Ever feel like you have nothing left to give?  Do you come home from work and feel exhausted? Have you found that you might tend to “snap” at your co-workers or people in your personal life?  Do you find that you procrastinate on things when feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated?  These can be signs of compassion fatigue.  For those who have careers in the helping profession, this is a very common experience

Compassion fatigue is the term used to describe the emotional effect of helping others and taking on the emotions of their experiences in life.  We feel their emotional pain which automatically impacts us, whether that be emotionally (frustration, anger, sadness, anxiousness), physically (tired, trouble sleeping, blood pressure, increase heart rate, gastro issues), socially (withdrawn from normal social activities, avoiding social interactions like answering your phone), or spiritually (lack of faith, hope).  Compassion fatigue can happen to anyone in a helping role, whether it’s professional or personally caring for someone.  Another area that compassion fatigue can affect for those in the helping field is our empathy.  The more fatigued we are in our work, the less empathetic we can be towards those we are helping.  If we lose our ability to empathize, we lose the heart of what we do.

March is Social Work Month and all social workers are susceptible to compassion fatigue in their quest to help others.  Social workers can be prone to thinking and feeling they are the only ones to help those they work with. We are taught that we can’t solve other people’s problems, but we can provide support and guidance to those we work with so that they can solve these issues or concerns that they bring to us.  Easier said than done! 

So, what do you do when you are experiencing compassion fatigue?  How does one prevent this?  First and foremost, set boundaries. It’s important to create and maintain a balance between our work and our personal lives. It’s important to create and maintain a balance between our work and our personal lives. Examples of this include sticking to our work hours, turning our work phones off when we leave the office, not checking emails throughout the night, etc This also includes being clear and concise with the people we work with on when they would have access to us.  Realistically, we can’t always be “on”. Like a lightbulb that is just left on indefinitely, it will eventually burn out. 

So, can we prevent the light bulb from burning out?  One of the main concepts that we all hear about through our trainings, agency meetings, professional boards, and in the literature is self-care.  All the things we encourage the people we care for to do, applies to the “helpers” as well.  Tuning into what our minds and our bodies are trying to communicate to us is vital in our quest to help others and ourselves.  The one common factor that is the same for all of us is that we are human.  Social workers, and most people, tend to forget this sometimes. 

Other Tips:

• Keep a daily journal about how you feel each day after work.  This may help identify patterns and also create self-awareness of the impact on you specifically.
• Engage in activities that you find enjoyable, like hobbies.  These can be activities that you engage in with others or a singular activity such as reading.
• Make sure to spend time with your support system.  Go out to dinner with your friends, go see an exhibit, or have a dinner party.
• Remember to laugh and find humor in life.

For more information on compassion fatigue, please visit:

https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/compassion-fatigue

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/compassion-fatigue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE_fC7rW34U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-4m35Gixno