Family Carers: When caring starts to Feel Exhausting: Understanding Compassion Fatigue
Caring deeply doesn't mean you never get tired
If you care for someone you love, there may be days when you feel completely drained. Compassion fatigue in carers is real.
You may still love the person you care for deeply. You may still want to do your best for them.
More Than A Carer - Family Carer Support.
And yet you may find yourself becoming tired of the constant decisions, responsibilities, interruptions and emotional demands that caring can bring.
Perhaps you feel less patient than you used to. Perhaps small things seem to bother you more. Perhaps you sometimes find yourself thinking, “I just can't do this today.”
And then you may feel guilty for having thought it. But feeling exhausted doesn't mean you care any less. Sometimes it simply means you have been caring for a very long time.
The emotional side of caring
Much of the conversation around caring naturally focuses on practical things.
Appointments. Medication. Meals. Personal care. Transport. Paperwork. Keeping everything organised.
But there is another side to caring that can be much harder to see, the emotional effort.
You may spend a great deal of your time thinking about how the other person is feeling. You may worry about what might happen next. You may constantly monitor changes in their health or behaviour.
You may put your own feelings aside because there is always something else that needs doing. Over time, that can become exhausting.
“Carers UK emphasises the importance of carers looking after their own health and wellbeing, noting that it can be all too easy to become exhausted and burnt out when juggling caring responsibilities.” *
What is compassion fatigue?
The term compassion fatigue is sometimes used to describe a state of emotional exhaustion associated with prolonged caring, supporting or helping others.
It is important not to treat it as a diagnosis. It is better understood as a way of describing something that many people involved in caring may recognise:
the tiredness that can come from continually giving emotional energy to someone else.
You may still have compassion. You may still have love. You may still be doing everything you can. But your emotional reserves may feel as though they are running low.
You don't have to feel guilty about being tired
This is perhaps one of the most difficult things for carers to accept. You can love someone and still need a break from caring.
You can be grateful for someone and still feel frustrated. You can want the best for them and still sometimes wish you could have a day when nobody needed anything from you.
These things can exist together. They don't make you a bad person. They make you human.
Notice what you are carrying
Sometimes the first step isn't to solve anything, it's simply to notice.
How tired are you?
When was the last time you had some time that was genuinely your own? Are you getting enough opportunity to rest? Who do you talk to when things become difficult?
Do you have somewhere you can express how you really feel without worrying about upsetting someone else? These aren't selfish questions. They are questions about your wellbeing.
You matter in this picture too
When someone else depends upon you, it can feel almost natural to put yourself last.
But you are part of the caring situation too, your energy matters, and you emotional wellbeing matters. Your need for support matters.
And sometimes you may need someone or something to remind you of that.
A quiet space to listen
The first recording in the More Than A Carer Programme is Understanding Compassion Fatigue.
It was created to give carers an opportunity to step away from the demands of caring for a little while and reflect on the emotional experience of caring for someone over time.
It isn't medical advice, and it isn't about telling you how to care.
It is simply a therapeutic audio recording created with the carer themselves in mind.
Because sometimes the person doing the caring needs some care and understanding too.
You are more than a carer.
You matter too.
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