The Real Story Behind Fredhappy: from PTSD to Post-Traumatic Growth

The Real Story Behind Fredhappy: from PTSD to Post-Traumatic Growth - Fredhappy LLC

I’ve always had to be highly capable. As a kid, I was independent, observant, and wired for excellence. I wasn’t expected to need much help. I had to perform well, adapt fast, and read the room better than most adults.

What I didn’t know then was that I had been shaped by complex trauma. Survival patterns like overfunctioning, fawning, hypervigilance, and masking were so normal to me, they felt like personality.

And for a long time, it worked.

I navigated complexity. I showed up with full expression and full effort — performative at times, but sincerely heartfelt.

I received strong performance reviews at first, including a 4.5 out of 5 at my six-month evaluation. That score wasn’t symbolic — it was evidence of reliability, capability, and trust.

What I Learned in the Country: Workplace Mobbing Edition

My family moved to a small farm in 2021. I loved the stars overhead and the quiet. A tiny toad sat on the porch the first day — the first sign that my life was about to change in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

I accepted a new role at a venerable regional institution, hoping the reduced commute and closer community would give me the balanced life I wanted.

From the beginning, the cultural fit was… uneasy. I brought future-focused optimism, productivity, and high energy into an environment that rewarded:

  • predictability
  • emotional suppression
  • tradition
  • conformity within tight-group dynamics

My patterns kicked in. I fawned. I over-performed. I tried to read invisible rules I didn’t grow up with.

There were power dynamics in play I couldn’t name at the time. I stayed silent — not out of complicity, but out of compassion. Someone in the environment needed serious medical care, and I didn’t want my presence—or absence—to jeopardize her access to it.

At the time, I was part of a cross-functional team piloting a new sales enablement tech tool. We followed normal procedures, using placeholder data and internal systems as directed and within expected access.

Then, at a completely unrelated public event, a woman I didn’t know approached me with visible hostility. I recognized her from a prior company function. Later, through routine page moderation, I confirmed her connection to someone on my team.

I wasn’t seeking conflict. I was trying to make sense of something that felt off — but wasn’t yet clear.

Burnout Symptoms Appeared

In the weeks leading up to June 20, 2024, I repeatedly told colleagues and supervisors: “I’m fried.”

I was forgetting my laptop, keys, phone, purse — not minor things, but regulation markers. Looking back, these were clear signs of nervous-system overload.

Research shows that workplace bullying and mobbing often lead to:

  • employee silence
  • cognitive disruption
  • withdrawal
  • overwhelm
  • rumination

My body already knew I was in trouble before I did.

Workplace Mobbing Often Begins With a Look

Approximately 32% of U.S. workers report direct bullying at work, and in some sectors over half have experienced it. Mobbing often begins subtly:

  • cornering
  • trapping
  • spatial aggression
  • silent dominance displays
  • unspoken threat
  • unauthorized influence

In my case, what I experienced felt like interpersonal hostility, exclusion, and escalating pressure. At the time, I didn’t have language for it. Looking back with more perspective, the pattern aligns with what organizational research describes as workplace mobbing behaviors.

There were moments that, in hindsight, form a clear pattern:

  • restricted movement — I was seated in a specialty ergonomic chair, feet suspended, back turned to both individuals, facing multiple monitors
  • ritualized verbal targeting — sing-song repetition designed to humiliate
  • a stigmatizing label — applied in a group setting, triggering visible stress responses
  • relational triangulation — a tension pattern building for weeks
  • blocked egress — the only exit obstructed while I remained seated
  • a sudden, coordinated shift in tone — sharp, undeniable, somatically felt

Physical obstruction or intimidation is a recognized workplace safety concern. But institutions often:

  • avoid liability
  • minimize complaints
  • protect the aggressor
  • prioritize optics
  • silence the messenger

In my situation, two coworkers began exerting influence in ways that felt unusual for their positions, and leadership did not step in. Over time, the pattern accumulated into what is widely documented as an early-stage mobbing environment.

This reflection isn’t about assigning blame — it’s about naming a pattern that many people experience but lack vocabulary for. Recognizing the signs is often the first step toward understanding, recovery, and change.

What Should Have Happened

I spent ten days working remotely in silence, with no contact from leadership. Research shows that imposed isolation without context or support can mirror the psychological impact of solitary confinement — triggering dissociation, shame, and heightened nervous-system distress.

The correct response to “I am fried” is:

  • intervention
  • support
  • removal from stressors
  • medical evaluation
  • EAP referral

Not discipline. Not dismissal. Not exile.

Without support, my nervous system collapsed.

I spent six weeks dissociating on my couch, stuck in an intrusive loop: “You’re a. Complete. Hot. MESSSSS.”

My husband, a police officer familiar with trauma responses, said: “It looks like you saw a ghost.”

Research Spotlight: How Workplace Patterns Mimic C-PTSD Conditions

Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) can develop in environments where:

  • escape is restricted
  • threat is repeated and interpersonal
  • authority figures do not intervene
  • stress is chronic, covert, and ambiguous

Researchers have shown that the nervous system responds powerfully to social danger — especially when:

  • verbal cues are mocking or ritualized
  • the physical environment limits control or movement
  • triangulation or peer isolation creates psychological exile

If you’ve ever experienced:

  • an assigned nickname that felt like a brand
  • someone blocking your movement in a meeting or office
  • a ritual pattern of criticism that intensified over time

…your body clocked the threat, even if the culture dismissed it.

The Moment Everything Changed

After six weeks, I sat up and searched: “Rumination after a work attack.”

That was the day I started Fredhappy. It was my way back.

Impact on My Family

Later, I asked my son if I seemed “crazy” during that season.

He said: “No, Mom. You seemed sad about yourself.”

My husband, who as previously stated is a police officer familiar with trauma responses, looked at me and said quietly: “You look like you’ve been hurt — nine out of ten.” It was the first external confirmation of what my nervous system was trying to tell me.

We eventually moved our family away from the area — a painful, expensive, disorienting transition for all of us.

Why Tell This Story Now?

Because every time I share this calmly and precisely, I reclaim the ground the event once distorted.

This isn’t retraumatization. This is restoration.

Here’s How I Achieved Post-Traumatic Growth

In September 2024, the diagnosis was official:
Complex PTSD, followed by a secondary case of adult-onset PTSD.

And the work I did to recover wasn’t inspirational.
It was survival.

When the collapse came, I didn’t journal through it.
I didn’t manifest it away.
I trained through it — using methods that were evidence-based and supported by trained professionals.

I worked with:

  • Trauma-informed clinicians specializing in nervous-system repatterning
  • Polyvagal and somatic attachment frameworks
  • Memory reconsolidation principles
  • Psychosocial threat-modeling and behavioral pattern analysis
  • Exposure and sensory-retraining protocols (professionally supported)
  • Bilateral stimulation and CBT distortion-mapping
  • A micro-triggers inventory I built to understand my own patterns
  • Containment strategies for shutdown, rage, and intrusive thoughts
  • A morning routine rebuilt from neurobiological first principles — not productivity culture

I wrote through all of it — not to inspire, not to brand it,
but to document what worked when nothing else did.

I didn’t write a workbook and hope it would help someone.
I built a recovery architecture and lived inside it until it held.

And it did.

Writing Became the Engine of My Healing

I’ve spent 30+ years in marketing and engineering-adjacent industries. I know how to translate complexity into clarity.

So I wrote:

  • eBooks
  • workbooks
  • trauma-informed guides
  • nervous system tools
  • story-driven metaphors

And slowly — line by line — I healed. I lived through PTSD and wrote my way to post-traumatic growth. Now I share what helped.

The Fredhappy Jewel Box Constellation

From this journey came a four-pillar constellation:

Warrior.space ->

The raw, tactical rebuild:

  • how to get out of bed
  • how to reclaim dignity
  • how to stabilize a nervous system in collapse

Healer.space ->

Somatic restoration, emotional repair, and gentle belonging.

Leader.space ->

Coherence, structure, boundaries, and trauma-informed leadership.

Written from the fire. Built for real-world use.

Somatic Tools That Actually Help

Fredhappy grew out of one insight:

Healing isn’t just mindset. It’s the body. It’s the rhythms. It’s the support systems.

So I curated tools:

  • wraps
  • rollers
  • breath kits
  • grounding gear
  • sleep tools
  • sensory supports

Fredhappy.com now carries four curated collections:

  • Body — Safety
  • Mind — Mindfulness
  • Soul — Resonance
  • Hygge — Nervous-System Friendly Living (I am a Danish-American)

The Peace That Came After

I’m not writing from crisis anymore. I’m writing from clarity.

I’m grateful for my healing. Not glad the harm happened — but grateful that I lived long enough to rebuild my life from the ground up.

I've added a daily forgiveness practice to my morning and evening mindset routine. I release the emotional pain of the past, and step fully into sovereignty.

Post-fawn. Post-people pleaser. Post-traumatic growth in action.

Today:

  • I trust myself.
  • I trust my systems.
  • I trust that the people who find this work are ready for it.

Thank You For Being Here

You’re welcome here — for the soft parts, the brave parts, and everything between.

Stay human.
Stay sovereign.
Keep building.

With warmth,
Kathryn Fredrickson
Founder, Fredhappy