Latest / Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!! / Voice of The Voiceless: Trauma In The Workplace w Cyndi Bennett
Transcript
- peter AI: Welcome into another episode of the Voice of the Voiceless, a collaboration of Pete versus Anxiety and J &E support group. Be bold, be brave, be a voice of the voiceless. Pete "mental Health Champ": Welcome into another episode of Voice of the Voiceless. I'm Pete, Matty say hello everybody. And our guest today is Cindy Bennett. Cindy, why don't you tell everybody a little more about yourself? Maddie Andrews: Hey y'all. Cyndi Bennett: Hey there, thank you so much for allowing me to be here. It's a privilege. My name is Cindy Bennett. I am a trauma survivor, turned trauma informed career coach and founder of the Resilient Career Academy. So that's my coaching program. And I work exclusively with trauma survivors on their careers. Pete "mental Health Champ": So what about your podcast? You said you got to plug the podcast to come on now. Cyndi Bennett: I got the podcast. Thank you for that. getting better, trying to get better at it. It's called the, your trauma wise career guide. And so we talk about all things that have to do with your careers as trauma survivors, some of the things that happen in the workplace that where trauma shows up and gets in the way of your career and advancing your career and even holding down a job. So Maddie Andrews: And your blog. Cyndi Bennett: We have a lot of folks who are talking about trauma as a topic. We have folks that are talking about ⁓ treatment modalities for trauma, but there's very few of us who are talking about how trauma shows up in the workplace. And so that has been really critical for me and my own journey from healing from trauma. And so that's where I'm camping out right now. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, I think it's an interesting topic. Yeah, yeah, and then you're moving to Substack as well, weren't you telling us before too? Cyndi Bennett: That's correct. Yes, we're moving to a sub stack to try to collaborate with a lot of similar voices across different functions. And we have people that are in career coaching. We have therapists, have, you know, folks with DID. We have all kinds of folks. Pete "mental Health Champ": ⁓ see, DAD is an interesting one too, Cindy. I had somebody on the show that had it. And if you don't know what you're looking for, it's a very interesting conversation because you can watch the little ticks of the person changing. It's like she'd go really excited to really serious. And like if you didn't know what you're looking at, I thought that was very interesting because I've never experienced anybody with DAD. And you know, there's, you know, for everybody, it's a little different. I've seen two different cases. One of those and another girl, she was talking to somebody who was actually having a conversation with the other personalities in her head. She was talking to them like, okay, you should be out here. And you heard her having the dialogue with herself, which I thought was interesting for me, because I'm like, this is really fascinating, because you don't really meet a lot of people with DID, or if you do, it's hard to tell what you're looking for. Cyndi Bennett: Well, DID is a very ⁓ covert mental health condition. I myself have DID and I am out ⁓ as a coach with DID. And I live my life very authentically, ⁓ even as a coach. I consider myself the guide on the side. am not the sage on the stage, if you will, but we're all on a journey. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay. Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: We're all on a journey and we have, and our journey is all different. Every single one of us is on a different journey. And that just became part of mine. I was diagnosed late in life about, well, two and a half, two years ago, I guess, been in therapy now for my DID for almost a year. So, ⁓ but had some trauma therapy before that, but you know, you don't always realize that you have DID. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I get that 100%. Cyndi Bennett: Right, because you can, yeah. Maddie Andrews: I'd love to hear more about trauma and how it affects you in the workplace, because I have significant childhood trauma. And I feel like in my early career, I just kept getting retraumatized and retraumatized at work to the point that it like so negatively affected my mental health, where I could like be professional in the moment, but inside I was crumbling. And then when I went home, I was so triggered that I wasn't functioning. And I think it's great what you're doing because People forget that like trauma builds on trauma builds on trauma and it can show up anywhere including the workplace. Cyndi Bennett: 100%, 100 % and what you experienced is so normal. It is just so normal because when we experience trauma as children, it affects our development. It affects how we see ourselves. It affects how we see the world in general and how we perceive safety because you go into a work environment and there are all kinds of, by the way, two thirds of our, our Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Maddie Andrews: Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: Workforce has been traumatized in childhood, right? And so it's so prevalent, but people don't see it and they don't understand it unless you shine a light on and you start talking about it, talking about what does that look like in the workplace? How are you experiencing your triggers in the workplace? How did you experience power differentials in the workplace? How did you experience attachment wounding in the workplace? Maddie Andrews: Yeah, yeah. Cyndi Bennett: all of these things you carry with you. It's not a matter of, well, yes, I've had trauma in my past, and this is part of my story, right? So yes, I've had trauma in my past and I tried to leave it there, but it doesn't stay there because it lives in your body. So you take it wherever you go. If you go to work, it's gonna be in your body and it's gonna show up and things are gonna feel really very familiar to you. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Maddie Andrews: Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: in certain situations in the workplace. And so you'll be triggered and then it'll blow up and then you'll be like, what in the heck, right? Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Maddie Andrews: So how do you? It sounds like you got a lot of great insight professionally, lived experience, which I always appreciate the lived experience aspect. So how did you go from, take us back to the beginning? Like what was your journey to lead you to helping so many people today? Cyndi Bennett: Well, I appreciate that. The journey has been a long one. So as a child, I grew up with a very dissociated mother who to this day does not admit that she has trauma. But that's just a generational thing because that's just the way it was, right? So if you talk with someone of her generation, that's just the way it was. And you'll hear that often. That's just life or something like that. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm. Yeah. Maddie Andrews: Right. Cyndi Bennett: but she was very dissociated to the point where ⁓ emotionally she was not there. So I had significant, significant attachment wounds. And I had multiple experiences of familial sexual abuse. And at the age of 10, I was raped by ⁓ a guy, an old man in the woods, right behind our house. But then that turned into... more sexual abuse from my father who was a police officer. So ⁓ all these things kind of added up. My senior year in high school, I outed my dad who then went to prison. So this is like, it's just building, building, building of all the things, right? ⁓ And I thought that once I got through, like I survived high school, basically I just survived high school. ⁓ and when I went to college, I thought, man, I could just be whoever I wanted to be. Nobody has to know any of any of this about me. I could just pretend it didn't happen. And so I was like, I'm going to leave the past in the past. I'm going to move forward. Yeah, but that's not what happened. Right. my dad passed away my beginning of my sophomore year in, in high school or in college. And I quickly realized that. I was not healed, not even a bit healed. And I think personally, I think that it's very difficult to heal when your abuser still alive because you have that sense that, man, they could come back at any time. You just don't even know, right? You have that very, ⁓ you're always on edge. And so, until when he passed, man, I was Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: was pissed at God when he passed because I was like, dang it, Lord, you let him go to heaven and like, you're gonna like, let me have to deal with all this crap that he left behind. How fair is that? ⁓ but there was a reason and a purpose, right? I know that there's a reason and a purpose for what I went through and I can see that now and I couldn't see it then, but like, I tried to just not You know, I got married when I was 20, I started having children. I was still not healed. I graduated with my degree in psychology and counseling and was my first job was an adolescent substance abuse counselor, unhealed adolescent substance abuse counselor. Pete "mental Health Champ": So. So Cindy, real quick for you, okay? So you said you got married at 20. Were relationships hard for you though, given your history of being sexually assaulted though? It had to be a little, really hard for you. Like some of those like those, know, the scions, the smells, certain things that would trigger you. You didn't have PTSD or anything of those moments? Cyndi Bennett: ⁓ you know, ⁓ I didn't because now I know why I didn't. And that was because, well, I had DID. So I had parts protecting me, right? ⁓ that were doing all the things and the parts that were really, ⁓ hurting and very wounded were back in the, back in the back of the bus. If, if I could tell you that, right? So, ⁓ now I understand that then I didn't. Pete "mental Health Champ": ⁓ okay. Okay. ⁓ okay. Okay. Cyndi Bennett: Right? So I, there were things that were challenging and I didn't understand why, you know, certain job roles, why, why certain bosses reminded me of my dad who I really had difficulty with. Right? So those types of things that reminded me of those situations and I didn't, I didn't understand it. I had no idea about trauma. Trauma was not a thing when I was growing up. Okay. And it wasn't even a thing until I was Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Maddie Andrews: Bye. Cyndi Bennett: You know, in my 50s, I think, is when they started talking about trauma, but it was mostly in the context of military, right? So I had no idea that that was probably, yeah, I knew I had that in my background, but again, I'm gonna put that behind me and I'm moving forward, right? And so that's what I did. And that's what a lot of trauma survivors do. They continue to move forward, continue to do the things. And guess what? Busyness is a coping strategy. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Maddie Andrews: Yes, yes, I do it too. Yes. Cyndi Bennett: It is a very big coping strategy. And so like busy, busy, like, like let's outrun this thing. Right. Because if you stop, it's going to catch up to you. Right. And I did that. I mean, I had three children. I was going to school, you know, to both, you know, graduate degrees. I was going to school. I was working a full time job. was soccer mom. I was all the things. Right. Maddie Andrews: Yes! Yes. Cyndi Bennett: And then as my children got older and needed me less, my life started to slow down. And guess what? Trauma caught up to me in the workplace, right? When I was 51 years old or going, I guess I'm just going on 52. I had a, what I call, I had this zip file of repressed memories. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: open up in the workplace. And I went from high functioning overachiever to not being able to function at all over Christmas break one year. And I was in charge of a really large project for a top five financial institution, a global financial institution. And I was in tech and I was in charge of this multiple ⁓ line of business project and I couldn't function. My nervous system was completely overwhelmed. My coping strategies were inadequate. My startle reflex was to the ceiling. I couldn't take the noise. My nervous system was so overwhelmed. I was flooding with all of these memories and I didn't have the capacity to hold all of the emotions that were coming out. ⁓ and it just, opened up. That's why I said it's like a zip file. So I just, someone just unzipped everything that I had pushed down for so long in my life. And, and I just couldn't, I was really struggling to function. so thankfully I got some trauma, some trauma therapy. Thank you, Lord. ⁓ I got a trauma therapist who really gave me some skills. and really helped me to learn how to cope and how to, you know, ask for what I needed. I didn't know that I was allowed to do that. I didn't know I was allowed to ask for what I needed in the workplace. You know, accommodations are there for a reason. It's because it's not that you're broken. It's just that you have other needs that maybe some other folks don't need, that they don't have. And I needed some things that I, you know, had to get. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: some courage to really, ⁓ to really ask for those things. And you asked me before, how did, how did you function with all that stuff? Right. Because most trauma survivors live in their armor. They have armor and I had titanium armor. That was really good at keeping everything out, but it also keeps out all the good stuff too. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Maddie Andrews: Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: You know, and it keeps out the bad, it keeps out the good as well. And so it's really lonely when you live in the armor because you don't have the, you don't have the relationship. You don't invite people in. And very early in my counseling, very early in my trauma therapy, I made the conscientious, brave decision that I no longer want to live in the armor. I don't want to be fake anymore. I just want to be. Maddie Andrews: Yes. Cyndi Bennett: authentic and I want to be who I am as messy as I am at the moment and as messy as I was in the moment, I was just going to be real. And I've taken that and I've carried that forward into my coaching and, and, and buddy, when I go to coaching sessions, if I'm messy, am messy. And I tell people you could show up messy. It's all good. It's all acceptable here. Right. Pete "mental Health Champ": Hmm. Cyndi Bennett: you can show up messy, we'll be in the messy middle together, right? But I noticed when I was early on and I was trying to get some stabilization and trying to get some regulation, I noticed early on that there were a lot of people that were like me in the workplace, that nobody talked about it. Like nobody mentioned it. Everybody was like, Maddie Andrews: Yes. Cyndi Bennett: like trying to, you know, these are not the droids you're looking for sort of thing. You know, these are not the signs that you're seeing, right? And I was like, yeah, but there's gotta be a reason, there's gotta be a purpose for this, it's purpose for the suffering, right? And so I went and got certified as a trauma recovery coach. I realized that, know what, there's, Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. Cyndi Bennett: this is bigger than me, but my vision is global. And I can't do that on my own. And I certainly can't do it by just reaching one person at a time. So then I got a certification in group coaching and I was like, yeah, but nobody's talking about the workplace. And that's where I've experienced it the worst. And by the way, we spend over 90,000 hours of our life in the workplace and nobody's talking about it. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. I think it's been more than that. Cyndi Bennett: And so that's what really, that's my passion, right? And that's why, because nobody was talking about it. And there were no tools. There were nothing that you could take to the workplace and use. Nobody was talking about it. And so you couldn't even say, well, are you experiencing this? Are you experiencing this? And so as part of my healing journey, like the work develops the worker. So like part of my healing journey was finding my voice as a trauma survivor. How did I come off of mute was my first article. My first blog was, I'm coming off of mute because I've muted myself way too long and now I'm coming off and I'm going to start talking about what's happening right now. And I just started sharing personal stories of what was happening for me in the workplace and what was I seeing and what was I experiencing and what were some of the solutions that I found, became a part of. And then it started to grow and people were like, me too, me too. Thank you for writing this. Thank you for, and if you go on Google today and you do trauma and workplace, my articles will come up. It's saturated with my articles. have many, many, I've been writing for three and a half years now. So many, many articles that are all about trauma in the workplace and how it shows up. And so as, yeah. Maddie Andrews: I appreciate this so much and I feel like I resonate so much with your story. I feel like I'm one of those people who's saying me too. Like I learned I've been in therapy so long for my schizoaffective but I was ignoring the trauma for so long and I was just shoving and shoving and shoving and shoving and it's like it didn't even happen to me. I wasn't recognizing any of it and then it was catching up with me in the workplace and my personal life just all over. Cyndi Bennett: Yeah. Maddie Andrews: And now recently I've started EMDR therapy, trauma therapy, and it's difficult work. You have to be ready to do trauma therapy. But I feel like I'm just now finally learning a lot about myself. I'm learning how to be comfortable in the skin I'm in. I'm learning how to say no. I'm learning a lot of new skills that I would not have addressed if I hadn't started this trauma therapy. And I just appreciate so much. Cyndi Bennett: ⁓ yeah. Maddie Andrews: that you're using your voice to express these things and help so many other people and making it a career and publishing these articles because there's tons of us out there who are living this, not that we have the same path because we all have our own experiences, but we all have like a kindred pain of not working on our trauma. I'm 37 years old and I'm just now figuring this out. Like I do a lot of good in the world and I shove it all down and nobody really knows. But it doesn't mean I'm not suffering on the inside. then every once in a while, it just kind of like came out in ugly ways. So thank you for publishing these articles. Thank you for being an advocate. This is important work. Yes. Cyndi Bennett: Yeah Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, I find this a very interesting topic because not a lot of people are talking about it, especially the workplace. Like we all experienced burnout like beyond belief and you're like 90,000. I'm like, dude, I'm probably working more than that because I work overtime too. And then I'm working longer hours and then I'm recording both these shows and doing all these other things. And it's like, I do a lot. And it's just like, it's crazy. And then they get mad at you when you don't answer your phone calls. And I get constantly get told Cyndi Bennett: Yeah. Maddie Andrews: Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": ⁓ you don't answer your phone calls. Yeah, because I realized at the end of the day, you weren't worried about me. You're worried about yourselves at the end of the day. And when I started saying something that I became the bad guy, I was like, ⁓ no, you're not being a team player. But am I really? I'm telling you no, because I'm looking out for myself at the end of the day, because you don't care about what I... And the thing with when it comes to mental health especially, it's like they all say, ⁓ we all care. No, you don't. You have no idea. You offer four free sessions. That ain't enough sessions for anybody. I don't care what you say. Like you don't do enough for people in this workplace setting, especially when you're burning people out. Me and another guy, he runs a podcast called the breakfast, ⁓ breakfast something in the morning. his whole focal point was the burnout category. Cause I've been there. It's like, I just stopped caring at one point, you know, and he could just tell like I get to those points where I'm just like, ⁓ forget it. I'm just, I'm ready. So I ended up having to take a week off every year just because I'm like, I need to recharge man. Cause like, if not, you guys are going to run me to the brown and it's not going to, you're not going to care because you don't care about. or what I'm thinking in order like, I've heard of me comments too about mental health is funny too, cause someone like, Oh, well you're just having a bad day. I'm like, it's not like that. Like it's funny to hear when they say that things, you know, when they say those kinds of things, it's like, you have no idea what you're talking about. And it's great to listen to them. Cause I smile and they're like, what are you smiling about? The fact you have no idea what you're even talking about right now. It's funny. The fact you want to tell me like, if I'm having a situation where I have a panic attack, cause I've had some at work before where I just had a freak out moment cause I'm overwhelmed. I was trying to get everything done. And it's like, Cyndi Bennett: Yeah, it's capacity management. Pete "mental Health Champ": You just keep piling things on my plate and just keep telling me, oh, we got to do this. But your answer to everything is, don't know. And I'm like, I'm trying to get all this stuff done. I'm working myself up to the point I'm having a panic attack at work and you're telling me to calm down. Clearly tells me you have no idea what you're talking about. You need more training. And in fact, a lot of these workplaces should have people more trained on what to do in these situations, especially for people that deal with these kinds of things because... You know, there's a guy that called me, for example, that he called me the other day. I was at work. He called me. This guy was in tears and I was like, Hey, you okay? And he was like, he's like, no, man. It's like, need a day. I just, I just can't do it anymore. I'm just like, I'm breaking down. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry for being that way. I told him straight out. told him, don't be sorry. Don't ever call him. me you're sorry because I don't want everyone to hear you say that again, because why be sorry for you looking out for yourself at the end of the day, because you're clearly upset. Like he called me in tears and I'm like, he's like, I'm okay. You're not okay. I can tell you're not okay. Just on the sound of your voice. I said, what's wrong man? Talk to me. And he was telling me about it. And I was just like, I'm like, he was that so frustrated and he's still new and this is a scary part. These are newer people. I've been there five years now and the things I've seen are just like, it's horrible because they used to take advantage of me because every time I was that guy you could call, I got to just call Pete. He'll come in. He'll come in. And I did. I came in. Like I think, I think I did 109 hours one week. I clocked 109 hours on top of everything else. And all you got was a simple, ⁓ ⁓ that's good job. That's it. That's it. That's all you have to say to me. Then when I tell you no, you get mad at me. Cyndi Bennett: That's a trauma response really, because it's not being able to say no is a trauma response, right? Because there's something in it, right? For you, it's you're fawning maybe at work, know? Right? And so this happens, right? And we have capacity management issues because in our, I explain it this way, in our cup, we have this big rock. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Maddie Andrews: Yes, I do that all the time! Cyndi Bennett: of trauma. Right? And that's just right at the bottom. It's the biggest thing that's in there. Then you layer in work and school and family and children and friends. Right? And you have this much ⁓ capability, capacity to do something else. And so for you, I've got this, I got a full-time job. I've got two podcasts. got, right? You have like, Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: this much work, this much room left to do anything else. And we live our lives right on the brim, no margin at all. And so if anything comes and knocks your cup, it spills everything out. Right? And that's what happens. It's capacity management. We have to learn how to like set boundaries. And we have to learn how to say, you know what? Time out. I'm at my limit now. Maddie Andrews: ⁓ Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah, I feel that hundred percent Cyndi Bennett: I can't do anymore right now. And that's hard. It's hard for us as trauma survivors to say that. saying, because it says something about us. It says something about who we are. It says something about our worth and our value, right? And these are the things, right? We are not aware of these things that show up in the workplace. Right? And so. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, I wasn't aware of it either until I finally just started looking at it. Took a step back when I started Pete versus anxiety, I started doing therapy and things like that. I started talking to my therapist about it and I would tell her about my days at work and she's just like, Jesus, you're miserable. I'm like, you're telling me? Like every day going to work, it's like a new problem exists and it's like, well, if I don't fix it, Pete will fix it. And it's like, I have to be the guy that fixes everything. And the one I'm not, it's like nothing gets done. And then it's like, then I take it all on myself and then I start like stressing myself out about it. And I just eventually stopped caring. And I was like, you know, when I stopped caring is when the part when you could tell they were getting really mad because there I was pushing back and telling them, no, I'm like, I'm just not going to answer your phone calls. You know, now I get criticisation. My dad's like, you should at least respond. No, this is my day off. I'm not going to answer you. Like I told you these days of the week are not unavailable. You know, things like that. You know, I don't have to respond to you. I'm not on your clock. You know, and when I am, it's like, you know, you're just like Cyndi Bennett: Great. That's a boundary. Pete "mental Health Champ": Well, I don't know, you may have to be here 14 hours or something. And I'm just like, what? Like, no, like that's crazy. Why should I have to stay when you're not prepared? Like you're the people above me. You have no idea what your plan is. And you're just like, well, we're just going to rough shot it. And I'm like, but that doesn't work because these new people, these newer, this newer generation starting to realize all the things that we didn't want to admit to ourselves that, these things are just these make no sense. Like why kill yourself? or somebody doesn't care about you at the end of the day. it's the fact is it is really what it is. It's like, they don't care about you. ⁓ we care. We have so much appreciation. Okay, then where's your appreciation? Show it to me. ⁓ we'll give you like a free pizza party. that whole, you know, that whole like sending them for that. It's like, mm, yeah, I don't think so. That's, know, that's funny because I had to work, what was it, one time when I switched shifts, I went from like what we call a swing, which is like three days during the day or the evenings and then two overnights. Cyndi Bennett: Give me a day off. I'll take a day off. Pete "mental Health Champ": to where I'm at now where I work overnight, because it works better for me just in general, because I don't like a lot of people. Where I'm at now, it's like I get less supervision and more I could do what I need to do. And now it's like they made me work. I had worked 14 days, 12 hour days. I clocked like 109 hours. And the people that were in charge of me were like, oh, well, you're not going to have a day off. You're going to have to work one schedule into the other one. And then my boss came in was like, are you out of your fucking mind? He's like, he's working 14 days, 12 hours. Are you glad I'm lost? One of your asses need to come in here and come take him a day off because that's insane. And I was like, well, time somebody said something because I knew this was bullshit. You know, but it's like it took that moment. then when I said when I started saying no to everything and they're like, well, you're just not a team player. I get the conversation that I'm not a team player. Well, you're not here for the team. No, I think it's I put my mental first. Cyndi Bennett: Yeah. Well, that's all guilt. That's all guilt. That's a motivation by guilt, right? And also that's very typical of someone who's new setting boundaries in the workplace, right? Because they will throw all kinds of stuff at you to try to get you to like renege on your boundary and give in to it. And sometimes, especially when people were, we're just learning how to set boundaries. We set hard boundaries. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Yep. Cyndi Bennett: We're willing to go to war for those boundaries. Don't you dare step near me. And that's until we learn how to be more, you know, softer, you know, maybe not so combative when you set the boundaries, you know, ⁓ but that comes with practice. You learn how to be diplomatic. And when you're setting your boundaries, but how to hold them still. Maddie Andrews: Mm. Cyndi Bennett: Instead of like, don't you dare, I will fight you to the death. You know, those kinds of boundaries. that that's what happens when you're just learning a new skill. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Yeah, they don't like they're like, no, then they possibly give me a guilt trip about, you don't answer your text messages. No, I was busy recording. I I would I tell her last year talking to me and Maddie were talking to one of the Miss America possible candidates for Indiana. She came on. was like, yeah, I was talking to some Miss America candidates. And she was like, yeah, OK. I'm like, here you go. I pulled up the video feed on my phone because my phone has access to the studio. It's like, oh, see, there's I am right there. There she is right there. You know, and there are so any other questions you got for me like and she just didn't know what to say to me. I was like. Cyndi Bennett: You know, but also you can also set the boundary and say, will not return, I will not return emails or voicemails on my day off. Period. Period. That's it. End of discussion. I will work my assigned hours. Period. I will not any work anymore because what you're doing by that is you're, you're saving your own capacity or doing what you are equipped to do. Pete "mental Health Champ": I'm not the one, try somebody else. My favorite one. Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: in what you've been called to do. Pete "mental Health Champ": My favorite one though, too, Cindy, is they like to tell me at the last minute, oh, you have to stay. I don't have to do anything. My time clock says this to this. I'm clocking out this time. I don't know what to tell y'all. I got places to go and things to do. What else you got to do? They were trying to give me a lecture one time, in fact, because they're like, well, where did you have to go? I was like, I told you I had places and things to go. I don't have to tell you where I'm going. It's none of your business. Exactly. It's irrelevant. That's what I told them. It's irrelevant what I had to do. I don't have to tell you what I'm doing. Well, you should have told us you had to. I don't have to tell you anything. You're not my mother. Cyndi Bennett: Irrelevant. irrelevant. Pete "mental Health Champ": You're not my wife. You're not anybody that's any relation to me that I have to tell you anything I'm doing. And I love they use that tactic too. Well, you have to tell me where you're going. I don't have to tell you anything. In fact, nice try though, chief. I don't think so. You don't run my life. Nice try. And people live in that fear because they're like, well, I don't want to lose my job. What are they going to fire you for? Go find a reason to fire me. Then we'll talk about it. Go and figure out what I did wrong. Because all I told you is no, I didn't want to come in and help you because I'm tired and I'm tired of doing all the work and then not getting any recognition for what I'm doing. and having to pick up the slack for the people that you keep here that are basically essentially no use to us. But you don't want to listen to us. We're trying to tell you, hey, these people, oh, I don't have an issue. That's my other favorite thing. Oh, I don't have an issue with them. OK, because you're the bigger boss. They don't argue with you. Me, they'll sit there and argue with all day. But you, they're not going to say nothing because you could fire them. I don't have that power of anything like that. I can't do nothing. So I'm like, cool. You don't care. I don't care. That's how we're going to do this kind of thing. now I'm at that kind of like office space kind of saying, know what? Peter goes to the therapist. He talks to that guy, he gets hypnotized and he's just like, yeah, whatever, okay. And he just breaks that cycle of just giving in and living in the fear of things. I'm just feeling the same way because I'm like, all right, fire me then. I'll go find something else. You think I care? I don't care at this point. Just go and do it because I'm looking for you to give me reason to fire me. All right, what did I do wrong? Because you can't serve anything I did wrong. You're mad because I'm not doing all this extra work you want me to do and get paid for not forwarding my time, you know, and things like that. And I'm tired of taking on all these extra tasks. like, dude, I do too much around here. Like you don't... Maybe time in five, maybe hire people that make sense or fit in, you know, it's like better planning. There's no communication either. That's my favorite part. Like for three people that have technology, you could text me about everything else, but anything important that you give to information to somebody else and then tell them to give it to me. And it's like playing telephone because it comes in half the time or I don't get it at all. Like, you know, and I don't, well, they didn't tell you. Why didn't you just tell me? Why don't you just take five minutes, send me a text message and give me all the information I needed. Why tell somebody else? Cyndi Bennett: Yeah. Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": give them the responsibility to do your job. I don't understand why you just couldn't message in and send me something. You can text me about everything else. I think it doesn't make sense. It is, it's aggravating. It drives me crazy because it's like, we can't communicate. It's not like I'm asking you to do much, I'm asking you to communicate with me. Take two seconds, you can text me about everything else, but that's why I stopped answering. Cyndi Bennett: Do you hear the frustration? Do you hear the frustration, Maddie? Do you hear it? Right? Maddie Andrews: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": That's when I finally came to that point I was like, know what? Fucking I'm done. I'm not gonna give into this bull crap anymore because I started seeing through the lines. ⁓ now you're gonna try and pressure me. Go ahead. What are you gonna say? ⁓ he didn't want to come in? Cyndi Bennett: This makes sense why he has anxiety, right? Maddie Andrews: So Cindy, if somebody like Pete came into your office and was expressing all these things, what would your coaching say is the first step? What was the first step? Pete "mental Health Champ": She say burn the building down. Cyndi Bennett: Yeah, first thing I would work on with you is trigger management. Is how to get regulated. Dude, you're not regulated. You're totally dysregulated. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yep, like I'm just like. ⁓ no. Cyndi Bennett: just going like I see it, like the first, you cannot do anything until you have a regulated nervous system. You can't get anywhere until your nervous system is regulated and you have to have skills in order to regulate. You have to know where your triggers are in the workplace. You have to know what your coping skills are. You have to practice them. If you don't have, if you don't use the tools, you're not going to know how to use them. You have to practice using them over and over again. And you have to continue to iterate on your trigger tracker. Like I can send you a link. It's a free tool that I have on my website. It's a workplace trigger tracker toolkit. And it has, ⁓ it's a matrix that tells you like, what was the situation you were in? What was the reaction? What was the trigger? What was it related to? What was the intensity? Because the more intensity is the more records you have in your database, right? That that's promoting that intensity. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, definitely. Cyndi Bennett: What were the coping strategies that you use? Were they successful? Like, or what did you choose? And it also has a coping strategy list. That's like a pick list that you can, you compare with different triggers and you can take that to your therapist, to therapy and say, this is the, these are the triggers I'm experiencing in the workplace. And triggers are not, don't have to be scary. It's just information. Pete "mental Health Champ": Okay. Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: It's just information. You take that and you take it to therapy and then you start to uncover what's driving that. What are all the records that are under this really intense trigger? Right. And those are the things you process. That's like deflating the balloon. EMDR is like deflating the balloon, the emotional balloon. If you, if you look into like brain spotting, I did both, right? So I deflated the balloon, but then brain spotting, Pete "mental Health Champ": Right? Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: excavates the trauma where you live in your brain, wherever it is in your brain. And it's a fascinating neuroscience, fascinating neuro. I'm just the neuroscience nerd right now. But like it's fascinating, but I always start there because you can't learn if you're dysregulated. You have no capacity because your frontal cortex is offline. You can't, you're, you're in trauma mode, right? And so Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, brain spawning is really cool. Yeah. Damn, I feel called up there, ladies. Damn. Y'all gonna be listening to the news. Boy, he started the building up. ⁓ that's Pete over there. Probably was him, man. just finally said, fuck it. just went. ⁓ I know. I get it. Maddie Andrews: Sorry, Pete. Cyndi Bennett: Listen, we're all that- Maddie Andrews: Yeah Cyndi Bennett: You're not alone and guess what? All your managers are not regulated. That's why you keep tripping over each other. We need that. We need trauma informed leadership, right? Yeah. We need trauma informed leadership. And when we say that we need to tell, like managers are not trained. Maddie Andrews: Ha ha ha! Pete "mental Health Champ": ⁓ God, no, there's no organ. Like think of like the Mighty Ducks, the original Mighty Ducks. They're like, that's how bad it is. Like we're literally like that disorganized. And it's Maddie Andrews: Yes. Cyndi Bennett: How do you say, let's have trauma-informed leadership if you don't tell them what to look for? They don't know, yeah, let's do trauma-informed leadership. Okay, what are the signs of when trauma shows up in the workplace? What does that look like? Oh, you don't know? Well, then how do you know what to look for? How do you know? How do you know what to do? Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. mean, it's true though. mean, you're not you're not saying wrong facts. It's true though. It's like they're so disorganized with things that go on. And it's like a lot of these places like, oh, we're oh, it's mental awareness month. You know, like those are my favorite ones. I'm waiting for the emails. Well, happy up awareness month. I'm like, I get mad every time I see him because I'm like, you have no clue what the hell you're talking about. Do you guys actually have that far disconnect? You have no idea. Like, just yeah. You know, in. Cyndi Bennett: Yeah, it's a check the box. It's a check the box activity. You know, we want to ⁓ appear to really let mental health be important. But like even some of the, ⁓ some of the, the ways that they do things, like for example, EAP, we have a really brilliant EAP program in our company, right? And we've get free Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: ⁓ three therapy sessions and they have people even in the workplace, which is amazing. But guess what? When you call into the line, you may not get the same person ever. Right. and as a trauma survivor, that's no bueno. I will never do that. So you have these, you have these benefits. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Cyndi Bennett: that someone who's a trauma survivor and really needs them will never use because of the way that they're set up. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Maddie Andrews: another question for you. I always talk to my clients about this is self-advocacy. How do you talk to the people you work with about self-advocating in the workplace? Cyndi Bennett: Yeah, that's really, that's a great question. That's a great question. It takes a whole heck of a lot of courage to do that. Right. ⁓ and because what you're trying to do first is you're trying to assess, ⁓ safety with, with people. Right. And you almost have to build up. It's like, you know, we, we talk about Brene Brown's marble jar. Have they earned, have they, Pete "mental Health Champ": That's a really great question. That is a fantastic question. Cyndi Bennett: accumulated enough marbles in the jar that you can trust them with your story, right? Because you don't want to be seen as someone who can't handle it, right? That's what people are afraid of. They can't handle it, right? Or they don't want them to think that they're incompetent or that they can't do the job because they absolutely can do the job. Trauma survivors are brilliant. Maddie Andrews: Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: They have superpowers. You want to know why? Because they survive lots of crap and they have gotten through it and they're alive. They are brilliant. Right. And so, but it's, it's really having enough of self-awareness, having language to be able to say, this is what I need in order to perform at my best. And I know that you want me to perform at my best. Right. And this is what I need in order to do it. Maddie Andrews: Yes! Pete "mental Health Champ": Hmm. Maddie Andrews: Yes! Yes. Cyndi Bennett: and you don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to go into detail about your trauma. You don't have to do any of that. You don't have to answer any questions. You're saying, this is what I need, right? I've advocated for myself to work from home for several years since COVID. And even when people were returning to the office and I'm saying, you know what? I can manage my ⁓ symptoms. better at home because I have all the things that I need in order to manage when when stuff falls out right and it will and it does still today even with you know five years or six years of healing under my belt it still happens today right because they're gonna come there are gonna be some things like you're dealing with people and people are the the hardest parts of you know the whole trauma history because it's relational trauma. And trauma happens in relationships, but it also yields in relationships. And so we have to learn how to build those things and build the skills and build the, and trust our system, like trusting our nervous system to say, that person's not safe. I don't know why, but I know that person's not safe. Right. And trust it and learn how to trust. That's something I've been working on. Like, Ooh, I don't. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Cyndi Bennett: I don't know what it is. Maybe my system will tell me later, but there's something about that person I do not trust. But sometimes you're just blindsided by people or you trigger each other. That happens a lot, right? Maddie Andrews: Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, you're right. Those damn customers always trigger me. You're right. just can't stand. That's why I tell people that's why I work at night, though. Maddie Andrews: Hahaha! Cyndi Bennett: Well, I think we're over time, right? I don't know. Are we? We could probably talk like this for a day. Maddie Andrews: Yes, yes, this has been great. Pete "mental Health Champ": We could. So all right. Well, we got to start wrapping up this episode. Unfortunately, Cindy, it's been fantastic having you. I love this. This is great. ⁓ Maddie Andrews: This has been so good. Please, please tell us where we can find you Cindy, cause this is, are a valuable asset. Pete "mental Health Champ": Definitely. Cyndi Bennett: Thank you so much. I am moving all of my stuff over to Substack. So it's the resilient careers at substack.com. Well, forward slash substack.com. And I'm having my blogs over there. You can find me on YouTube as the, your ⁓ career wise trauma guide, trauma wise career guide. There we go. Your trauma wise career guide. ⁓ Pete "mental Health Champ": I love that. I love that name. That's so great. Cyndi Bennett: Let's see, you can find some of my articles on the CPTSD foundation. I am on the board there. And so I contribute to their blog occasionally. And so you could see me there and you can find me on my website, cyndi.benet or sydneybenet at sydneybenetconsulting.com. So, you know, I'll, will send you the link for the resources. There's resources on my Maddie Andrews: Yes. Yes. Cyndi Bennett: way my website. if you're interested in a courses or I have a coaching, ⁓ I have a coaching ⁓ website that we go through a community and it's for career coaching. And so you can, you're happy to, you know, welcome to join us and also starting a more ⁓ accessible version of the program, because a lot of people who have struggles in their, in their work, are unemployed and don't have the money for really coaching. Right. And so I've been searching for a low cost way to provide services for folks. And that's what, that's what got me onto Substack because I can provide that for $15 a month and they can get monthly Q and a group coaching sessions. can get all of the resource resources in my resource library that you can get tools and you know, articles and all the things to help them go as deep as they want whenever they want. And, you know, again, we only have very limited capacity to learn when we're just really struggling to be regulated. And so I want to keep that in mind and know that you're not, if you have trauma and you're struggling in the workplace, you are not alone. I just want people to hear that. You are not alone and you're not broken. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, I agree. Cyndi Bennett: There is nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. And so, you you are a superhero if you've made it this far. So please come, please come and we'll just support one another and we'll continue to break through and to really tell this, share the story with folks. Maddie Andrews: Yes. Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": I love it. love it. Cindy, thank you so much for coming to hang out with us. I really appreciate it. Guys, we're going to wrap up this episode of Voice of the Voiceless. Matty, say bye to everybody, okay? Maddie Andrews: Thank you. Cyndi Bennett: All right. Maddie Andrews: Goodbye and please check out Sydney. feel like I just had therapy. This has been an amazing episode. Pete "mental Health Champ": Right? I'm telling you what, guys, we'll have all the links in the episode description for you for Sydney's everything. He has just listed for you right there, guys. And as always, be bold, be brave, one of the voice of the voiceless. So we'll see you guys next time. Maddie Andrews: Thank Bye. Cyndi Bennett: Awesome.