Posted by The word ‘trauma’ can mean different things to different people, and some experiences and events may seem kind of trivial compared to others, but that doesn’t diminish the impact that they can have on a person.
This week’s blog is aimed at those of you who might have endured (or might still be enduring) some immense challenges and struggles in your life and in your career, and I want to look at the resilience needed to bouncing back from traumatic events.
Disclaimer: the information shared on this website and blog is intended for general knowledge purposes. It should not be considered a replacement for seeking advice from qualified mental health professionals. If you’re dealing with mental health issues, I strongly recommend reaching out to a qualified medical professional. They can provide tailored guidance based on your specific circumstances and needs.
Playing with fire
In my own life, there are a couple events and experiences that caused me trauma, but I want to start by giving you an example of one that didn’t… although it’s going to sound like it should have.
When I was 16 my brother brought home a Zippo lighter. We were in my bedroom, squirting lighter fluid and setting fire to it on the glass of the window. What could possibly go wrong with that?!
I aimed the fluid for the window and set fire to it as it was squirting. Sure enough, that was a terrible idea and set the curtains alight. In a panic, I opened the window to throw the burning curtains out, knocked over the lighter fluid which spilled everywhere, and the next thing I knew, the pillow and the duvet on the bed had caught fire. I picked everything up and chucked it out the window into the front garden.
After we thought everything had gone out, I noticed that the plastic model aircraft we were partway through making was also on fire, so I picked the box up to throw it out, only for the bottom to fall out and drop molten plastic over my bare foot.
90 seconds or so later, the fire was out and the drama was over, or so it seemed. It was only then that I looked down at my feet, which were covered in the plastic, and realised how severely burned my hands were. I’d also gotten burnt on my face.
Whilst it all sounds very traumatic, I don’t feel anything negative about it today, it makes no impact on my life aside from looking back and seeing myself as a stupid teenager who was playing with fire – it could have been a lot worse.
Acute trauma
However, that’s exactly the kind of experience that could cause acute trauma, the kind of trauma that occurs from a single incident, like a car accident or the loss of a loved one.
The event might be called ‘traumatic’, but the trauma is not the event itself: it’s the after effect. It’s the psychological response to a distressing event which can overwhelm your ability to cope, causing feelings of helplessness which can diminish yourself of your sense of self altogether.
As a result of trauma, you might experience symptoms like anxiety and depression, mood swings, difficulty in concentrating, insomnia, loss of appetite – the list goes on. You could also find yourself withdrawing from others altogether.
Chronic trauma
However, what I want to talk about here is another type of trauma. It’s one that I experienced not from getting burnt, but instead over a period of time, known as chronic trauma. Chronic trauma happens when you are exposed to prolonged, inescapable stress, for example if you’re bullied in school or at work. It can go on for weeks or months.
It can also come from financial challenges. If you consider what happened post-2008, after the crash, you’ll find a whole generation of people that got into property investing and then went through a very traumatic downturn in the value of their properties, resulting in the banks coming after them.
Today, working with clients in my various programs, I can recognise the telltale signs of chronic trauma, which I believe could have been triggered by this prolonged exposure to the stress that came after 2008.
Death by a thousand cuts
For me, it was brutal: it was about six years before I saw light at the end of the tunnel. I was many millions in negative equity and it was a bit like death by a thousand cuts: instead of it being one event that takes you out, it’s like enduring a little stab here and there every single day.
I had built up a fabulous portfolio: lots of commercial property and producing a nice income, and then it was taken from me. At the lowest point in the market, the banks stepped in and appointed a receiver, so stuff that was worth a lot of money was sold at a substantial loss.
There were three banks coming after me, and the worst thing about it is that forcing people into selling assets was just a box-ticking exercise: even though they didn’t necessarily need to have specific loans repaid, they had to fill quotas, and therefore forced many people to sell their properties.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
It was a very painful experience that I believe was traumatic, insofar as it triggered a lot of the symptoms I described earlier. I was depressed and I couldn’t sleep. But I think the worst effect of all was fear, because fear generates self-doubt.
You might have been confident before, but that confidence can go right out the window. You might have been very successful in what you were doing, but you got humbled when the banks pulled the plug. That in itself is not the problem – lots of people have bounced back from bankruptcy.
Rather it’s the fear that it might happen again, which often becomes self-fulfilling. Your mind tells you that you shouldn’t get back into (for example) property investment, because you could lose it all again and end up back in the same place.
Don’t stay on the sidelines
That’s trauma. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to go through everything again but you must be careful that you don’t inadvertently sideline yourself in the process of trying to stay safe.
How might you sideline yourself? It could take a number of different forms, for example, feeling that you can never take out debt because of your poor credit rating. You might feel that you’ll never be able to gather up the resources that you need to start again.
The biggest one is the fear of being caught out by another crash, because so many of us were caught out by the global financial crisis, so now we worry that it could happen again.
Lessons learned
But, when you’ve been through a difficult situation, it’s important to remember that afterwards, you’re older and wiser.
Let me ask you this: looking back at the stuff that got you into trouble, would it be fair to say that you were perhaps a little bit reckless at the time? I know I was incredibly reckless with the types of deals that I went into – I hadn’t properly risk-assessed them and had no exit strategies worked out. I’m much wiser now.
You’ll be more cautious too. If you did get funding for a deal, wouldn’t you be far more prudent this time around? You’re not the same person today that got into financial trouble before, so why would you assume that you would make those same reckless decisions?
Overcoming trauma
So how can we overcome trauma and the effects on our mindset, those self-limiting beliefs? Obviously, you can seek treatment from a professional, although I believe a lot of men resist this.
One of the biggest causes of depression in men is typically debt-related financial difficulty – they tend not to seek out help, feeling that it’s showing weakness, so they bottle it all up, thinking they’re strong to get through it on their own.
I didn’t seek therapy myself and quite frankly I look back now and think that if I hadn’t been too damn stubborn to seek help at the time, I might have actually come out the other side a lot sooner.
Of course, there are self-help techniques you can try if you don’t want to go down the therapy route: mindfulness and meditation, developing proper coping strategies, as well as recognising your strengths and resources.
You might have lost your money, but that it doesn’t mean that you have lost your experience, knowledge or network. Create a plan with multiple steps; each of those steps is a small win in itself. Start stacking these wins to feel confident and successful again.
Be your own hero
Finally, one of the things that has worked for was to come up with a compelling vision for the future.
Without one, you can struggle with motivation. Something to remember is that everybody loves a comeback story – there are countless fabulous stories about people who went through bankruptcy, then went on to do amazing things.
This really made sense to me recently when I read about Joseph Campbell’s framework for storytelling called The Hero’s Journey. He identifies that many stories follow a similar structure – you can see it in stories as varied as Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or even The Matrix.
The story will start with a hero, and soon there’s a call to adventure. It’s a bit similar to getting into property. That’s your call to adventure: you don’t like your standard life, or earning a normal salary, and you want something a little bit more.
You go down the road of property investing, you do well, but there are various difficult tests, and you find yourself at the bottom of the pit, and then you’ve got to climb back out of it. There’s always a mentor – a guide who’ll help you out – your very own Gandalf.
You come out the other side wiser, smarter and more capable, then start the journey home, and when you get there, you become the mentor. This really resonated with me, as it’s not dissimilar to what I went through, alongside the many other people caught up in the crash.
Get knocked down, get back up
But it’s important to remember that getting caught up in something is, like the old saying, getting punched. If you’re on the ground, that’s one thing, but you have to get back up and get back into the fight.
I think that’s how I look upon recovering from any kind of challenge, get back into the ring and start fighting. Hopefully your tenacity, resilience and perseverance will show through. And in the process of doing that, you’ll end up with an amazing comeback story where you went through this terrible, difficult period of time, came out the other side, and now look at you, you’re doing great!
I hope you found this useful – I take a much deeper dive on my own experiences in Episode 214 of the podcast – give it a listen!