COMPASSION FATIGUE
Compassion is one of the most beautiful of human traits. It reaches out to people when they are struggling. Whether it is just a whisper or a tsunami of pain, we all need to feel the warm embrace of someone’s compassionate heart at different times in our lives. And hopefully, when someone is in need, we are able to return that warmth whenever it is required.
But eventually, compassion can also be exhausting
Compassion fatigue is a very real thing. I was extremely unwell for five years of my life. That is a very long time for the people who know me, love me, and care for me to be giving of their own heart and time. Over the course of my illness, I was beautifully cared for. But as the years went by, I could feel other people’s moments with me pulling away. As I drowned even more, I started pulling people down with me. And for their own well-being, they had to, for a time, hold onto me less tightly.
Compassion fatigue is also called empathy burnout and is, apparently, an issue for mental health professionals who can live with the daily burden of other people’s problems. But it can also be an issue for people whose loved ones are suffering for extended periods of time.
People who are highly empathetic tend to be highly compassionate. Empathy and compassion are beautiful things and as a society, we all benefit from those who are able to understand and respond to other people’s pain. But highly empathetic people also tend to wear other’s pain and eventually the cloak becomes heavy. Eventually, it becomes too heavy to wear anymore.
I have been on both sides of compassion fatigue
I am prone to being highly empathetic, feeling other people’s emotions very intensely. And I have that coupled with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Where I endlessly want to save the world. The entire world, one sad story at a time. And there are an awful lot of sad stories out there.
The trouble with trying to save people, however, is that nobody can do it for them. Nobody was able to save me. And I am unable to save anybody else. Recovery from mental illness is a solitary road. But cheer squads are wonderful to have. And it is the cheer squads full of the compassionate people that can shine light into the darkness and gift us the shadow of hope that seems impossible to imagine when life is unbearably heavy.
When we are drowning emotionally, the water is heavy and dark beneath us. We are flailing. It is hard to breathe. It is really frightening. There is no land in sight and it is impossible to know in which direction we are meant to swim. There is nothing to focus on except surviving in the maddening waters and there is only so much swimming you can do before your mind and body give in altogether. It is then that our cheer squad holds us, keeping our heads above water so we can still try and breathe. Gasping a few breaths here and there. Feeling dependent on those holding us up while knowing it is only a short term solution and somehow we have to figure out how to just keep on swimming.
Until we finally discover, the water is only knee deep
It sounds so simple. Just stand up. But it is not simple. It is terrifying. And I have been on both sides of that heavy ocean. I have flailed around drowning, splashing and screaming and drowning the people around me. Until one day I sank to the bottom completely and had to stand up, holding onto the hands of the people who stopped drowning with me, but stood there waiting patiently for me to return.
And I have held people as they’ve drowned. Wearing the pain. Screaming instructions out over the deafening roar of the ocean that is consuming them. And it is exhausting.
I am well now. For five years I have been really well and I plan to stay that way. I cannot afford to drown myself again because I know my lungs no longer have the capacity to sink into an abyss and hold my breath for any length of time. My mental health is something I protect fiercely now. I am careful where my energies go. There is only so much compassion I can give out. I have to respect the boundaries that I have finally learned. Boundaries that did not come naturally to me, and I still struggle to put in place. Because without boundaries I will give so much of myself that I will stop sleeping, I will absorb other people’s pain, I will stop doing anything for me and everything for someone else. I will end up physically and emotionally exhausted, unable to participate in my own life. Sacrificing my wellbeing and sanity for the someone else. Who at the end of the day, will only stand up in the knee-deep waters if it is something they ultimately choose to do.
Something I had to choose to do
Recovery is both a choice and not a choice. Absolutely nobody chooses to be sad and ill. Nobody at all. Mental illness is never a choice. But recovery is. Recovery is a terrifying choice that makes absolutely no sense. You’re in the middle of a giant, choppy ocean with no land in sight. But in one direction you may find recovery. The trouble is, you don’t know which direction it is, you have no energy left to swim, and if you do swim more often than not it is the wrong direction.
It is the cheer squad, with their finite supply of cheer, that can point you in the right direction. But they can only yell so often before they too start sinking into the waters. There is no point in everyone drowning together.
I am enormously grateful for the cheer squads who buoyed me and yelled at me over five long years. When their voices became hoarse and my ears were so muffled I could barely hear anything. But there was so much yelling and pointing, from friends, family, strangers and professionals, that eventually I found a shore to swim to. And I stood up on my own two feet in the knee-deep waters.
Now, I try to be that cheer squad for others. But I can no longer allow myself to succumb to the waters. I can easily fall prey to compassion fatigue, as others did with me. The best I can do is to stand quietly in the waters, shining a little beacon of light into the darkness, hoping that those who are still beneath the waters can catch a glimpse and feel for a moment, a little golden light.
Compassion is beautiful. Compassion fatigue is exhausting. There is a fine line of hope that we can all tread. And when we feel people pulling away, it is not for lack of love. It is simply their own ocean that is calling them to stand up and save themselves first.
