Sound familiar to anyone? If you're a direct service provider in any of the related health care fields and you've been at it for a while, chances are you're at risk for compassion fatigue (CF - and by the way, this is just the new, fancy term for "burnout.")"Day in, day out, workers struggle to function in care giving environments that constantly present heart wrenching, emotional challenges. Affecting positive change in society, a mission so vital to those passionate about caring for others, is perceived as elusive, if not impossible. This painful reality, coupled with first-hand knowledge of society's flagrant disregard for the safety and well being of the feeble and frail, takes its toll on everyone from full time employees to part time volunteers. Eventually, negative attitudes prevail. Compassion Fatigue symptoms are normal displays of chronic stress resulting from the care giving work we choose to do. Leading traumatologist Eric Gentry suggests that people who are attracted to care giving often enter the field already compassion fatigued. A strong identification with helpless, suffering, or traumatized people or animals is possibly the motive. It is common for such people to hail from a tradition of what Gentry labels: other-directed care giving. Simply put, these are people who were taught at an early age to care for the needs of others before caring for their own needs. Authentic, ongoing self-care practices are absent from their lives."
Having left the professional sector of direct service last September, CF is a condition I'm not horribly concerned with contracting, since I now provide direct services with just a smattering of folks I've known and worked with for several years now.
However, I've seen the signs of this burnout in a couple of friends who work in homeless services recently, both of whom I guess I just wouldn't have expected it from. Both are highly dedicated to serving others. Both have huge "servant's hearts" and give selflessly to those who are less fortunate than they are. Both are also old enough and wise enough to have long since re-framed their perspective from the beautifully altruistic but ridiculously oversimplified "I will save the world" ideology that many come into this field with. And both are skilled and patient at negotiating through crises, challenges, barriers and obstacles; all the qualities needed for effective self-care.
So it was with great surprise that, after working with them for years and knowing them to be honest, kind and genuinely loving of their fellow human, I saw them acting callously (comparatively speaking, mind you and certainly not maliciously but rather with a pessimism in their voice which was tinged w hopelessness and frustration) and noticed their exasperation and discouragement at the lack of progress several of their clients were experiencing.
However, once I realized what I was witnessing with them, I began looking for signs in some of the other peeps I know who do this kind of work and who have been at it for a considerable amount of time.
Sure as the sun rises in the east, I began to see, if not full-on CF, indicators that the folks were definitely on the highway to compassion crash.
Now this isn't some smarmy, "be good to yourself" plea to you all, although I encourage it. But I know that this advice rings about as hollow to those of us who dedicate our lives to helping others as telling a heroin addict to "just say no" to the next fix.
We (I'm talking about those of us who Gentry describes to a Tee above (strong identification with helpless, suffering, or traumatized people or animals-and you KNOW who you are!) don't usually pay any attention to that rosy, feel-good crap. Why? Because we're both too busy working for everyone else to find the time and we firmly believe we're already taking a full 60 seconds each week for our own self-care (there'll be time for caring for myself when I'm dead; people are hurting out there!"), so we're already doing it.
And since it happens over a period of time rather than abruptly, we don't notice that we're getting cynical, grumpy, judgmental, pessimistic, easily frustrated, and looking for less challenging people to work with. Interestingly enough, the folks around you as you're heading towards this burnout are also in many ways unaware of what is happening to you, either. In fact, they're becoming victims of your CF at the same time they're burning out alongside you. It ain't rocket science to realize that folks tend to go with the group opinions in the workplace, and as one person grumbles about Joe being "non-compliant," or "so far gone he's never gonna change," that negativity seeps like a poison into their own thinking, and they begin to not only see these same things in Joe, but they also become more judgmental and pessimistic about some (many, all) of their own clients, as well.
Any of you who've been doing this work for any length of time can surely recall a recent incident in your own daily interactions w staff at your organization (or partner or collaborative org) where everyone around a table was of the same mindset about the inability of a particular client to succeed. Next time you see/hear this situation (and you undoubtedly will, probably sooner than later, too) watch the group dynamics play out and notice whether you see folks get sucked into the pessimism about one of the cases being managed. Then take a look at the originator of the cynical outlook and think about how long that person has been with the organization in question. I'd just about wager that this person was/is and continues to profess their undying commitment to serving others.
Understand here that this purely anecdotal recognition of one of the impacts of compassion fatigue is in NO way meant to disparage or somehow denigrate the service of long-term staffers. The wealth of knowledge they bring to the table about local and national systems, key contacts, nuances related to submitting referrals, and navigating around the social, economic and political landmines in their area are huge assets to any organization. My goal here is to remind those stalwart superstars of our work that compassion fatigue is an insidious condition that sneaks up on you and corrupts your mindset at the subconscious level. Because you've been in this work so long and have built such credibility among others, this condition has the rather despicable and unintended consequence of poisoning the thinking of those around you, who see your opinions and thought processes as important and appropriate.
Unfortunately, when people know you're good at what you do, you get called to do it.
And you get called a LOT.
So this is nothing more than a gentle reminder that the need for real and regular self-care, especially for those of us who've been at it a long time, is not something to be ignored or gotten to when we "have some time next month."
It's needed NOW and it's needed on a daily basis. Without it, you can and invariably will find yourself suffering from compassion fatigue because it is the nature of the beast in a job that deals continually with trauma, pain, misery and hopelessness as a symptom attached to just about every single person we find ourselves working with.
If nothing else moves you to performing your own self care on a regular basis, remember this:
If the rescuer isn't well, there will be no rescuing of anyone else.
