You Can Usually Tell Someone Had A Hard Childhood By 3 Behaviors They Have At Work, Says A Career Coach
Vlad Linev | Shutterstock Having a hard childhood impacts all parts of your life, including your work life. Facing traumatic experiences as a kid can alter your physical and mental health and your responses to the world around you in a way that shapes who you become as an adult.
Mandy Tang, a career coach, explained that a difficult childhood can exacerbate any career wounds you experience later in life, which are caused by things like being bullied by colleagues or getting laid off. Tang shared some of the ways that childhood suffering creates "patterns that you are repeating consciously and unconsciously in your life" that make it hard to adapt in the workplace in a TikTok video.
You can usually tell someone had a hard childhood by these 3 behaviors they have at work, according to Tang:
1. They thrive in the midst of chaos
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Tang first used the example of being raised by a narcissistic parent, saying that would force someone to constantly cater to their needs and adapt to the chaotic environment they created. They became the token reliable person in the family, and they got used to making sense of the mess.
This carried over into their adult lives and careers, trapping them into thinking that safety and comfort come from chaos and not peace. Someone might overwork themselves or make too many sacrifices for their team as a result, and possibly choose jobs that aren't good for their well-being because they feel right to them.
“You became that person as a reaction, as a coping mechanism, to the environment with which you grew up,” Tang explained. The problem is it's continuing to cause harm well past childhood.
2. They're comfortable in toxic environments
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As Tang said, "We find comfort in the chaos that we grew up in." This explains why many people who grew up with a toxic parent continue to accept that toxicity from a partner in adulthood. When someone finds comfort in the discomfort and doesn't know how to break that cycle, there's a good chance they'll choose to work in a toxic environment as well.
Unfortunately, even though this feels like the right thing for that person, it will continue to hurt them. A toxic work environment makes employees focus on their fears instead of their capabilities, which takes away any chance they had to believe in themselves. There's a fine line between healthy challenges that propel personal development and harmful challenges that inhibit growth.
3. They believe their work only has value if it's perfect
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Tang explained how negative work experiences can make someone relive similar things they went through in childhood, which leads them to feel like they're regressing to that more vulnerable state. “You are used to being somebody’s crutch in a certain way,” she said. “And that comes out as people pleasing, that comes out as overly scrutinizing, overly stressing about something.”
If someone was raised by parents who constantly reprimanded them for every little misstep, they learned over time that their worth was dependent on perfection. Now, they try to replicate this same hypervigilant behavior at work, despite the serious consequences that come with it.
Doing everything perfectly sounds like a good thing, but it actually causes people to become extremely critical of themselves and to set aside the things that are important for their own well-being in an effort to always be the absolute best. In many cases, it can lead to being a workaholic, which means working so excessively that it actually causes harm.
Tang concluded, "Healing your career wounds takes work and dedicated effort." It's not a switch someone can flip overnight, especially when it is so closely connected to their difficult childhood. But by recognizing the patterns that seem to rule their lives, they can come to find greater clarity and prioritize their needs with time.
Francesca Duarte is a writer based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human-interest, adventure, and spirituality topics.
