Week of November 1 2009: More on Compassion Fatigue

I've been thinking about this concept of "compassion fatigue" since I first learned of it being recognized as a condition or affliction that people who take care of the sick experience.  It's been a difficult discussion to have with myself, trying to understand what it means - what it really means.

I do think that it's a kind and gentle way of refering to what happens when you devote your life to taking care of others or another.  Caring for your elderly parent or parents, caring for patients as a health care provider, caring for a sick spouse or partner.  You life becomes consumed with the needs of another and eventually, there is no time to care for your own wants and needs.  It's also used in reference to community based or global events - like after September 11 or with regard to the poverty stricken children of our planet.  You become "burned out" or desensitized and this phenomenon is being referred to as "compassion fatigue."

Okay, so, I don't agree.  I think it's wrong to call it compassion fatigue.  It bothered me when I first heard it and it bothers me today.  While caring for another in those situations mentioned above is very much an act of compassion, it's not compassion which becomes fatigued.  Compassion does not ask that we tend to the needs of others at our own expense.  Compassion does not ask that we neglect our own needs and wants.  Compassion does not ask that we forgo what is important to us or take on the responsibilities of another if that's not what we wish to do. 

I take care of a sick and disabled partner and I experience the burn out.  It's not my compassion that gets burned out, it's my resentment of having to live a life I never signed on for.  She was not sick when we made our commitment to one another.  She was young, full of life, and independent.  Today, she is none of those and it is taxing to be the hope for two people, the life for two people, the one who has to do what she can't and what I need to do for us both.

My desire to alleviate her suffering is immense.  It is unchanged.  It is huge and powerful.  But it cannot fix her or make her better.  It cannot take away the pain in her body and the pain in her spirit.  But that doesn't stop me from trying, in my own way, to accomplish it.

It is not compassion fatigue but care giver fatigue that I experience.  What becomes fatigued is my energy, my
willingness, my hope, my drive, my pep, my joy of life.  But never my compassion.  I may waiver in my ability to extend that compassion but its not because my compassion has become fatigued.  It's because my compassion has been overshadowed by my resentment at the life we are living.  It is pushed to the background by my anger at having to do everything.  It is buried by my frustration that I know better and she won't listen to my prudent advice. 

My compassion is a gentle, sensitive part of me that is skiddish and scared.  So the more assertive emotions can push it around, demand it to shut up.  But the one thing my compassion always has the courage to do is to wait for the opportunity to shine.

I have never felt compassion and become drained.  I have never extended compassion and been depleted.  Compassion is ever-renewing energy.  The more compassion you extend, the more fueled with energy you are.  It does not get depleted.  Compassion is its own generator and carries you forward in this journey.