Compassion and self-love are difficult to attain when coping with trauma. Often clients spend their emotional energy trying to help others instead of preserving their energy to care for themselves. When clients reach their limits and don’t have enough energy to care for themselves or others anymore, they are experiencing what’s known as compassion fatigue. Part of the healing process, especially when trauma is present, is learning how to invite self-love back into one’s life. Clients may find it difficult to overcome compassion fatigue on their own, but with the right tools, more love and care can be reinstated into their lives.
At First Steps Recovery, we promote self-love, care, and attention within our clients to help them value themselves and their healing journeys. We guide clients as they spend quality time with themselves, develop a deeper understanding of themselves, and in turn, achieve a greater sense of inner strength.
What Is Compassion Fatigue?
Compassion fatigue happens when an individual’s sense of caring and feelings of compassion decline. Often a sense of detachedness surfaces. One may also become less emotion-focused, pull away from others, and become more task-focused. In general, there are cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms of compassion fatigue. These can include the following:
- Irritability or annoyance
- Anger or embitterment
- Mood swings
- Melancholy or sadness
- Skepticism or anxiety
- Cynicism
- Resentfulness
- Difficulty getting along with others, which leads to disconnection
- Problems with intimacy
- Lack of good judgment
- Memory issues or forgetfulness
- Negative self-image and feelings of inadequacy
Compassion fatigue can also lead to physical health concerns, since emotional issues can take a toll on one’s physical health. Caring too much for others eventually dulls compassion to the extent that one cannot care for oneself. This over-caring can also become secondary traumatic stress that mirrors symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This secondary traumatic stress is common in physicians, psychotherapists, human services workers, and emergency responders.
Coping With Trauma When Trying to Overcome Compassion Fatigue
Trying to overcome compassion fatigue can be extra challenging when coping with a trauma disorder simultaneously. PTSD can be characterized by flashbacks, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, mood swings, avoidance of certain places and events, and memory issues. Because PTSD can lead to various issues – whether it’s other mental health disorders or substance use disorders (SUDs) – developing compassion fatigue is likely. Clients often lose a sense of self, finding it difficult to bounce back and reintroduce self-care into their lives.
However, by focusing on oneself exclusively and making active efforts to bring more love and energy into one’s life, a client can regain a fulfilling life. The emotional effects of PTSD or other trauma disorders can begin to be worked through. This allows clients to make breakthroughs in their healing journeys. When compassion fatigue and trauma coexist, addressing both simultaneously encourages maximal healing.
How to Overcome Compassion Fatigue
Clients may feel selfish in recovery when being encouraged to focus entirely on themselves rather than think of others. However, recovery is a time for oneself to grow and blossom to create a happy and healthy life. Compassion fatigue often occurs because clients give so much of themselves to others instead of caring about themselves. In recovery, though, clients must put that level of care and energy into themselves. This does not make the client selfish in any sense.
Strategies and helpful coping mechanisms for overcoming compassion fatigue include relaxation techniques, creative expression, and strengthening communication skills, among many others. Self-care is also a significant element in the healing process. Stress-management activities, such as yoga, journaling, creating a healthy diet, practicing a routine sleep schedule, and regularly exercising can also help clients overcome compassion fatigue.
How Does First Steps Recovery Promote Self-Love and Compassion?
First Steps Recovery promotes self-love and compassion as clients cope with trauma and work to overcome compassion fatigue. Much of this inner emotional progress is made through a variety of holistic therapies. Holistic therapies allow clients to engage in relaxation techniques, nature-based healing, and creative expression. These practices are entirely personal and are more experimental to allow clients to engage with their inner selves authentically. Some may be more drawn to creative practices that allow them to freely express themselves in a more personal manner. Others may enjoy meditation and mindfulness, which allows them to spend a quiet and peaceful time with themselves.
Regardless of the holistic therapy clients participate in and end up engaging with long-term, any of these practices can serve as a way to reinstate self-care. Holistic therapies help clients get in touch with their minds and bodies while in recovery to promote peace, stability, and wellness. As clients experience rejuvenation, they become more able to feel and express compassion toward others. They find a better balance of caring for themselves while caring for others in their jobs, families, or social circles. As clients continue these holistic practices on their own time in their daily routines, they begin to feel better than they ever have.
Here at First Steps Recovery, we offer holistic therapies that engage clients with many forms of self-care. Clients coping with trauma disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often cope with compassion fatigue as well. Compassion fatigue is a form of secondary traumatic stress that mirrors PTSD symptoms and leads to emotional symptoms and social disconnection. Learning how to invite self-love is important for opening the doors to healing. Holistic care, such as creative expression and connecting with nature, allows clients to sit with themselves and develop healthy coping mechanisms and positive self-care habits. For more information on compassion fatigue, how to overcome it, and how holistic options facilitate a greater sense of self-care, please call us at (844) 489-0836.
Dr. Curl is the Medical Director and primary on-site provider for First Steps Recovery. He is a Board Certified Internist and Addiction Medicine Specialist having attended the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and completing his residency at Mount Auburn Hospital with Harvard Medical School. Following several years work as an internist and physiatrist (physical medicine and rehabilitation). Dr. Curl completed the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Howard University in Washington DC and participated as a RAM Scholar (Research in Addiction Medicine). While part of the fellowship, Dr. Curl pursued research investigating the barriers to expanding and improving medication for opioid use disorder. Following his fellowship, Dr. Curl spearheaded the Opiate Use Disorder outpatient clinic and worked in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences within the Howard University Hospital. In 2023, Dr. Curl completed his Board Certification in Addiction Medicine.
