October is World Mental Health Awareness month and it is important to look at mental health in all areas of your life and even your workplace.
Early childhood trauma and under-earning or not getting paid enough may be connected.
Supposedly, trauma may have you getting paid less that you should because you think you don’t you are worth it.
This is according to Anna Runkle or Cr***y Childhood Fairy as she goes on her websites and YouTube.
“It is very common for people who grew up neglected or abused to under-earn. I want us to talk about this because the longer you under-earning, the further out of reach your freedom to undo old trauma-driven choices,” said Runkle in video.
However, Runkle is no expert. Instead, she described her childhood as having been tumultuous and filled with poverty, violence, neglect and shame. Her path to healing supposedly brought her to helping others.
She added that money could be the reason why one gets traumatised and can also be why the proponent to healing from the emotion scarring.
“There is this idea that concerning yourself with money is too consumerist; it’s too trivial, materialistic and too capitalistic. But those arguments are often why under-earners are not paid enough money to take care of their basic needs,” she said.
Runkle went on to say that not advocating for enough wages or a salary increase indicates that there is an inside barrier within an individual.
She listed these signs associated with under-earning:
Living in vagueness
A feeling that you are not living the full and happy life you could be living.
Going into debt
Just barely managing to live and increasingly having to get loans.
Resentment
When one does not necessarily resent themselves but their line of work, family, gender, country and economic system.
Not taking steps to advance career
This could have multiple reasons like working for a company that does not want to pay a liveable wage to certain positions.
She added that trauma experts hardly talk about this and does not know why.
Instead, she describes her childhood as having been tumultuous and filled with poverty, violence, neglect and shame.
But what do those who specialise in this say?
Ed Coambs, a therapist seems to agree with Runkle.
He told “CNN” that when children witness their parents’ financial difficulties, they may internalise the worry and anxiety which impacts them in the future.
“You may be overly carefree with money, figuring you might as well live for today because tomorrow it could be gone,” Coambs was quoted as saying.
He added that even if one’s traumatic childhood experiences have nothing to do with money, such as not feeling loved by your parents or being sexually assaulted, they can nevertheless lead to money behaviours that harm your financial health and relationships.
Additionally, a paper on ScienceDirect by Marilyn Metzle, Melissa Merrick, Joanne Klevens, Katie Ports and Derek Ford showed that adverse childhood experiences can severely alter life experiences.
“This evidence suggests that preventing early adversity may impact health and life opportunities that reverberate across generations,” wrote the authors.
“Current efforts to prevent early adversity might be more successful if they broaden public and professional understanding of the links between early adversity and poverty.”
IOL