Compassion Fatigue. It’s Real, Y’all.

This past week, I got hit –  and I mean, hit hard – by compassion fatigue. I didn’t recognize the signs at first but here they are, in no particular order:

• I wasn’t sleeping well.
• I was thinking about my clients round the clock.
• I was leaving as late as I could from home and arriving justintime for my appointments.
• My daily runs were going by the wayside because my planned running time became consumed with adding more client appointments and in-between session phone calls with clients and their families.
• I was declining lunch and coffee dates with my friends and spending a lot of my days alone, reading and preparing for my late afternoon and night sessions.
• Some friends were having personal crisis situations and calling/texting me around the clock.
• Oh, and did I mention that this month has been my biggest month of success, if you measure  it strictly in monetary terms?

This candle was burning at both ends, hot and bright. It doesn’t take a genius to see where this was heading.

I was keeping it together in sessions, but out of them? I was crying during my daughter’s marching band performances. I was crying when, after a few late nights at the office, the custodians at my building who were cleaning would stop by and ask me for a piece of candy out of my dish. I was crying when I walked my dog and I saw a dad throwing a football with his daughter in my neighborhood.

Historically, when other therapists or anyone in the helping profession would talk about compassion fatigue, I gotta admit, I half-listened, and maybe even rolled my smug eyes. I sat through my mandatory agency trainings and read the statistics and listened to other people talk about their experiences but honestly?  I secretly (and naively) thought that compassion fatigue was simply something that, well…..was never, ever gonna happen to me.  Why? Because I got this!!! I can do it!! I’m different then everyone else. I’m a machine.

This month, and this last week in particular, work was extremely intense. I performed an intervention. I placed two clients in treatment. Three clients from yesteryear contacted me asking me to restart therapy. Two people told me that I single-handedly saved their life. It all was taking a toll. Big. Time.

So now I get it. Compassion Fatigue. It’s real, y’all.

Mother Theresa insisted that her nuns take one year off every 4-5 years to allow them to heal from the effects of their helping-focused work. I was barely eating a proper lunch or dinner most days.

This week, I redirected myself. I bought some new candles for my office. I reached out to friends and scheduled get-togethers. I took my daughter shopping and bought her some new clothes. I made a conscious decision to stop reading about work at home and instead, read  for pleasure. I made time to run, and signed up for a few upcoming races to ensure I continue to train. I’ve blocked off a few upcoming days in November for leisure and family and travel – and for just ME.

No one is a machine. Machines don’t cry, people do.