Having Compassion for Compassion Fatigue
Tanjin Ashraf
PhD Candidate, Australian Catholic University
I can vividly recall a distinct morning from a few years ago when I was a private school teacher. That morning, I physically could not get up from bed to get ready for school so I called in sick. Even though the school director was super understanding and supportive, I felt immense shame for not being able to be there for my students. When I look back and reflect on that morning, I realize I was experiencing compassion fatigue.
Compassion fatigue was coined by Charles R. Figley in the 1980s to describe the emotional, physical, and psychological exhaustion one experiences when working with and taking care of those who are experiencing trauma. Symptoms of compassion fatigue include avoiding professional and social activities, irritability, diminished empathy, difficulty concentrating among many others (Figley, 1995).
I can pinpoint a few reasons why I experienced compassion fatigue through my teaching position. First, most of the students from the school lived in a precarious neighborhood ridden with poverty and violence. In addition, some of the parents experienced serious mental health issues which significantly impacted their children. Second, the school was in its infancy and could not afford additional resources to support the students, especially since some of the parents could not pay the monthly tuition fees on time. Third, I was promoted to an administrative position within the year so I felt a greater sense of responsibility for the students. To top it off, I was also working two other jobs and the intensified workload led to burnout as well. With these compounding factors at play, I started feeling irritable, withdrew from family and friends, and felt hopeless. The worst part was feeling a sense of apathy towards everyone around me.
I felt a deep sense of shame for experiencing compassion fatigue since I held unrealistic expectations of myself and felt an inherent responsibility to show up to work, completely energized and compassionate, no matter what obstacles or challenges were in play. There is a limited number of studies on teachers and their experiences with compassion fatigue (Yang, 2021), and an angle that could be explored in-depth is the occurrence of shame when teachers experience compassion fatigue. From my own teaching and personal experiences, I garnered a reservoir of learning points that I use to ground myself:
- It’s okay to experience compassion fatigue — rather than feeling shame, I try to remember that we’re all human beings with finite physical and mental resources, so it is not our fault if we experience compassion fatigue when caring for those with trauma.
- Pay attention to my mind and body — in order to face compassion fatigue, I realized it is important for me to be aware and acknowledge when I am experiencing it. Now, I pay attention to how others’ traumatic circumstances impact my own mind and body.
- Set boundaries for myself — whenever I am feeling compassion fatigue in both professional and personal realms, I acknowledge my experience and set boundaries accordingly. Some of those boundaries include taking space from traumatic circumstances, voicing candidly that I am experiencing compassion fatigue and needing time and space to recover.
- Respecting other people’s boundaries — ideally, I want to help foster an environment where other people can share whenever they are experiencing compassion fatigue and take space accordingly. So far, I have been cultivating that environment in my personal life but not yet in my professional life.
- Rest and rejuvenate — I saw an insightful Twitter post about the difference between resting and rejuvenating. Rest is taking the space and time off from doing certain tiresome tasks and rejuvenating is intentionally engaging in activities that ignite passion.
- Seek professional help — it can be immensely insightful to explore the psychological ramifications of compassion fatigue with a mental health specialist and create a plan to assuage it.
- Micro-affirmations — in a post-pandemic chaotic world, where we all experienced collective trauma alongside our own individual trauma, I find a small compliment or gesture of appreciation can go a long way. Teaching in particular is a relational profession, and acknowledging the hard work teachers do is imperative.
I also want to point out that my reflections do not imply that compassion fatigue should be addressed solely by the individual. It is important to acknowledge the systematic and systemic barriers that create the circumstances for professionals to experience compassion fatigue. For example, certain organizations might not grant professionals with the financial and mental health resources to address compassion fatigue. Also, even if an organization does have the pertinent resources, they may not be readily accessible to everyone. As we continue addressing this wicked problem, let’s continue to lend compassion for compassion fatigue, both to ourselves and others.
References
Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue as secondary traumatic stress disorder: An overview. In C.R. Figley (Ed.), Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress in those who treat the traumatised (pp. 1–20). Brunner/Mazel.
Yang, C. (2021). Online teaching self-efficacy, social–emotional learning (SEL) competencies, and compassion fatigue among educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. School Psychology Review, 50(4), 505–518. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2021.1903815
