Trauma at Work: It Counts

Episode 3: That Doesn't Count

How many times have you explained away your own experience?

"It wasn't that bad."

"Other people have it worse."

"It doesn't really count."

In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany explores why so many of us instinctively minimize our own stories—and what that habit may actually be teaching us.

Through stories from the military, human resources, and her own life, she explores how trauma isn't always defined by the size of the event, but by the lessons our nervous systems learn from it. From a seemingly insignificant question about a service dog to unexpectedly hiding from an unpredictable leader years later, Tiffany reveals how old experiences continue shaping the way we think, lead, connect, and show up at work.

This isn't an episode about living in the past.

It's about recognizing the invisible lessons we've been carrying—and asking whether they're still true.

If you've ever questioned your reactions, felt yourself becoming smaller, or wondered why certain moments seem to stay with you long after they've happened, this conversation is for you.

Because the goal isn't deciding whether your experience counts.

The real question is: What did it teach you?

If you've ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of support, or been told to "bring your whole self to work" only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, this episode is for you.

Learn more about the show and connect with Tiffany at:

www.pleasemuteyourtrauma.com

Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

Transcript

0:06

I have a habit And I am desperately trying to break. Whenever somebody starts talking about trauma. My first instinct is to explain why mine doesn't count. Oh, it wasn't that bad. Eh, it wasn't combat. Oh, other people have it worse. And nowhere is this more obvious than when veterans start talking to other veterans, especially us Navy veterans. Because if you've ever spent time around a group of Navy veterans, you know what I'm talking about. You know that every story starts exactly the same way. One time on USS Last Ship, and before long, we're swapping sea stories, comparing deployments, comparing commands, and comparing whose ship was somehow the most broken, which was every single ship. Not even kidding. Nobody means any harm, and most of us are just trying to connect. But somewhere along the way, the conversation quietly becomes a competition. "That happened on your ship? That's nothing. Let me tell you about the USS Disaster." And before you know it, we're standing around comparing battle scars, trying to determine whose experience is allowed to count. As if pain requires a ranking system or a badge, as if somebody is keeping score. As if healing only becomes available once you've proven your suffering was severe enough. What's interesting is that this isn't really about trauma. It's about legitimacy. Each of us has a deep need to know that our experiences mattered, that it was real, that it counts. And when we're not sure, we start comparing, looking for evidence, trying to determine whether we've earned the right to feel the way we feel. And the funny thing is, this isn't a veteran thing. Veterans are just louder about it. This is a people thing. We hear someone else's story and immediately start looking for reasons why ours doesn't qualify. "Oh, nobody hit me." "Oh, did you meet so-and-so? They had it worse." "It wasn't that bad." And before you know it, we're standing in front of an imaginary jury, presenting evidence against our own experience. Somehow we're trying to both become the prosecutor and the defendant. Trying to prove that whatever happened to us doesn't really count. Which is interesting. If there's one thing I've come to realize, it's that people don't leave their histories in the parking lot. They bring them into meetings, into teams, into leadership roles, into difficult conversations, into organizations. And whether or not we realize it, those experiences how... Those experiences shape how we show up at work Welcome back to Please Meet Your Trauma. I'm Tiffany Collins, professional question asker, recovering overthinker, and someone who has become increasingly interested in why some workplace experiences stay with us long after we've left the building Today I wanna talk about trauma. Mm, not because trauma is trendy or the latest buzzword, and not because every difficult experience is trauma. But because we've misunderstood what trauma actually is, and more importantly, we've misunderstood what it costs us at work Here's the part that surprised me. Seventy percent of adults will experience at least one traumatic event during their lifetime. Seventy percent. Which means if you're sitting in a meeting with ten people, statistically speaking, trauma isn't the exception in the room. It's the norm When I think about this, I always come back to this thought of Norman Rockwell paintings. You know the kind. Everything looks perfect. Everybody's smiling. The colors are warm and inviting. The family in the picture is gathered around the table, and for one frozen moment, everything looks exactly the way it's supposed to be. And if all you had was that one snapshot in time, you'd probably assume everything was fine But life isn't a painting. It's a collection of moments, and what we rarely see is everything that happened before and after the picture was taken. We don't see the argument that happened that morning, the grief someone was carrying, the insecurity they never talked about The diagnosis they hadn't shared yet, the childhood experience that still shaped how they moved through the world, and the conversation they still replay years later We do this with people too. Somebody misses a deadline, gets defensive in a meeting, has a reaction we don't understand, they shut down, push back, and almost immediately we start telling ourselves a story about who they are. They're lazy, difficult, disengaged, not a team player But most of the time, we're judging from a single frame from a movie that we haven't fully watched. A movie that includes every experience, every disappointment, every relationship, and every lesson that person's nervous system has ever learned And that's why workplace behavior is so easy to misinterpret. We see someone's reaction. We don't see the experiences that shaped it. We see the outcome. We rarely see the history. And when we don't understand behavior, we tend to invent explanations for it. And that's why the seventy percent statistic matters. It means almost every conference room you've ever sat in, every Zoom meeting you've ever attended, every organization you've ever worked for was filled with people carrying something invisible. Not because they're broken and not because they're weak. Because they're human And that's where we get trauma wrong Most people think of trauma is the event We think of it as a castro- catastrophic event, the headline-worthy event, the thing that everybody agrees was terrible And those experiences absolutely matter. But trauma doesn't care how impressive the story sounds. It's measured by what our nervous system learns from it. Sometimes that is combat. Sometimes it's losing someone you love. Sometimes it's growing up in a home where you never knew which version of someone was coming through the door. Sometimes it's years of criticism, bullying, humiliation, betrayal, being excluded, being treated like your needs were inconvenient The common thread isn't the event, it's the impact It's what our nervous system learns. It's the story our body keeps telling long after the danger is gone Something that has taken years for me to understand. And if I'm being fair, I don't know if I've truly learned it yet. I just notice it sooner than I used to, and I've learned to give myself a little more grace than I used to Trauma doesn't seem particularly interested in calendars Just because something happened a long time ago doesn't mean your nervous system got the memo. Trauma doesn't wake up one day and say, "Wow, Bob, it's been seven years. Guess my job's done here." It doesn't care that you're in a different job, a different city, a different relationship, or a completely different stage of life Trauma isn't operating on a timeline It's operating on recognition Your nervous system isn't keeping score by years. It doesn't care that you're forty-two or forty-five. You have a completely different job. That you left the bad relationship, moved across the country Kamal only wants to know one thing. Have I survived this before? Something, sometimes nothing happens for years. Then one conversation, one email, one comment, one tone of voice, and suddenly your nervous system is reacting to something that it, that isn't actually happening right now Again, not because you're broken, not because you're weak But because your brain is incredibly good at recognizing patterns, sometimes too good I wanna tell you a story. Um, one day I was working in HR, and I have a service dog, and someone came and knocked on my office door and asked a question. A very short question. A question that seemed insignificant at the time. Just, "Is that dog coming to the meeting?" Now, I remember thinking that was a strange way to phrase that question. Because when you say that dog, I immediately have questions. Which dog? The dog? As opposed to all other dogs? The one I've had for years? Are you talking about the one you've met? Which dog? It also sounds like we're talking about some nameless animal I found wandering through the parking lot and decided to train and bring to work this morning. Oh, you mean the one the magical stork delivered to my office this morning? Are we talking about the dog that just appeared? Was there a surprise dog distribution program I wasn't aware of? We're not talking about my service dog, right? Not the dog you acknowledged a week before? Apparently, we're talking about that dog Oh, because if we're talking about my actual dog The one sitting beside me every day? Then you m-- I assume you, you're referring to Admiral Dudley Hotel Delta, which if you figured out his initials spell ADHD. Congratulations. You're paying attention. His name is a story for another day. But you're talking about the admiral? Oh, the distinguished gentleman currently lying under my desk The one who had somehow attended every workday without launching a mutiny. Wait, he's not welcome at the meeting? And the more I thought about it, the stranger that question became. Because as I thought about it, nobody would call Steve and ask, "Hey, Steve, are you planning on bringing your wheelchair to the meeting?" We don't usually ask people whether they intend to bring their disability or trauma with them Now, if you're listening, you might be thinking, "That's it? That's the story?" And honestly, for a long time, I thought the same thing. That's it. That's the story that stayed with you? Not the drama, the investigations, the lawsuits, not the employee relations disasters, and not the truly ridiculous things I've seen in HR. Nope. A six-word question about a dog Which turns out exactly the point. It stayed with me because it wasn't the first time I'd received that message, and that's something I didn't understand for a long time As we discussed, trauma isn't created by a single moment. Sometimes it's created by repetition, a pattern, a message that keeps showing up in different forms until eventually it starts feeling true. A comment here, an exclusion there, a moment where you're dismissed, a moment where you're ignored, a moment where you're made to feel like your instincts are wrong, your feelings are inconvenient, or your value is conditional. And eventually you stop reacting to the individual moments. You start reacting to the message underneath them Not long after that dog conversation took place, I stopped being invited to certain meetings There was no grand announcement. Nobody made a speech in the break room. There was no dramatic confrontation. Just a series of experiences that slowly taught me something. And the lesson wasn't, "You're bad at your job." The lesson wasn't, "You don't belong here." The lesson my nervous system learned was, "You might not be safe here." And once your nervous system learns that lesson, it starts looking for evidence everywhere The problem isn't that our nervous systems learn And looking back, I don't think those experiences taught me that I was bad at my job. They didn't teach me I was incapable or unqualified. What they taught me was smaller and much more dangerous. That lesson that it taught me was to be careful, to read the room, to think twice before speaking, to make myself a little smaller, a little quieter, and a little less visible And because somewhere along the way, the message stopped being, "That wasn't a good experience," and it started becoming, "My needs are the problem. Maybe my voice is the problem. Maybe I'm asking too much." And eventually my nervous system translated all of that into one simple message. You don't really matter here. And if you don't matter here, nine times out of ten, you're probably aren't safe here Apparently my nervous system had no interest in fact-checking Because a few years later, after two decades in HR, I decided I needed a break. So I started looking for a non-stressful job. I took a job bartending at a retirement golf community because in my mind, I had finally figured it out. There was no investigations. I wasn't gonna deal with employee relations. Workplace drama was somebody else's problem. Just sunshine, retirees, and people whose biggest concern seemed to be whether they shot an eighty-two or an eighty-four. I remember thinking to myself, "This is it. This is the stress-free job I've been created for." Which, in hindsight, is usually the exact same moment my life starts laughing at me hysterically. I mean, what were they gonna do? Put me on a performance improvement plan for mixing a margarita incorrectly? I thought I was escaping stress. Turns out my nervous system had other plans. You see, there was an owner, a loud New Yorker, big personality, a heavy drinker. The kind of person who could be incredibly generous one day and incredibly difficult the next One minute he was making promises, the next minute he was acting like the conversation never happened One minute he was your biggest supporter, and the next minute you were wondering whether you had somehow become his latest project. And if you've ever worked for someone unpredictable, you know what I'm talking about They're not necessarily dangerous, not necessarily malicious, just impossible to read. And here's the thing, he absolutely had the ability to embarrass you, to say something inappropriate, to make you feel uncomfortable, to put you on the spot in front of other people. So this wasn't entirely in my head this time. The unpredictability was real. The problem with unpredictability is that eventually you stop trying to understand it, and you start trying to avoid it. And that's exactly what I did. Every time I saw him coming, I found a reason to disappear. Suddenly I need ice, inventory, or a completely unnecessary trip to some closet on the other side of the golf course. At one point, I reorganized an entire storage closet to, just to avoid a conversation. And after a while, people started noticing. The other owners noticed. My coworkers noticed. Everybody seemed to notice except for me At some point, I think it basically became a game. Every time he showed up, I disappeared so consistently that I'm actually surprised nobody put me on a map and turned it into a children's book. Where's Tiffany? Page one, uh, not here Every time he showed up, I suddenly had somewhere else to be. Need inventory counted? Don't say a thing. Already on it. Need someone to clean something? Done. You need a volunteer for a task nobody else wanted? Apparently, I had found my life calling. Everyone thought I was playing a game, and so did I, at least at first. For a long time, I thought it was funny. One of those weird personality quirks. If you know me, you're probably aware I have several of them, the kind that seem completely reasonable from my perspective and leave everyone else wondering what exactly is happening. The kind of thing you laugh about because the alternative would require asking some uncomfortable questions. Basically, the human equivalent of a cat knocking a glass off the counter for no apparent reason But eventually I started asking myself a different question. Why was I doing this? Because I wasn't hiding from everybody. I wasn't trying to avoid difficult conversations. For years, my entire career was built around walking into situations everyone else was trying to avoid. Investigations, employee relations disasters, uncomfortable conversations nobody wanted to have. The moments where everyone slowly looked around the room hoping somebody else would volunteer. Again, conflict was not the problem. Conflict provided a surprising amount of job security. Conflict practically paid my bills. So why was I suddenly reorganizing storage closets, finding urgent inventory projects, and taking the scenic route around the golf course just to avoid one guy? And I think that's when it hit me. I wasn't avoiding him. I was avoiding not knowing which version of him I was about to get. Because one version of him was generous, funny, supportive, the kind of person you'd enjoy spending time around. And the other version of him could embarrass you, put you on the spot, say something inappropriate, or make you feel about two inches tall in front of a room full of people I wasn't afraid of every conversation. I was afraid of walking into a conversation without knowing which version was waiting for me. And those two things are very different It wasn't the difficult conversations. I had had plenty of those What wore me down was never knowing what was waiting for me on the other side. Because human beings are remarkably resilient. We're constantly adapting to things we never asked for. New jobs, new relationships, loss, change, disappointment. We are created to do hard things every day. We can handle bad news We can handle difficult conversations. We can even handle conflict. But what wears us down is unpredictability. Because unpredictability forces your nervous system to stay alert, scanning, monitoring, reading the room, and trying to figure out what comes next. Preparing for conversations before they happen, and preparing for three other versions just in case And that's work. That's real work. Your body doesn't care that it isn't listed in your job description. It's still gonna do the work, and it's still gonna cost you something, and that's where trauma becomes expensive at work Not because people are broken or that they're weak, and certainly not because they're incapable. It's because adaption requires energy, and energy is not unlimited. The more energy we spend protecting ourselves, the less energy we have available for everything else. Creativity, connection, problem-solving, innovation, trust, finding meaning in our work. Not because people don't care. Not because they're disengaged. Sometimes they're simply exhausted from carrying things nobody else can see, and that's the part we miss. Because the opposite of trauma isn't toughness. The opposite of trauma is having experiences that teach us a different lesson Experiences that tell us you're safe, you matter, your voice matters, your needs aren't a burden. You don't have to make yourself smaller to belong And that's what dignity does, too. It teaches a different lesson. It doesn't erase what happened. It doesn't rewrite your past. It can change what you learn next. That you matter, that your voice matters, that your needs matter, that you don't have to earn your humanity. You already have it 'Cause I think some of us have spent years believing we did have to earn it I wish I'd understood something earlier Just because your reaction doesn't make sense to someone else doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Most reactions are trying to solve a problem. The question isn't whether your reaction is irrational, the question is, what problem is it trying to solve? Is it solving today's problem or yesterday's? The question isn't, should I be reacting this way? The question is, is what taught me this reaction was necessary? And for the leaders listening, one of the most powerful questions you can ask isn't, "What's wrong with this employee?" It's, "What might this employee have learned that makes this behavior make perfect sense?" Because behavior almost always makes sense to the person living it, even when it doesn't make sense to us. Behavior is rarely random. It's usually adaption The better question isn't how do I change this person? It's what kind of environment would teach a different lesson? People don't leave their histories in the parking lot. They bring them into meetings, into teams, into difficult conversations, into organizations. The organizations that understand this approach people differently They stop asking what's wrong with this employee and start asking what happened? What does this person need? What would help them thrive? Because most behavior makes a lot more sense once you understand that it exists outside of a frame. And some organizations understand this exceptionally well. Not because they have trauma programs, and not because they have wellness posters, or that they order pizza every time morale is low, but because they've realized that people don't leave their humanity at the door. They create environments where people feel valued, respected, heard, safe enough to contribute without constantly protecting themselves And that's when something interesting happens. The energy that once went into surviving becomes available for creating, connecting, contributing, finding meaning in their work. The first step isn't fixing anything. The first step is being honest. It's allowing yourself to call it by its real name, not because it wins the Suffering Olympics, and not because somebody else agrees, and not because it was the worst thing that ever happened, but because it happened and it affected you The goal isn't deciding whether your experience counts. The experience has already happened, and it's left its mark The real question is, what did it teach you? And perhaps more importantly, is that lesson still true? Before I go, if something from today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. You can find me at pleasemuteyourtrauma.com, where you'll find the show, research, speaking, consulting projects, and again, whatever question I'm currently obsessing over. You can also follow along on Instagram @pleasemuteyourtrauma, where I'll share episode updates, behind-the-scenes moments, research insights, and the occasional workplace observation that should probably have just stayed in my head but didn't. And starting soon, I'm adding a voicemail feature to the website because as much as I enjoy hearing myself talk, I'd really like to hear from you. I want to know what resonates, what workplace experiences you've had, what questions you're wrestling with, and maybe even those stories you've been carrying around that made you think, "There's no way this happened to me." Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we're often far less alone than we think we are. And next time, I don't want you to change anything. I just want you to notice every time you apologize for taking up space, every time you stay quiet when you wanted to speak Every time you assume you've done something wrong Every time you make yourself just a little smaller, ask yourself one question, "Who taught me that?" 'Cause next week we're gonna start figuring out which lessons are worth keeping and which ones we finally have permission to let go Until next time, please remember, work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected, and that includes protecting your own