When Work Doesn’t Go Well: The Hidden Impact of Trauma

Many people struggle with not being able to perform at their best at work. In the workplace, if results don’t follow, the responsibility is often placed on you. And yet, something doesn’t sit right—you intuitively feel you could do much better. That’s not wishful thinking; it can be true. In fact, trauma may be lurking in the background as a cause of reduced work performance. In this article, under a physician’s supervision, a nationally certified psychologist summarizes the issue.

<Created: 2025.9.26 / Last Updated: 2025.9.26>

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		Author of this article Ichitaro Miki (三木一太朗) — Licensed Psychologist (Japan) Graduated from Osaka University; completed the Master’s program at Osaka University Graduate School Has worked in psychological practice for over 20 years. Specializes in trauma and attachment disorders that underlie various problems and a pervasive sense of difficulty in life. Has authored multiple books—including Developmental Trauma: The Real Cause of “Feeling Life Is Hard” (approx. 40,000 copies in total)—and has numerous media appearances, production support/supervision for TV dramas, and features in web and print media. Click here for the full profile

Author of this article

Ichitaro Miki (三木一太朗) — Licensed Psychologist (Japan)

Graduated from Osaka University; completed the Master’s program at Osaka University Graduate School

Has worked in psychological practice for over 20 years. Specializes in trauma and attachment disorders that underlie various problems and a pervasive sense of difficulty in life. Has authored multiple books—including Developmental Trauma: The Real Cause of “Feeling Life Is Hard” (approx. 40,000 copies in total)—and has numerous media appearances, production support/supervision for TV dramas, and features in web and print media.

Click here for the full profile

		Medical supervision of this article Yoshio Iijima — Physician (Psychosomatic Medicine, etc.) In addition to psychosomatic medicine, also a clinical psychologist, Kampo (traditional Japanese) physician, and general practitioner, with deep expertise across fields. Specializes particularly in medically unexplained symptoms and autonomic nervous system dysregulation. Click here for the full profile

Medical supervision of this article

Yoshio Iijima — Physician (Psychosomatic Medicine, etc.)

In addition to psychosomatic medicine, also a clinical psychologist, Kampo (traditional Japanese) physician, and general practitioner, with deep expertise across fields. Specializes particularly in medically unexplained symptoms and autonomic nervous system dysregulation. Click here for the full profile

＜Editorial Policy＞

• Written by a licensed psychologist, based on many years of clinical experience and client narratives—especially from perspectives of attachment and trauma care. Provides explanations and key takeaways.

• References specialized books and objective data to the best of our knowledge.

• Strives to update content with the latest findings wherever possible.

• This article has been translated from the original Japanese using AI. Therefore, it may contain unnatural translations, particularly for specialized terms.

• Common struggles with underperforming at work

• Performance decline caused by trauma

• Why trauma derails work—causes and mechanisms

• Eight ways to overcome “work isn’t going well”

→ For symptoms and causes of trauma, see the articles below.

▶ What Are Trauma (Developmental Trauma), PTSD, and Complex PTSD? Causes and Symptoms

▶ Is Your Constant Tension a Result of Trauma?

▶ Is Trauma the Hidden Cause of Your Relationship Problems?

Explanation by a Specialist (Licensed Psychologist)

Trauma refers to stress-related disorders. We know that excessive or chronic stress can cause mental and physical dysregulation. When that happens, even routine tasks feel hard, and you may feel tense or anxious. When severe, the state can closely resemble developmental disorders; some specialists even call it a “fourth developmental disorder.” You might have wondered, “Am I neurodivergent?” after struggling with work or relationships. You read business or self-help books to improve but don’t get better—and end up in deeper self-criticism. The root of this vicious cycle may actually be trauma. This article summarizes the little-known impact of trauma on work performance.

Common struggles with underperforming at work

• I get so nervous that I blow sales meetings or presentations

The most common problem is tension—“hyperarousal.” In front of others (meetings, presentations), nerves spike uncontrollably.

• I can’t speak coherently

Your points don’t come together; you rush and speak too fast; what matters doesn’t get across.

• I make lots of careless mistakes

Simple errors happen often. The more you try to be careful, the more you slip.

• I repeat the same mistakes

You’re told what to correct but fall into the same patterns.

• I can’t retain things

You forget instructions or small details given at work.

• My brain won’t engage; I can’t focus

You constantly feel mentally underpowered—unable to settle and concentrate.

• Skills and experience don’t seem to accumulate

Work feels like something you simply push through; nothing seems to build up inside you.

• I can’t say no

You can’t decline tasks or proposals—worried about ratings or unable to decide—so you accept everything.

• I take on too much

Because you can’t say no, you overload and burn out.

• I can’t leverage other people

It’s hard to work through others, collaborate as a team, or ask for help.

• I don’t get along with my boss or colleagues

Relationships feel awkward; you get scolded often; smooth communication is difficult.

• For the same results or mistakes, only I get blamed or rated poorly

Colleagues make similar mistakes or perform similarly, yet you alone become a target and receive unfairly low evaluations.

• I get belittled

People make fun of you, and you can’t talk back.

• I lack confidence at work

Persistent feelings of “I’m not good enough; I’m inferior to others.”

If you resonate with the above, trauma may be a hidden factor.

Performance decline caused by trauma

• What is trauma?

Put simply, trauma is a stress disorder and a “frozen” store of painful past memories. When traumatic memories keep replaying—or when your brain expends major effort trying to process them—your performance drops.

• Constant emergency mode

Internally you’re in emergency mode, which makes it hard to read nuance or work carefully. Your “tempo” falls out of sync with others; overactivity and hyperarousal lead to repeated mistakes and conflicts.

• You can’t find the cause—so you blame yourself

Few imagine trauma could be the reason work isn’t going well. Specialists in trauma are scarce, and few can explain this clearly. So many people carry a sense of unease, blame themselves, or play the clown to get by.

If you’d like to see whether trauma may be affecting you, try the simple self-check below.

(Reference) → Trauma(Developmental Trauma, complex PTSD) Check for Self-Understanding

(Reference) Symptoms resembling developmental disorders

Performance often declines under trauma in ways that mimic developmental disorders. Time can feel “stuck” internally. Some experts call this the “fourth developmental disorder” or “developmental trauma disorder.”
Many people mistakenly think, “Maybe I’m neurodivergent.”

→ Related articles
▶ What Are Adult Developmental Disorders and Asperger’s? A Licensed Psychologist Explains the Essentials
▶ What is Attachment Disorder? Its Characteristics and Symptoms

Why trauma derails work—causes and mechanisms

Here is how specific mechanisms lead work to go off track.

• Excessive tension

The most representative symptom driven by trauma is excessive tension (hyperarousal). Trauma is an unfair, frightening memory that feels threatening to you. Even in calm daily life you feel constantly at risk, so some part of you is always tense—even if you don’t notice it. You may also feel “I’m strange” or “something’s wrong with me.”

Especially in relationships, fear makes you over-attend and over-adapt to others, which heightens tension. In meetings or presentations, you can’t stay calm.
Because the tension is an automatic surge, mindset tips or breathing techniques alone often can’t suppress it.

→ Related article

▶ Is Your Constant Tension a Result of Trauma?

• Trauma-driven brain overactivity

• Overactivity in the brain

With trauma, your brain often feels overly “busy.” That may sound positive, but the activity is being spent on unprocessed past memories—not on what you’re doing now.

It’s like a computer whose CPU is constantly overloaded by leftover background tasks, leaving little capacity for your current work.

• A fatigued brain

As a result, it’s harder to sustain concentration or think calmly. Overactivity burns energy, leaving the brain in a fatigued state that freezes when you most need it.

Subjectively, it can feel like you can’t use your brain smoothly, as if it’s foggy—you might even feel like dunking it in cold water.

• Can’t work steadily and accumulate results

You may manage short, high-intensity tasks (e.g., one-off sales) with energy.

But work that requires steady, long-term effort with people tends to go poorly. Latent social anxiety surfaces; overactivity undermines careful work; mistakes and issues multiply; evaluations fall; self-esteem drops; and you may be unable to continue.

• Underlying fear of people

Most everyday trauma occurs within close relationships (e.g., family), so basic trust in others is underdeveloped. You may fear people—sometimes becoming overly combative or overly deferential.

Even making calls or setting appointments can take great courage. Negotiating interests is hard—not due to skill, but because you can’t tolerate the stress when others get irritable or emotional.

You may also struggle to “enlist” others. Again, not from lack of ability but from fear. To override fear, you crank up your internal “volume” (manic defense), which can make you seem overbearing or odd.

Intuitively you feel you have more ability, but fear blocks results—creating deep inner conflict.

• Fear of abandonment

Rooted in relationship fear is an excessive fear of being abandoned. In early life, abandonment = death, so childhood trauma imprints a compulsive drive not to be left—clinging, fearing, or becoming self-destructive.

You may over-focus on your boss’s evaluations; even small negatives feel terrifying.

• Low self-confidence — stigma

You lack confidence without clear reason. Your opinions feel trivial, wrong, or fake. You carry a stigma—a sense that something about you is fundamentally flawed.

“Stigma” (a “mark”) means those exposed to trauma may feel inherently tainted—or that they were harmed because they are tainted.

So your footing with others is fragile; you fold under pushback. If you try not to fold, you inflate your tone and seem arrogant or rigid. You feel you lack a solid base.

• Overadaptation and inability to decline—people-pleasing with no self

As a strategy to avoid rejection, you suppress yourself and overfit to others: overadaptation.

Over-caring fuels brain overactivity; when it counts, you freeze or dissociate—your face goes blank; emotions don’t show; you can’t act quickly—ironically being judged as tone-deaf or inconsiderate.

Because of overadaptation, you care too much about how you’re seen and can’t say no to tasks or invitations.

Some with trauma are naturally sociable and well-rated. Yet they still lack a core “self,” act like a people-pleaser, and can’t hold their own views—stress builds, health breaks down, and they can no longer work.

• More careless errors—due to overactivity and hyperarousal

Constant brain overactivity makes sustained, calm work difficult. You over-attend to others’ evaluations. Result: frequent slips; you forget small things; you overlook details.

These errors are trauma-driven and not proof of low ability, but they fuel self-loathing and erode confidence.

• Excessive fear of failure—overadaptation and low confidence

When “others’ evaluation = me,” you lack a stable self and overfit to others. You become hyper-alert to evaluations and overly fear failure. To escape that fear, you overinflate yourself; your tempo misaligns with others and you stand out awkwardly.

• Can’t correct mistakes; repeat them—memory-processing dysregulation and hyperarousal

Under trauma, the amygdala is overactive and memories don’t process well. You may repeat mistakes even after feedback. Hyperarousal adds to this.
It’s not about “ability”—it’s dysregulation caused by trauma.

• Skills and experience don’t accrue—emergency mode

You rarely feel calm enough to let knowledge, experience, or skills “stick.” You can execute tasks, but nothing seems to internalize.

Even as a veteran, a confident newcomer may sound “more right” to you.

Trauma involves past memory, but it creates a constant sense of peril—like wandering a battlefield jungle. In this emergency mode, continuity breaks; instead of building for the long term, you optimize for immediate survival.

You can handle short-term crises, but it’s fleeting—knowledge doesn’t sink in, and experience doesn’t feel cumulative.

• Swinging between arrogance and excessive deference—distorted self/other images

Trauma makes it hard to stay natural; there’s a certain stiffness. To cover it, you rev yourself up (manic defense).

• Distorted images of self and others

Healthy narcissistic development lags, leading to distortions: inflated omnipotence, over-idealization of others, or devaluation of “weaker” others—i.e., distorted self/other images. You can’t see people as they are.

You may feel you can do anything, idealize and fear others, or harshly disparage those who don’t meet your inner ideal—resulting in arrogance or excessive submissiveness.

• Perfectionistic idealism

Internally you’re not aiming to be rude; you may actually be excessively pure and idealistic: “I refuse to become a jaded adult; I want to aim higher.”

But the gears don’t mesh; you end up either haughty or obsequious. You become what you despise and lose confidence.

• Poor grasp of power dynamics and emotion in relationships—get talked over or mocked

• Losing in “power dynamics”

“Power dynamics” isn’t only titles or negotiation tactics; it’s the balance of psychological forces in a relationship.

When someone says something unexpected or negative, do you go blank and can’t respond? That happens when your mind–body isn’t conditioned to a neutral balance beforehand.

Trauma dysregulates neurotransmitters; you can’t respond on the spot. Self-blaming inner talk does the same. You end up losing the dynamic—talked over, mocked, or not taken seriously.

• The dual nature of relationships

Human relationships are dual-layered. One layer is the public ideal—“We can all understand each other; just be sincere.” The other is the animal base—emotions like status, jealousy, fear, and resentment shaping the dynamic. “Power dynamics” means the one-to-one balance and the conditioning that supports it.

To manage relationships well, you need both the public veneer and the base. That’s part of maturing.

• Trauma undermines relationship management

Trauma freezes time at a younger stage, making this hard to grasp. Hormonal and blood sugar imbalances prevent neutrality in dynamics. Only when neutral can the “public ideal” work.

Trauma also pushes idealism—seeking only “pure” relationships without the base. In reality you lose the dynamic, suffer more, and are especially vulnerable to negative emotions like malice.

• Excessive objectivity

Reality is a web of subjectivities; there is no pure “objective” viewpoint. Yet under trauma, your awareness dissociates into a non-existent “objective observer,” constantly monitoring yourself.

Fearing deviation from an imagined standard, you can’t act confidently—eventually yielding to the loudest voices and suppressing yourself.

• Clinging to mismatched people or workplaces—overdeveloped sense of duty

Not every person or workplace fits. Ideally you would move toward good fits. But you may cling—“I must be recognized,” “I should grow in a tough place,” “I mustn’t run away,” or “I feel indebted.”

In such contexts, effort isn’t rewarded. No matter how hard you try, you’re denied or unrecognized. Immature models of people lead you to import past dynamics.

For example, treating a boss like a teacher—expecting stern but caring guidance—and swallowing a toxic boss’s excuses, you keep complying and burn out.

Fixating on poor fits is itself a trauma symptom—especially on environments that echo past unfairness.

• You get giddy when praised, crushed when criticized

Because trauma freezes development, healthy narcissism lags. Inflated confidence and deep insecurity can coexist. Your felt self-evaluation is high; praise makes you giddy; criticism devastates you—because you equate others’ evaluations with your very self.

You know “it’s just about the task,” but can’t stop the emotional drop. You may fantasize about a perfectly understanding mentor.

• Starts well, ends with a poor evaluation

You overcommit to match others’ expectations—even beyond capacity. At first you perform energetically and soar with praise, but can’t fold up the oversized plans; in the end, evaluations drop.

Long, up-and-down projects are especially hard. Manic defense to cover vulnerabilities fades; fear resurges; you can’t pre-emptively coordinate; people get angry; logistics unravel.

Again, this isn’t “ability”—it’s trauma-driven, though few recognize it as such.

• Etiquette and manners feel hard—emergency mode

Others may perceive a lack of manners from an overbearing tone. Internally, you’re actually over-concerned about etiquette—but it never seems to “stick.”

Manners blossom when there’s safety and secure attachment.

But trauma has you wandering a jungle battlefield; survival behaviors override etiquette. Communication becomes crisis-oriented; despite knowing better, change doesn’t stick and you seem rude.

It’s not that you lack manners or common sense. You just can’t express them while living in emergency mode.

• “Only I get scolded or mocked”—dissociation and guilt enable psychological control

Dissociation is a defense: to escape terror, you cut off feelings and “leave” mentally. Then lively, emotion-filled communication falters; your face looks blank.

Others may feel disrespected and, as a result, target you for anger.

Trauma also drives a depressed position—lost confidence. By suppressing emotion and self, you dampen interpersonal energy and lose the dynamic; others mount and control you.

You may be singled out or mocked. Strong guilt and high ideals/aspirations to improve are exploited by controlling bosses or executives.

Eight ways to overcome “work isn’t going well”

1. Don’t assume it’s your fault

Your current problems aren’t due to your character or lack of ability. Trauma is distorting your behavior. You don’t need to blame yourself—at all.

2. Past failures aren’t “yours”

“Facts” are constructed. Trauma increases the chance of mistakes—and in controlling environments even marginal issues get labeled as “mistakes.”

Those “facts” reflect the environment. Past failures aren’t yours; they mirror traumatic contexts, not your true ability.

3. Skills alone won’t fix this

Communication books, self-help, trainings, and knowledge alone won’t solve it.

Because trauma problems are “I know, but I can’t stop.” You understand, yet sudden fear freezes action and drains performance.

4. It’s not personality or ability—it’s being forced into over-social compliance

This isn’t about deficient personality, temperament, or skill. Nor “lack of sociability.” It’s the opposite: through overadaptation you become overly sociable/overly compliant.

You’re made to believe you lack common sense or are flawed, which traps you in hyper-compliance. Instead, you need to dial back forced sociability, trust yourself, and restore your own standards.

However, if you simply “go at your own pace” while traumatized, you’ll tend to force a hyped-up state. It helps to relieve trauma to some degree first.

5. Learn the causes and mechanisms

Understand the mechanisms described here. Knowing how trauma blocks “being yourself” helps you avoid being swept up by hidden forces.

6. Condition yourself to achieve neutral “power dynamics”

Better work relationships require a neutral dynamic. Work involves stress and pressure; without conditioning, you can’t respond on the spot.

If you’re always self-blaming, and biologically your hormones/brain energy are depleted by trauma, you’ll get steamrolled and feel lousy. Build a resilient mind–body to realize neutral dynamics.

One key step is resolving trauma, which otherwise suppresses brain function.

7. Choose people and environments that fit you

It’s vital to seek and choose fits. Trauma makes us fixate on bad fits.

Often that fixation isn’t your true desire—it just recreates unfair past contexts. A strict boss/company may not truly care about you. Clinging to misfits is a trauma symptom; getting out matters. Environment changes people. Don’t be bound by the present; choose what fits you.

8. Resolve trauma

If you’re suffering right now, seek trauma care and resolve it. For more on healing trauma, see below.

→ For more on trauma, see:
　▶ What Are Trauma (Developmental Trauma), PTSD, and Complex PTSD? Causes and Symptoms

*If you wish to reprint or otherwise use content from this site, please credit the site name as the source or include a link. Thank you for your cooperation.*