Can you have PTSD after a layoff? You can’t escape any major social media platform without seeing some news report or personal post about being laid off. Many women who have sacrificed much of their lives to their career had it wiped away in 30 seconds. When this became a recurring thing, I began to wonder how the short-term and long-term impacts would color a woman’s world.
After experiencing a few layoffs in my career and being someone who has not been able to ascend into the ivory tower of greatness, I have noticed something that I tried to ignore. Layoffs can cause PTSD, and that can impact your ability to enjoy life in its current state, but also color the future in 50 shades of grey.
When PTSD comes into the conversation, most still think of our military who served their country and the atrocities they witnessed. However, this can be expanded to a larger audience as well. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event — either being part of it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event. (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - Symptoms and Causes, n.d.)
After a layoff, people who are not wealthy have to become extremely scrappy. You may begin to analyze what parts of your life can be disconnected and begin updating your resume. The complete destruction of what was someone’s life, especially if you have been in your career path for 10+ years, is gone. Those familiar faces, the morning routine, and the possibility of that project getting you the shiny promotion are all now a past dream. This abrupt disturbance to normalcy and the swift shift to survival is chaotic.
Depending on how long it takes to find a new role, this can prolong the pain.
Understanding PTSD After a Layoff
A scan on LinkedIn may show you a post of someone saying they have been out of work for 9 months and may lose everything. You may begin negotiating with your sense of self-worth and standards and think any job is better than no job.
Once you're in your new job, you may overcompensate and feel constantly on edge, but may suppress it. Inside your mind, you feel that any small infraction could lead you back to the unemployed streets. For those with any intersectionality, the discomfort and anxiety are even higher because you're in a new place and don’t know the way of the culture.
Layoffs can make you begin to rethink your self-concept and value. You begin to second-guess every choice you have made and wonder if you're even competent. If I had worked harder, I wouldn’t be out of work. For many women, their job is their life. Many use work to escape their personal lives that are unsatisfactory, and for others, their work is what allows them to provide for their family, which may rely on them. The looming pressure of debt and lack of retirement traction can become intrusive.
When you encounter this experience, based on the Mayo Clinic, you may start to exhibit symptoms such as :
- Negative thoughts about yourself, other people, or the world.
- Ongoing negative emotions of fear, blame, guilt, anger, or shame.
- Memory problems, including not remembering important aspects of a traumatic event.
- Feeling detached from family and friends.
- Not being interested in activities you once enjoyed.
- Having a hard time feeling positive emotions.
- Feeling emotionally numb
This, over time, can make it harder to settle into your new job, especially if the work isn’t ideal or in the field you once adored. You may also begin to have resentment towards yourself and others who were spared.
The connection between layoffs and ptsd when I work with clients also shows up in a self-limiting restriction for growth. A woman who once felt she could take on the world may take this blow to the chin and eliminate or severely wound her confidence in her ability to have what she desires. This also can make one more prone to burnout, which can then impact one’s performance. In some cases, this can set one up for a repeat layoff, which is not a reflection of the woman’s true performance but rather the lasting impact of past layoffs.
Extend grace to self
Often we want to ruminate on the past transgressions, as we may have come from a toxic job where we sustained a lot of hate; then to be discarded feels like an extreme blow. I know in my last layoff I felt so much shame as I dealt with a lot of misogyny and covert racism. This took a lot of time while I was searching for a role, so I didn't bring those old pains into the new.
Give yourself grace that something very traumatic occurred, as losing one’s source of income is essential for survival in a world that doesn’t value human life is scary. If you are someone who experienced financial trauma growing up, this can reactivate those pains as well. You are a human who deserves empathy, and it’s ok that you can’t be over it in 3 business days.
Do weekly check-ins
This was one of the key things I did while navigating my last layoff, as I am single and with no support. I would sit up on Monday morning and reflect on the past week's progress and notice if I was doing my essentials for survival: moving my body at least 3 times a week, sleeping no more than 8 hours, and finding something to laugh at.
There were some weeks things went smoothly; those typically were the ones where I had an interview that looked promising, but in weeks where those were snatched, I would see a decline. I also grounded myself when I would spiral by saying, “Right now your rent is paid, and you are not on the streets” out loud. This often re-oriented me to the current reality.
Created a bridge plan
Being someone who is a woman and who happens to fall under the racial construct of being Black, I had to be very mindful of what I needed if I could not find a role that was compatible with what I had before. I have made sacrifices since I was a teen to have a normal life. To honor those sacrifices, I made a bridge plan that would ensure I had my absolute needs taken care of, which would then allow me the space to continue searching for a role that was more aligned with my career and financial goals.
I developed this plan immediately after getting the layoff notification, as it’s easier to do before the anxiety and shame may kick in. This also allowed me to know, from a numbers perspective, what my absolute lowest is to maintain dignity.
Layoffs are sadly a very common occurrence in the state of our world. I am a firm believer that even in the midst of chaos, there is some gift in it. Through layoffs, I was able to see my skills more clearly and hold myself accountable for where I may have suppressed my needs because of old, outdated ways of operating. As someone who is also very spiritually inclined, I can see navigating such perils, as it helps me when working with clients who have experienced this and are grappling with becoming their 2.0 version of self.
If you're at the point where you don't need more advice—you need someone to help you see what you're actually doing with your life—my Sovereignty Session, a 90-min focused session to develop your next steps concisely, is for you. Click the link and book a session.