Hello you. You're lovely.

This is the fifth and final part in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1, Post 3, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 2, Post 4, But...The Lord Told Me To, Post 5, Tapped Out.

As we wrap up this series, I want to pose a few questions all caregivers need to face. The answers to these questions help you know/see yourself more fully, and that makes your work most meaningful and fulfilling.

Question 1: Why do I want to be a _________?
Knowing why you're a caregiver is critical to how you do that work. In counseling school they made us write out our answer to "why do you want to be a counselor." I think every caregiving profession should make this a requisite. The truth is, an honest assessment of yourself will reveal some altruistic motives, and some deep personal needs. You need to know both. Unacknowledged needs drive us. They take over our actions. It's no crime. It's entirely human to be helping others for personal reasons. However, when we have no way of owning that truth, and understanding those motivators, they undermine us and put an unfair pressure on the recipient of our care to perform in ways they can't know, and we may not even be able to articulate.

Owning the truth of our needs helps us put an emotional check in place when we see ourselves place those demands on others. All of us have places that need healing. Sometimes we use our work to keep from confronting that pain.  

Tapped Out -- Compassion Fatigue

This post is the fourth part in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1, Post 3, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 2, Post 4, But...The Lord Told Me To.


This post most closely fits those of you working in caregiving fields. Any work placing you frequently in the middle of others' traumas and problems puts you at risk for something called Compassion Fatigue (CF). Essentially, compassion fatigue is the caregiver's version of burn out. While many caring for children or aging parents experience elements of exhaustion related to that work, this syndrome particularly strikes caregivers who repeatedly encounter others, often at the hardest moments of their lives. Nurses, physicians, pastors & chaplains, counselors, I hope to reach you.

A story
I drove up on a fatal accident this Labor Day. Medical help not yet arrived, I jumped out of the car and approached a red Honda in the center of the road. The man inside needed no medical help. He was dead. I panned the four corners of the intersection, each littered with bystanders, looking for victims. The man's wife was covered in blood, crying in the grass. A quick assessment showed she had no external injuries. The blood was his. She called out for him. I could do absolutely nothing but crawl behind her on the hillside, hold her, and whisper things I don't remember in her ear. When medical services arrived, they took the same path as me. By the car -- help not possible; see bloody victim, approach. And then, as she screamed and cried out information about herself and her fears they yelled, "Ma'am, I need you to calm down." Over and over with this asinine phrase.

I understand the need in chaotic situations to create a presence of assuredness and authority. But this medical professional's response to the tragedy did not create calm. She exuded a detachment beyond that needed to perform her job safely. She demonstrated a need to protect herself from the gory mess on that roadside.

My guess is, she's encountered lots of tragedies that confront her with the fragility and mortality of our species, and the depth of our capacity to ache and grieve. She entered the medical field ready to pour compassion into these circumstances, and having poured it all out long ago, is now going through the motions of a job.

But... The Lord Told Me To

This post is the third in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1, Post 3, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 2.
 

Ironic timing: I'm preparing a series of posts on how religion reinforces a lack of boundaries and self-care and my teenage sister sends me a meme saying: "Always remember God added another day in your life... not because you need it, but because someone else needs you."

I'm tempted to drop the mic... er... keyboard, and walk away.

This thinking typifies the unhealthy Other focus that religion can propagate. Your life isn't about you. It's about Others. Burn out for God, for The Lost, for a Dying World. Words like these make too much sense to caregivers. They fit our default position of other-centeredness, and we run with them.

Housekeeping
My only religious background is Christianity, so I'll address that perspective.  Also, I'm still a Christian. The form of that identity has changed over the years, but essentially, I believe the radical love of Jesus Christ is the greatest model and hope for humans. This post is about spiritual misguidedness and abuse, not a call to end religion.

Moving On
I experienced mishandled religion perpetuating broken boundaries and broken people in several ways. I learned a poor theology of the person that corroded my ability to see the need to care for myself. I learned to distrust pleasure and rest. I absorbed an ethos of disproportionate focus on others, among other things. I saw basic human limitations labeled as sin and "heart issues."    

Thick Line in the Sand (Part 2)

This post is the third in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself, Post 2, Thick Line in the Sand, Part 1.

Life has been busy -- I left my job, had my first public speaking engagement, preached a bit, and followed a baby around the house a thousand times. But, I recognize a reluctance to finish this post. Usually, that means I am still learning and relearning to practice the material I write.  That's a good, human, but humbling thing.

When we left off, you were supposed to breathe, express gratitude for your big heart, and love yourself by indulging in a pleasure. I hope you took the time to do those things. It's the hardest advice I give to caregivers.

It's also a part of learning to set boundaries. For us "Other Specialists," finding a sense of self, and self's desires, pleasures, expressions, helps us differentiate who we are from others.

Thick Line in the Sand (Part 1)

This post is the second in a series on self-care for care-givers. Physicians, nurses, mommas, pastors, teachers and unsung care-givers of every stripe, I hope you find something restorative here. Post 1, Caregiver, Love Thyself. 

The guy was dying in agony. An ill-informed physician and his lengthy drug history added up to inadequate pain medication. He'd scream and curse and spread filth everywhere. Some days his wife was sober. Some days she wove down the hall like someone slowly dodging bullets.

I became one with this family. I was the only nurse who would care for them repeatedly. Shift in, shift out. I read his wife's mood changes fairly well (although she yelled at me plenty). I spent all the patience I had at his bedside, tending the wounds he made worse.

I called to check on them after my shift, asking the current nurse about labs, or subtle changes. And nightmares -- I heard his screams in my sleep. I dreaded caring for them, and feeling guilty for that, tried harder and harder to be more and more, until his wife yelled at me for addressing her intoxication and kicked me out of the room. I realized I was in too deep and with tears streaming down my face, and great gasps for air, informed my manager I could not care for them any more.

He died several days later. I never worked far enough away to not hear his screams.

I wish I could talk to that young, passionate, and utterly broken nurse and tell her leaving this family in other hands was just that -- letting other people do their job. It wasn't a moral failing. And it was utterly brave to do something so counter to her culture.

Caregiver, Love Thyself

Self is a stranger to many people who never met a stranger in their life -- people who sense another's needs across the airport, but have no understanding of their own inner struggles.

These people are experts in the Other. They bore secrets, tended wounds, and ran to rescue starting in childhood. They gravitate toward helping professions like nursing, teaching, pastoring, counseling, mothering etc. So, obviously, I'm one of the people I'm talking about.

I coached a group of nurses on self-care yesterday. I always open the session asking "Why nursing?" so we hear why each chose this profession. Invariably, someone tells how they started caring for others as a kid. This time, to make the group aware of that common bond, I asked them to raise their hands if they had been secret-bearer, soother, bandage-applier, or other caregiver in childhood. Twenty-three nurses in the room -- 18 hands raised (mine too).

When you start doing something as early as childhood, your identity gets all wrapped up in it. Many caregivers don't know themselves without other people to care for. I didn't know who I was, because I built my identity to suit the needs of others.  It seemed natural to go into a profession where my daily work turns on expressions of compassion.

Not knowing myself, I couldn't create boundaries around my identity, capacity, and responsibilities. I never responded "no." I never turned off.

It still hurts to look back at how deeply this type of living wounded me and impacted my family.