Compassion Fatigue as a symptom of depression/ burn out

[Ecdysis]

I used to be really good at compassion... until my brain broke and now I'm so burned out and I've got total and utter compassion fatigue...

Like, I read/ see/ hear what someone's going through/ struggling with and I know what I "should" say and feel... but there's just nothing... my brain just shuts it all down and I move on sort of shrugging internally and just ignoring everything...

I realise that it's my brain desperately trying to protect itself... I realise it's not a choice I'm making...

It still feels awful tho...

I see other people responding "appropriately" as I know I should but I can't even emulate it... I feel so exhausted and anything I might attempt to say sounds so lame... So I just don't bother...

I struggle with it, because having grown up to be a co-dependent little kid as a way of dealing with family trauma... being compassionate is such a large part of my identity... And it feels like that's just gone, right now... It feels very strange...

 

[Sideways]

it feels like that's just gone, right now

I think you’ve nailed it with the ‘right now’ part.

It will come back. But it sounds like, right now, your brain needs to preserve the emotional energy that it has to take care of you.

Normal, healthy, appropriate. Not something you need to be struggling with. Having identified it? Maybe lean in to the self care instead of trying to keep expending energy on others.

When you have more energy for the people around you, you’ll go straight back to it without any effort at all.

 

[arfie]

"compassion vs co-dependency" has been a support topic of more than one support group meeting i have participated in. in my own case, the belief that there are "appropriate" scripts to follow in the showing of compassion is a symptom of co-dependency. my compassion comes from my heart. there is no script to follow. it is a sharing of passion/emotions far more than a stage play.

in my own case, learning detachment was an all important step in dropping the scripts and finding the freedom/confidence to come from the heart. however much i might empathize with your pain, it remains yours to sort. jumping in there and adopting your pain as my own only muddies the water. i have never considered the compassion fatigue angle, but my initial reaction can see where i might have confused the two during my early recovery. my birth family had far meaner things to call my early detachment from their scripted dysfunction cycles.

in my own case, detachment from the scripted compassion made room for me to learn true compassion.

i don't know if any of that fits your case, or not. just sharing.

continued support while you sort your own case.