As a therapist, I encounter all kinds of people who are caring for other people.  There are mothers and fathers taking care of their children; there are children taking care of their parents; there are spouses taking care of their partners; and there are friends taking care of friends.   Let’s face it, this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Sometimes we are helping neighbors, church members, co-workers, and even some of us are in the helping professions, which mean we often “care” for a living. 

 

Recently, a new group of caring people has been identified , they are called the “sandwich generation”.  These are people who are caring for their aging parents and their growing children all at the same time.  They find themselves right in the middle, torn between and spread very thin trying to keep things going smoothly in two households at the same time. 

 

As a result of all this “caring” that we do, we instinctively ignore caring for the one person we need to care for the most – OURSELVES.  No offense to the men reading this, but women are traditionally, and socially, trained as the care givers of the world.  Therefore, women have an especially hard time taking care of themselves.  Very often, be it men or women, the word self care is misconstrued as selfish.  This could not be further from the truth.  SELF CARE = SURVIVAL.  If we truly want to come back another day to help our loved ones, or if we want to show up for work tomorrow as a nurse, teacher, etc., we surely better have good self care.  CARING (-minus) SELF CARE = BURNOUT! 

 

Day after day I meet with people who are clinically depressed, on antidepressant medication, and cannot figure out why they are not getting better.  One of the most significant reasons for this is because there is no pill that will take the place of good, positive healthy self care.  Eventually your body, mind, and spirit will send up the white flag, surrendering to the ongoing stress, the hectic schedule, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition.  There is reason we have seen an increase in autoimmune diseases such as Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lupus, again, especially in women. 

 

We don’t go instantly from being busy and helping people to burnout.  It is a progression, often insidious, with signs and symptoms that we ignore, until we can’t ignore them anymore. It usually starts with fatigue, this is more than just tired after a long day.  Fatigue is longer lasting and recurrent.  You are just finding yourself tired all the time, and you may even feel confused about why you’re so tired . Along with fatigue may come irritability, moodiness, general malaise (leader of the French army?), lack of interest in or lack of energy for the things or the people you enjoy.  Also, you may begin to have ongoing thoughts of apathy, where you just don’t care anymore.  And why don’t you care any more???  Because you can’t, your tank is on E, running on fumes, and you have stalled on the side of the road.