Compassion Doesn’t Make You Tired: Unmasking and Addressing Compassion Fatigue
Compassion Doesn’t Make You Tired: Unmasking and Addressing Compassion Fatigue
Section One: Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma, Secondary Trauma, Burnout, Lions, Tigers, and Bears (Oh My)
Compassion is an extraordinary gift. Some people welcome it and wear it gracefully with their loved ones, neighbors, even their favorite TV characters. Some run from it as if it’s ticking loudly, remembering hurts whose scars still sting as much as the pain they replaced. And some people rip through the wrapping. It fits like a glove, and they never take it off, not even when they sleep.
You might be a counselor, might be a cop, might be a sponsor, a coach, a doctor, a nurse, a cleric, or a service member. You might be a friend whose friend is in trouble, a parent who aches when the world is cruel, a caregiver watching life and dignity wither with age or disease.
Something made you open this book.
Definitions?
For the purpose of this exploration, please don’t worry too much about what the word “compassion” means.
- If you Google it, you’ll find things like “sympathy,” “empathy,” “sorrow,” “suffering with,” “suffering together,” “empathy that inspires a desire to help,” and a number of variations on those themes.
- Some experts emphasize the difference between “sympathy” on one hand and empathy (or “suffering with”) on the other, because the latter includes a sense of identification.
- Others place compassion one step beyond empathy, in that it leads to positive action.
And if you look up “compassion fatigue”:
- You’ll see that it’s often called “secondary trauma,” which some sources equate with and some clearly distinguish from “vicarious trauma” (which is an actual disorder).
- Some describe compassion fatigue as an excess of compassion and others as depletion of compassion (or a depletion of physical, emotional, or spiritual strength).
- Apparently compassion fatigue is either synonymous with burnout or a precursor to burnout. Perhaps it’s the renegade flame that leaves us burned out when it—well— burns out.
So beware the term “compassion fatigue.” Not only is it wobbly, but it’s also a catch-all term. There are several conditions whose signs or symptoms overlap with those attributed to compassion fatigue. These are conditions that people might own and address much sooner if they didn’t pounce on “compassion fatigue” as the explanation.
What if You Have it?
If you’re “diagnosed” with compassion fatigue—or if you just want to avoid it—most of the advice you’ll get will be generic, positive, helpful: Take some time off, build a support network, join a gym, take a bubble bath. But that advice may also be a bit of a tease, especially if you’re carrying a bottomless caseload, pulling down double shifts, or topping off a full-time job with all-night caregiving.
Who has time for a bubble bath?
But what if there’s something else going on, but instead of searching your experience for a deeper understanding, you stop digging at “compassion fatigue”? With that catch-al