You ever struggle to give a damn?
If you’re like me, you start the week with a handful of damns. That’s about seven damns, by the way. You goal is to hold on to them damns as long as you can, but by lunch time, they’re all gone! And you end up spending the rest of the week not giving a damn for nothing and nobody!

Compassion Fatigue, according to Oxford Dictionary, is indifference to charitable appeals on behalf of those who are suffering, experienced as a result of the frequency or number of such appeals.

In simple terms, it’s the inability to care about a person or situation that would typically elicit a caring response because you have to do it too much!

In late 2024, compassion fatigue smacked in the face! My day job requires that I listen to and solve other people’s problems. However, my options for solving them are limited. The customer can’t whine their way into what they want or give me a sob story big enough. I do what I can do for them and that’s all. Then there’s the customer who trauma dumps on me even when it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

For the record, trauma dumping is when someone unburdens themselves of all their awful shit, usually without permission. It can be both unsolicited and triggering for the listener. This may result in secondary traumatic stress also know as the negative cost of caring!

Compassion Fatigue doesn’t mean you care too much. Don’t gaslight yourself. It means that you are exhausted because the act of caring at all is overwhelming.

I care a normal amount, I think, My therapist might have varying opinions about that. However, my version of caring, like a lot of tomboy girls growing up, was kinda mean. I picked on you, gave you odd nicknames, embarrassed you as a way of loving you. However, that was all just nervous behavior stemming from social anxiety. Not being that person requires a level of honesty and vulnerability. You give compliment rather than picking on them. You acknowledge their sadness rather than ask why their being weird. You don’t accept “I’m fine” and you operate in an intentional, heart felt way.

That shit is plain ol’ exhausting though.. sometimes… for a growing person doing the work of acknowledging their own trauma, walking in truth, and addressing their mental health head-on!

So then what? I’m overwhelmed by how much caring I have to/ get to do. I didn’t recognize the burnout was happening. And now I find myself not giving a flying fuck about a gotdamn mother forking thing!

Well, actually I do. I do care but I wish I didn’t have to because it takes up so much space and takes away so much of my energy.

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey reminds us that our bodies are a site of liberation (one of the 4 tenets of The Nap Ministry. Resting can be a radical act of resisting the notions that you should be robotic and limitless. You have limits. You have boundaries. You deserve to not be burdened. You deserve to rest easy and sleep heavy.

I challenge you (yes, I’m including myself) to schedule a rest everyday! Let’s start with a week. No matter what, let’s commit to a 10-30 min pause in which we put down the phone, ignore all responsibility (unless it’s the life or death kind- but try scheduling around that) and you simply rest. Let your body relax and chill the fuck out!