10 Ways Past Trauma Suppresses Income (How to Change This Now)

One subject that gets surprisingly little attention from trauma clinicians is how childhood wounds and prolonged trauma can lead to chronic under-earning. For many of us with complex PTSD, low income becomes a fog that makes it hard to see why we’re stuck and what practical steps would lift our earnings to a level that truly sustains us. Improving your finances is part of recovery, and to help with that here is a reworking of one of the most-watched pieces from my archive: ten ways early trauma can suppress your income and concrete moves you can start making today to change that permanently. We need to reckon with how the hurts from childhood link to not being paid what would fairly support you — a situation that keeps real freedom, stability, and the chance to remake your life out of reach. It’s very common for people raised with neglect or abuse to earn much less than they could, and the longer someone remains underpaid the harder it is to undo trauma-driven decisions about partners, jobs, housing and to finally create the comfortable, secure life that’s needed now. For reasons I don’t fully understand, the connection between trauma and money gets overlooked by many experts — as if money were irrelevant or too materialistic to consider — yet money is central both to how some traumas happened and to how people recover from them. There’s a tendency to dismiss concern about money as “consumerist” or “capitalist,” but that rhetoric often enables people to remain underpaid and struggle to cover basics. Saying you deserve to meet your needs is not greed. Yes, systems have built-in unfairness, and it’s reasonable to critique that, but under-earning also often involves internal barriers that stop you from doing what you can within the system you inhabit. If you are not charging enough, working in fields that are known to pay poorly without a plan to supplement income, failing to invest time in skills or relationships that would raise your pay, or avoiding advocating for yourself, then there’s something inside you getting in the way — and that inner pattern can be changed. So let’s look at the signs of under-earning and what to do about each of them. First sign: living in vagueness. You have a sense or even a knowing that you’re not living the life you could — not only financially, but in relationships, health and fulfilling work — yet you don’t have clarity about how much you actually need, what you really want, the budget to reach it, or the specific steps to get there. Without a clear vision and a plan, you drift in a mist of hoping and occasional pain, and the actions that would change things never come into focus. Second sign: scraping by but sliding into debt with no practical plan to reverse it and build savings. You may have heard “live within your means” and maybe overspending has been an issue, but if your income is fundamentally too low to cover what a wholesome, validating life requires, merely trimming expenses won’t solve under-earning. Third sign: resentment about not earning enough. That resentment isn’t always self-directed; it’s often aimed outward at family, gender, nation, or the economy. Even in places where systems are stacked against people, individuals who are protecting themselves find ways to meet their needs. Chronic illness or disability can limit earning potential, and that reality must be acknowledged, but healthy earning means assessing both external constraints and internal ones and finding routes that get your needs met. Fourth sign: choosing a profession known for low pay and refusing to create a backup plan. You may love a vocation (say, trying to be a novelist) but expect the world to provide pay without doing the extra work — getting visibility, building a side income, or learning how to reach markets that pay. You can either spend the rest of your life lobbying for structural change or create a plan B that works where you live so your finances aren’t perpetually precarious. Fifth sign: expecting pay to rise over time and watching it stagnate. There are a few reasons this happens: the organization may not value or budget for that level of pay, you may lack skills to command a higher wage, or you haven’t asked. Raises often require job changes, lateral moves, or active negotiation. When you come from a dysfunctional family, it’s easy to unconsciously look to bosses like surrogate parents and expect them to decide when you’re “allowed” a raise. Reality, though, usually demands self-advocacy: if you don’t claim higher pay, it’s unlikely someone will hand it to you. Sixth sign: outsourcing responsibility for your growth to other people. Under-earners frequently blame others for their lack of progress and wait for someone else to make opportunities available. In the internet age, the barrier to learning new skills is lower than ever — if you take advantage of resources. A common turning point is being forced by circumstances to try something different; many people discover work that fits them better and pays more by taking initiative, cold calling, learning online, hiring temporary help and iterating through failures and improvements. Losing a job or contract can spur a pivot that leads to more engaging and better-paid work, but it usually requires risking effort and continued learning. Volunteering or offering free work can be strategic if done consciously, but it can also enable chronic under-earning, so be careful about when and why you do free work. Resentment corrodes relationships and opportunities; your ability to earn is closely tied to creating positive experiences and delivering value so customers, bosses and colleagues want to keep working with you and refer others. If you can make others successful, you’re more likely to succeed financially. Seventh sign: underselling your time. A huge and frequent issue is charging too little. When hiring freelancers, people often trust the rate the freelancer names; if someone quotes a very low price or immediately offers to drop their fee, that signals a lack of confidence and invites being treated as low-level labor. Changing jobs can be an occasion to reset perceptions of what you’re worth — former labels like “intern” don’t have to stick if you re-enter with new qualifications and a clear ask. Sometimes doubling a rate is necessary for survival, especially in a crisis, and asking can lead to employers agreeing or to you finding work that pays what you need. It’s common to feel shame or imposter guilt after raising prices, so many people change external presentation — hair, clothes, punctuality — to align their internal sense of worth with their pay, which makes it easier to hold the new rate. Small, regular efforts to ask for appropriate compensation build long-term earnings because each raise becomes the baseline for future raises, improving the trajectory of income over years. Financial stability also depends on thinking about retirement and saving rather than living perpetually in emergency mode. Some people find value in small rituals — like being attentive to pennies or making modest, consistent choices — that help shift mindset and regulation over time. One major financial drain is staying in a doomed relationship or marriage; dissolving or leaving such relationships can be costly, and many people are financially wrecked by them. Practical decisions about location, childcare, and relationship trade-offs often force the need to earn more, which sometimes prompts career shifts that ultimately increase income. Eighth sign: letting your presentation and belongings reflect neglect. Under-earners often surround themselves with worn, unkempt clothes, battered furniture or broken appliances and postpone repairs or replacements indefinitely. Improving small things — cleaning shoes, tending to clothing, tidying the home, or having one or two modest comforts — helps you feel worthy of better pay and signals to the world that you respect yourself. It’s not about luxury; it’s about making practical, low-cost improvements (thrifted but clean and pressed clothes, a tidy living space, throwing out permanently stained items) that change how you move in the world and how you’re perceived. Even choices like taking a more pleasant route to work can subtly change the way you imagine what’s possible for your life. Ninth sign: misusing time, especially through procrastination. You may scramble to meet deadlines for others yet fail to spend a few hours on the side to proofread your own work, learn a new skill, or study industry-required materials. Under-earning often coincides with avoiding the steady, sometimes uncomfortable investments that compound over time — doing the small, consistent learning and follow-through that would raise your competence and pay. Tenth sign: being surrounded by people who don’t pay you what they owe. Chronic late pay, unpaid work or clients who expect free extras are more likely to occur when you don’t set firm agreements, ask for deposits, or assert boundaries about payment. Early freelancing lessons often involve hard experiences: doing a large job without a contract and losing the down payment when a client dies, for example, teaches you to implement contracts, deposits and clear terms. Use tools like written agreements or DocuSign, and make your refund and service terms explicit so everyone knows the conditions up front. If you avoid asking for money, feel uncomfortable requesting payment, or keep working while invoices are overdue to please people, you’ll be repeatedly exploited. People with complex PTSD are especially vulnerable to backtracking when triggered, so strong boundaries and practices that calm the urge to appease are essential. Getting paid fairly and on time, in work that allows growth, enables material security and supports ongoing healing. This process requires trauma work: strong boundaries, emotional regulation, and the shift away from the trauma-driven belief that everything difficult is controlled by others. One liberating discovery in healing is realizing how much of life is within your influence; while the world remains imperfect, working on yourself lets you take better actions inside the conditions you live in. There are practical communities that can help — for example, a 12-step group called Under Earners Anonymous exists and many people find it transformative and free. Whether someone chooses a peer-support path like that or joins a membership program or course, having support is crucial when confronting long-standing patterns that restrict income. The adventure ahead is building a life not constrained by old trauma or people who mistreat you, and healthy earning is a key part of creating that life. It starts with symptomatic healing: as trauma symptoms ease, the rest becomes easier and the potential you didn’t know you had begins to surface. If you want resources, there are courses that address healing childhood PTSD and practical steps for rebuilding your earning life; they can be explored via links or programs that offer a structured path forward. Getting paid what you’re worth and being paid on time involves setting boundaries, documenting agreements, learning to ask—and holding the line with kindness but firmness. As you steady your nervous system and practice self-advocacy, opportunities to raise your income will appear and compound. Small consistent choices — cleaning, learning, asking for a fair rate, creating backup plans, avoiding chronic free-work unless it’s strategic, using contracts, tidying your space, and seeking support — all add up. The goal is to move from scraping by to a financially secure life that allows you to bring your gifts fully to bear. If you’d like to explore structured help for recovering from childhood PTSD and the financial patterns that come with it, courses and memberships are available to guide that work, and there are many practical steps you can begin today to change your trajectory. [Music]