Three people emailed me a Good Morning America news story on “compassion fatigue” today so I guess the story is resonating with a lot of people.
Compassion fatigue is “a term used to describe the symptoms of secondary post-traumatic stress caused by caregiving.” One person describes it this way: “Your impulse is to rescue. You don’t have any personal boundaries, but you become isolated and lose your self-care in the process.”
The article raises the case of the Sunnyvale, CA mother who killed her 22-year-old autistic son and herself in early March. She had told a neighbor that she was overwhelmed with caring for her son.
The article also mentions the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, which has a website compassionfatigue.org. That site has a list of symptoms of compassion fatigue here:
compassionfatigue.org/pages/
You can find a compassion fatigue self-test here:
www.proqol.org/ProQol_Test.
Finally, Healthy Caregiving has training materials and workbooks on compassion fatigue. See:
Here’s a link to the news story that has been circulating far and wide today:
gma.yahoo.com/compassion-
Compassion Fatigue Strikes Family, Even Animal Caregivers
By Susan Donaldson James
Good Morning America
Wed, Mar 21, 2012 4:28 PM EDT
Though it’s a Good Morning America news story, there doesn’t seem to be video/audio associated with it.