You might find relief in being busy, but the truth is that staying busy is a trauma response. Your symptoms of PTSD reflect someone who is capable of functioning in the world as long as you remain stimulated. It's possible that you're afraid of what will happen when you stop moving.
Staying busy isn't all bad. In fact, it can sometimes be a good thing. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) even recommends “staying active” as a healthy way to cope after traumatic events.
PTSD is a disordered response to trauma. One manifestation of it is overworking and the need for constant busyness. PTSD is often thought of as something soldiers get during war but anyone who has experienced any kind of trauma can develop it.
This may be influenced by the fact that when we complete tasks, our brain releases the pleasure hormone dopamine, which makes us feel good. We can get hooked on this feeling and rewarding experience, so we want it to be repeated. We then crave this pleasure again and again.
Right after a trauma, almost every survivor will find it hard to stop thinking about what happened. Stress reactions—such as fear, anxiety, jumpiness, upsetting memories, and efforts to avoid reminders—will gradually decrease over time for most people.
When a child suffers from prolonged trauma, they live in a perpetual state of stress with no control over their life, work can become something they have control over or a means to escape their reality. They might come to believe that if they work hard enough it will bring peace in their home.
People identified as workaholics often ranked high in terms of these three personality traits: Agreeableness – Workaholics are more likely to be altruistic, compliant and modest. Neuroticism – Workaholics tend to be nervous, hostile, and impulsive.
A fourth, less discussed, response to trauma is called fawning, or people-pleasing. The fawn response is a coping mechanism in which individuals develop people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict, pacify their abusers, and create a sense of safety.
Adults may display sleep problems, increased agitation, hypervigilance, isolation or withdrawal, and increased use of alcohol or drugs. Older adults may exhibit increased withdrawal and isolation, reluctance to leave home, worsening of chronic illnesses, confusion, depression, and fear (DeWolfe & Nordboe, 2000b).
PTSD can develop even without memory of the trauma, psychologists report. Adults can develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder even if they have no explicit memory of an early childhood trauma, according to research by UCLA psychologists.
Trauma is defined as “a psychological, emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing.” In reality, trauma can come from any experience that makes us feel unsafe, physically or emotionally, and that disrupts the way we cope or function.
A trigger might make you feel helpless, panicked, unsafe, and overwhelmed with emotion. You might feel the same things that you felt at the time of the trauma, as though you were reliving the event. The mind perceives triggers as a threat and causes a reaction like fear, panic, or agitation.
Sometimes the feeling of suffering from something called busy life syndrome is due to the haste with which we want to do everything so that we can move on to the next thing, pecking away at activities rather than immersing ourselves in them.
Keeping Busy for Your Mental Health
Truly, it can become a vicious cycle, as inactivity can be a source of depression, of boredom and unhappiness. It is these individuals who suffer from conditions such as depression and anxiety that keeping busy helps the most.
What is Busy Life Syndrome? Researchers from CPS Research in Scotland coined the term “busy life syndrome” to problems with poor concentration and memory. Sufferers of this syndrome usually lead a busy lifestyle and are bombarded with a continuous stream of information and tasks.
Excessive drug or alcohol use.
Drug and alcohol use can be a slippery slope. Stimulants and depressants may help to numb feelings, pain and subside those negative thoughts that are actively being avoided, but excessive use can lead to severe health complications, addiction, overdose and death.
Relying on drugs, alcohol, dysfunctional eating patterns or gambling are just a few of the most obvious forms. However, virtually anything can turn into an addiction over time, even simple things like exercise, work or watching the TV. Subtle addictions may not seem to be particularly destructive.
Busy is habit-forming. People pride themselves on being busy, but busyness is an addiction that needs to be cured. The first step with any addiction is to admit it and own it.
What types of trauma cause the fawn response? The fawn response is most commonly associated with childhood trauma and complex trauma — types of trauma that arise from repeat events, such as abuse or childhood neglect — rather than single-event trauma, such as an accident.
Fawning is a trauma response where a person develops people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict and to establish a sense of safety. In other words, the fawn trauma response is a type of coping mechanism that survivors of complex trauma adopt to "appease" their abusers.
Fawning is an attempt to avoid conflict by appeasing people. They are both extremely common in neurodiverse people as it is a way for them to hide their neurodiverse behaviours and appear what is deemed to be “normal”.
The Myth of the Generic Addictive Personality
An article in Scientific American verifies and offers evidence for the fact that there is no one personality type that leads to addiction. In fact, some seemingly disparate traits can lead different people to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, depending on other factors.