Here are 7 common stumbling blocks every sole entrepreneur and micro business owner with complex ptsd need to identify and master. Ignore them at your own risk!
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, we all know this. Starting and running a business takes and exorbitant amount brainpower, labor, time, and energy. of work and many shy away from this position for a number of reasons. You're constantly changing hats with a never ending list of tasks to cross of your to-list and the results you're after may seem far, far away. Not to mention, you have to show up, every day, fully equipped with unwavering determination, tenacity, and grit to work harder and longer than anyone else you know when there’s no one to hold you accountable. On top of all this, you have to make sure the business is profitable before all your money runs out. It's a lot, we know!
Understandably, this could be why 60% of the US prefer to be employees while only 8.9% of our kinsmen (and women) reported as business owners in 2021 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/315556/established-business-ownership-rate-in-north-america/). By years end in 2022, only 16% of the population were reported as entrepreneurs (statistics may be slightly inaccurate due to “entrepreneurs” and “business owners” being used interchangeably) (https://www.thinkimpact.com/entrepreneur-statistics/) For adult survivors of long term child abuse and neglect that have developed cptsd or complex trauma, breaking away from the work force to “be your own boss” can add another set of obstacles and amplify already existing challenges encountered by every entrepreneur and micro business owner on the path to work force, social, and financial liberation.
Look out for these 7 stumbling blocks every entrepreneur or business owner with cptsd encounter
1. Everything is intensified
When you’re a sole entrepreneur or micro business owner, you’re often alone managing every aspect of your business – in isolation. You don’t have a coworker to vent to about your terrible morning or a boss to share your thoughts on a newly implemented sales funnel. Yet your business is your lifeline and all the stress that comes along with it is internalized by you and you alone. This magnifies the level of stress and emotions taken on by entrepreneurs and micro business owners with cptsd who are already prone to difficulty with self-regulation. Emotional and neurological dysregulation can be triggered by the simplest tasks while growing a business like running out of printer ink to much more complex issues like pricing your product or services correctly or chasing down a vendor who’s skipping out on a bill. Being self-employed means you’re the first and last line of defense and it’s easy to see how a small amount of stress can snowball into an overwhelming plight of ruin very quickly if not proactively and intentionally managed.
2. Easily swayed by outside chatter
One of the major symptoms of complex ptsd is a distorted self-image stemming from a neurological injury that warps our perception of the outer world. This symptom is frequently accompanied by a lack of self-awareness which then contributes to an avid need for validation and confirmation from our environment that our perceptions and the decisions we make are “right” or “wrong” or that it’s a “good idea” or “bad idea”. This makes adult survivors of childhood trauma an easy target for users and manipulators who may have their eyes set on riding your coattail towards success or are happy to use up any resources you may have while on the ride. It’s easy to be influenced by anyone other than your own values and principles and ideas if you’re constantly seeking reassurance from others. Your business may be regularly changing goals or products or procedures from listening to everyone else’s advice and this could be detrimental in big ways from losing time to mis-judging a beneficial opportunity. CPTSD or not, if you’re lucky, you will have a trusted mentor or friend who may give you sound advice but in general, be very careful who you take business advice from and don't just listen to direction just because it makes you feel good.
3. Glossing over details
This is a common and very costly trait among childhood trauma survivors and it has a lot to do with always being in a hurry, procrastination, sometimes a learning disability, and sometimes subconsciously looking away to go on about with wishful thinking. There’s a reason why being “detail oriented” is a highly sought after skill by organizations and recruiters. It takes a tremendous amount of concentration, focus, and confidence to spot the specs most would miss and draw attention to a background perspective not considered by the majority. It’s an especially important skill for sole entrepreneurs and micro business owners who are not only the CFO’s of the business but also the customer relations manager, communications director, salesman, secretary, and even computer programmer for the company. Many adults living with cptsd experience difficulty with specifics and being exact largely because of:
a. Hypervigilance – this becomes the default state of the physical and mental body when repeated trauma is inflicted on a child. Constantly being in fear of danger while simultaneously searching for safety keeps the stress hormones flowing so the body is ready to fight or flee at any given moment. The longer and more frequent the trauma, the more likely hypervigilance becomes the default state in adulthood. Focus and concentration needed for retaining and recalling details are extremely difficult to achieve in this state when the mind is fragmented. One part of your brain is processing the information that is in front of you while the other part is incessantly scanning the environment and looking out for danger, even when the person is not consciously aware this is happening (The Body Keeps the Score). It is suggested that a large percentage of those with ADHD have been misdiagnosed and should consider taking the short ACE quiz to reevaluate whether problems with focus and memory stem from CPTSD.
b. Procrastination – we all procrastinate from time to time and that’s ok; it’s the nature of human beings and in general, most people procrastinate just enough to get by without messing up the bigger picture. For adults with complex ptsd, it’s a whole different mechanism. Largely procrastination is brought on due to a sense of uncontrollable overwhelm; overwhelm from reviewing a situation, project, or task from every which angle possible and running a thousand different scenarios in the mind of how it could all play out. This may sound contrary to the cause of glossing over details however, the explanation is simple. Running an imaginary script in your mind, no matter how many times from how many different angles, is never as effective or useful as sitting down and reviewing an actual, tangible document at hand, even just once. Again, rooted in the pattern of constantly avoiding terror and seeking safety, the mind of the child will run off thinking of all the ways an encounter with the abuser can go severely wrong. They think of all the ways to escape or diminish the oncoming abuse and all the ways they can get to safety. If you notice, people with cptsd developed from childhood are really great at foreseeing possible problems that could arise in the future. It comes from years of practice! After the grace period is over you feel time beginning to tick, dread and anxiety begins to set in, further paralyzing the decision maker to another common trauma response – freeze. When time is up, another onslaught of panic, haste, and overwhelm. Rush, rush, rush! There’s no time to go over each line item carefully or double check those numbers on a statement or process the confusing legalese in that email.
Forgoing specifics and staying uncomfortable with exactness is a costly routine for any business or career person but for the entrepreneur and business owner with cptsd, it’s an unforgiving symptom that can make or break your business and should be treated with great importance.
4. Unrealistic/useless goals
It’s uncanny how many entrepreneurs, freelancers, and business people I’ve come across that shout “I have cptsd” any more loudly than those who express the most unrealistic, delusional, or useless goals as an attainable and worthwhile pursuit while on the path to success. It mostly derives from being in isolation; not having a respectable or trustworthy person to be a proper sound board to shake them into reality. I once had a case study who supposedly worked really hard for 2 years on a business plan that consisted of purchasing a 23 million dollar high rise property in Downtown, Los Angeles to open a social club that would need another 50 million in investments to execute and operate. This person had absolutely no experience or knowledge in commercial real estate, investments and funding, startups, hospitality, the industry in which the social club was to find its niche in, and had no clientele, zero equity, capital, line of credit, and loans. I was first approached with the goal of helping this individual draft up a pitch for investors. It was evident this person needed a lot more help assessing reality than drafting a pitch. Luckily, this symptom is easily curable if one is willing to humbly listen. Reaching out and making connections with people, therapists, or coaches you can trust is an easy way to check in and gauge which goals are within reach and which ones need more thought before going for it.
5. Hiding
It comes from having to hide the abuse, having to hide the neglect, and essentially, having to hide ourselves; the parts of us that were hurting and in pain, parts of us that were miserable, horrified, angry, frustrated, and fearful, the parts of us that were desperately seeking someone to come rescue us.. To show up in truth meant calling out the incompetence and cruelty of our caregivers and to do that would have been so shameful and unacceptable. So, for years we did a lot of hiding and blended in with normalcy the best we could. Many people with complex childhood trauma in the work force break away to pursue self-employment because they want to continue to hide; away from triggering work environments, triggering people, triggering cultures, triggering policies and politics. Both ironically but obviously, a business or entrepreneurship cannot succeed in hiding. Not in the early stages, anyway. A quick google search reveals that selling is the most important skill entrepreneurs and business owners need to master and this is no surprise. How is a sole entrepreneur or micro business owner with no employees supposed to generate income without selling? Being a great salesperson or thought leader or someone worth listening to requests the person be comfortable in the spotlight and comfortable with an array of different personalities showering them with attention and a moment’s notice. It’s a tall order to fill but again, this symptom is easily manageable once healing work begins with the right therapist, coach, and even a trusted friend.
6. Somatic flashbacks
Defined as physical flashbacks, this is a symptom experienced by the body when the brain or body picks up queues in the surrounding environment that resembles past trauma. Judging by the above 5 stumbling blocks listed here, entrepreneurship and operating a micro business can be highly triggering before ever getting to be highly rewarding. This can cause the body to react in ways that delay business development. Stomach aches, migraines, fatigue, brain fog, breathing difficulties, and heart palpitations are just some of the ailments that can be brought on by bodily flashbacks. These symptoms can be minimized with therapeutics like EMDR, myofascial massages, changes in diet, and supplements. The chances of calming any cptsd symptoms are always higher when the totality of the person is considered. Considering their physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental health all together rather than solely focusing on reducing a singular symptom in one area is a great approach.
7. Difficulty celebrating milestones and successes
Perhaps this is the least obvious of stumbling blocks but it is one to be noted and used correctly, it can reinforce hood habits while at the same time produce a great amount of healing surrounding the childhood trauma. Why we have difficulty recognizing our own achievements is a no brainer if you’ve read through all the stumbling blocks above. They are all integrated with one another and all originate from the three areas of impact – brain injury, emotional injury or affect regulation, and neurological injury composed of the vagus nerve. Being that we are beings comprised of our thoughts, emotions, and physical bodies, you can easily see how these injuries permeate through one’s entire reality. An adult who grew up with abuse or neglect from their formative years have an insurmountable amount of reshaping and change they must go through to truly find a satisfactory life and finally becoming the person they were designed to be. Celebrating milestones and the small achievements along the way is an effective way of reinforcing great habits and motivating yourself to keep going . For sole entrepreneurs and micro business owners who came out of complex childhood trauma, this is an especially difficult task. For one, making a point to celebrate your achievements forces you to view yourself as some one to be proud of rather than someone to be ashamed of. Growing up with feelings of self-hatred and toxic shame is all too common for adults with cptsd and the idea of patting yourself on the back for a job well done is quite a lost concept. Another reason is that when we are cause for celebration, we are turning the mic over to ourselves and asking, “what are we doing to celebrate”? It’s akin to asking ourselves what we like, what we want, and mostly, it’s asking “who am I?” To realize we have no idea who we are after decades of living in our own skin can be uncomfortable at best and frustrating or unnerving at worst. We spend much of our lives running away from feelings like these, so to thrust it upon ourselves, regardless of the positive reasoning behind it, seems paradoxical. How this can be a stumbling block for business professionals with cptsd is that not being able to celebrate ourselves hinders us from partaking in other people’s celebratory causes too. Diminishing our own achievements without recognition has a way of downplaying other people’s successes and people can pick up on this, no matter how much you pretend. This can keep you feeling separate from your community and you may be seen as pompous or stuck up or ingenuine. All of which you are not. Not being able to feel joy or pleasure is a side effect of stuffing down our terrible emotions when the abuse was occurring. While on the path to recovery, it’s just as important to sift through the grief and sorrow (which you will feel a lot) and consciously recognize what makes you feel happy, content, blissful, at peace, and connected with others.
The key to a different perspective
The best news from all this is that whether you’re a sole entrepreneur or small business owner experiencing many of these difficulties or just coming to identify your cptsd seeping into your business matters, all the layers of hurt and the trauma responses that have integrated into your self-identity begins to peel away on its own when you take an active approach to managing your complex ptsd symptoms. When healing becomes your number one priority, all else begins to fall into place. And the very first step to healing is becoming educated on cptsd and how it affects the mind, body, and spirit. So, if you’re here, and you’ve read through the entire post, you’re on the right track.
- Praying for your continued path to recovery and career bliss!
Nari