics.
I’m not leadership material.
Why can everyone else handle this?
Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.
We were created to be meaning-making machines, and when we grew up with the mindset of “it’s all my fault,” we apply that same thinking to our careers.
Traditional career development may unintentionally turn a nervous-system response into a character judgment.
Career Development Through a Trauma-Informed Lens
Career development for trauma survivors requires a different approach, one that acknowledges the survival strategies developed by trauma.
A trauma-informed approach asks different questions.
Instead of: “What should I do?”
Ask: “What happens inside me when I try to do it?”
Instead of: “How do I become more confident?”
Ask: “What situations make it difficult for me to access the confidence I already have?”
Instead of: “Why can’t I set boundaries?”
Ask: “What do I believe might happen if I say no?”
Instead of: “Why do I keep sabotaging opportunities?”
Ask: “What feels unsafe about being seen, succeeding, or taking up more space?”
Traditional career development strategy asks what you need to do next.
Trauma-informed career development asks what may be making that next step feel unsafe.
You May Need More Than a Better Career Strategy
Those of us with CPTSD may still benefit enormously from traditional career development tools, like résumé strategy, interviewing, networking, leadership development, communication skills, negotiation, goal setting, and mentorship; however, the tools are not enough.
The lens through which we use the tools matters.
Telling someone to network more doesn’t help if we don’t understand what makes connection, visibility, or asking for help feel unsafe.
Teaching someone how to negotiate doesn’t go far enough if we don’t consider what happens in their body when they have to advocate for themselves in front of someone with more power.
Teaching assertive communication isn’t enough if saying “no” has historically come with consequences.
Encouraging someone to pursue leadership doesn’t address what happens when greater visibility activates a deeply learned instinct to stay small, stay quiet, or stay unnoticed.
Even goal setting can become complicated when our survival strategies include perfectionism, overworking, people pleasing, or measuring our worth through achievement.
Trauma-informed career development is about changing the way we understand, teach, and use the tools rather than replacing them altogether.
The resume still matters.
The interview still matters.
The networking still matters.
The negotiation still matters.
But we have to account for the person who is using those tools, and what their nervous system may have learned about safety, power, relationships, visibility, failure, and success.
Otherwise, we risk giving people perfectly good career advice that they already know how to follow intellectually, while leaving them standing at the top of the wall, unable to take that first step backward.
Maybe You Were Asking the Wrong Career Question
Perhaps the question isn’t: “Why can’t I do the things everyone says I need to do to advance my career?”
Maybe there is a more useful question:
“What happens inside me when I try?”
Career development for people with CPTSD isn’t only about learning how to navigate the workplace.
Sometimes it’s about recognizing the survival strategies that came to work with us and learning when we no longer need them to run the show.
Traditional career advice isn’t necessarily wrong.
Just like the instructions I received before rappelling down that wall, we may know exactly what we’re supposed to do.
But knowing the steps doesn’t always address what happens inside us when it’s time to take them.
When we understand how complex trauma can shape our responses to authority, feedback, conflict, visibility, boundaries, relationships, and even success, we can begin to approach career development differently.
A trauma-informed approach doesn’t remove the résumé, the interview, the networking, the negotiation, or the career goal.
It changes the lens through which we understand and use those tools.
Because once we understand what happens inside us when we try, we can begin asking a different question:
“What do I need in order to feel safe enough to take the next step?”
If you’ve spent years knowing what you’re supposed to do in your career but wondering why doing it can feel so difficult, I want to invite you to try something different.
Become a free subscriber to The Resilient Career Academy.
Here, we look at career development through a trauma-informed lens and explore what you need to do to move forward in your career, and what may be happening underneath when doing those things feels harder than it “should.”
Come check it out.
See if approaching your career this way helps you understand some of the space between knowing what to do and actually being able to do it.
You don’t need to buy anything. You don’t need to have it all figured out.
Just follow along for free and see if you recognize yourself here.
