Are you a professional or a caregiver caring for someone else or a loved one and feeling exhausted, emotionally and/or physically? It is important to know what you're feeling so you can get the necessary help. Compassion fatigue is a type of stress felt by professionals and caregivers that stems from wanting to help others who are traumatized or experiencing high levels of emotional stress. Compassion fatigue can be very similar to burnout. It is important to know the differences to distinguish different help available. When comparing the two, compassion fatigue has a more rapid onset than burnout. Burnout can come on much slower with a more gradual increase in symptoms. 

Common symptoms include feeling physically and emotionally exhausted, depersonalization, feelings of irritability, troubles sleeping, headaches, and poor job satisfaction. Many different individuals are at risk for this, depending on their job. Therapists are at risk because of the empathy that they have when communicating with clients. When expressing empathy, they are feeling the feelings of the client to show that there is an understanding. Those feelings can impact the therapist leading to compassion fatigue. Nurses are also at risk due to their heavy workloads, high demands and long hours. Lawyers can also be at risk due to some graphic things that they may see such as accidents and crime scenes. 

Along with being aware of the signs of compassion fatigue it is important to know how to prevent it overall. Some ways to prevent this is to reduce the stressful workloads, monitoring sleep and increasing healthy habits. It is okay to have stress at work. If you are seeing a lot of clients that cause high stress, maybe it is time to limit the number of high risk clients you take on. In terms of healthy habits, it is good to exercise regularly, meditate, journal, and even go to therapy yourself. Having a routine for yourself and different outlets to relieve stress will be a bg help in reducing your risk for compassion fatigue. Prevention is important because in professional settings, you will no longer be of benefit for your client if you are experiencing fatigue. If this is something that you struggle with, please don’t be afraid to ask for help. You are not alone in what you are experiencing, and there is help out there available for you!