Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[CherryBomb]

With Carers' Week upon us again (starting the week 16 October), it seems like a timely reminder to look at our roles of caring and who we are as carers. 

When our loved one is unwell, it can be easy to under estimate our own mental health needs. For many carers, the role can have take a heavy toll on our own well-being. I've written about compassion fatigue and @Kiera80 written about Losing Compassion, where we've both highlighted various signs of feeling drained, loosing empathy and compassion, and unable to concentrate. 

In caring professions it's sometimes called 'vicarious trauma'. As this article suggests, it can arise within workers have particular qualities of empathy and relational connectivity. This is interesting because I think that these are qualties that most carers have as well. They're qualities that make carers great at caring. They are a strength, but they can also be a downfall - having so much empathy, and giving too much can start to weigh you down over time. What are people's thoughts on this? How do you balance empathy and self-care?

Perhaps some of our community members can share their thoughts @Shaz51 @Faith-and-Hope @Former-Member @Appleblossom ?

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @CherryBomb ....

I picked this up yesterday and I am considering it ..... will respond when I have a bit more time .... it does create a halo over the core of being a carer, or even subject to trauma in an ongoing, inescapable situation .....

I think this leads into core pastoral care values which ought to be taught in school from early grades ....

Get back to you a bit later ....

🌷💜

[Shaz51]

Very interesting @CherryBomb

How do you balance empathy and self-care?

Somtines this can be tricky, sometimes it is hard to get a balance because things change all the time  and then you think you have a balance but you find that you really don`t

With empathy you get to know what is going to happen next ( most of the time) what they are feeling and what they are going to do next , so with this in the carers mind -- Self-care gets pushed aside to find the right time for self care

when the carer thinks I AM going to do some ME TIME today , sometimes can be hard to get done

My mind is still thinking @CherryBomb, so I might write more later --

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @CherryBomb ...... back again .... 😏

To answer this question I think it is important to take a close look at what empathy is .... I have found some quotes ..... if it matters that I haven't cited references, I am happy to provide them.

"Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position."

"The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling."

Okay .... there is a selfless aspect to being a carer, because it is a situation you enter into that can be rewarding, but often is not, or not particularly.  If the person you are caring for is difficult in nature, which is often the case with severe MI issues, it can be extremely draining, and as such, not sustainable.  So who is caring for the carers ?  That is where self-care comes in, and it is so important.  If you can't recharge your batteries, you can go under too.

So.  Here is the next interesting aspect to empathy .....

"Contemporary researchers often differentiate between two types of empathy: “Affective empathy” refers to the sensations and feelings we get in response to others’ emotions; this can include mirroring what that person is feeling, or just feeling stressed when we detect another’s fear or anxiety. “Cognitive empathy,” sometimes called “perspective taking,” refers to our ability to identify and understand other peoples’ emotions."

That means that empathy operates on an emotive level, whereby we naturally respond with our emotions to the need we perceive in someone else, but it also operates on an intellectual level, where we can reason with ourselves about our response, and weigh up both our response and the other person's need, and work out what we can or can't do for them, and what we can or can't extend ourselves to .....

The natural emotive response is an extension of who we are.  It seems the reasoned response is something that can be taught and learned, or disciplined at least.

I hope I am making sense here .... probably need some feedback at this point ....

🌷💜

[Shaz51]

what do you think @Former-Member, @Lilly, xx

[Former-Member]

Hi @Shaz51,
Thanks for copying me in.
I have been thinking recently about the idea of emotional contagion. It seems to me that might be relevant for people with more empathy. I think it is important to be able step back a little because the strength of emotions need to be offset.
I need to have a calm place to go and rejuvenate. It might be harder in some ways for professionals because they have the expectation to be able to help.
Cheers

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @Former-Member

One of the mods @suzanne mentioned on another thread a while back that professionals tend to develop a form of "Teflon coating".  It's not that they don't care, it's just that they have to create a barrier against drying themselves out in the process of helping others.

It makes sense to me .... 

🌷💜

[Appleblossom]

Been weighed down with my caring role for a while ... but thought I was "used" to it. 

Went to a carers group last week where the official focus was on voting for council elections. After the workshop the rest of the group ... and it is quite large (over 20) and going for over 20 years ... everyone was pretty put off with it as a waste of time ... I had to agree ..

I did manage to get my son to fulfill that obligation today before the deadline. He would have let it slide if I had not reminded him and given hints how to make it relatively easy ... even while in midst of my own episode. 

One of the things that upset me ... was that my son said not to worry that he would look after me ... that was really scary for me to hear ... as he is a person with limited skills and experience of the world.

I did know that he did "care".  He told the ambos that he didnt want me to go through what he went through. I told him I would have preferred it to be me 2 years ago.

SO @Former-Member is getting it right with the concept of "emotional contagion" which a few of us posted about a year ago.

I dont actually feel "compassion fatigue" for my son.  Still looking after him ... but when things had cooled down and I came back from the hospital ... I told him that It wasnt his job for him to care for me ... that he had to care for him .. and that actually I had always been pretty good at self care ...

I might try and remember the boundaries workshop ... need all the help in that area

I had been thinking about how everyone on the forum feels free to watch the tv shows of their choice and listen to music .. I dont still have that happening for me.  Watched tele for the last 2 days ... he let me yesterday cos I was "sick" and today he has gone for the night so I could settle and watch.  But been thinking that access to tv, movies and music should become part of my boundary setting.

I solved the central heating problem by buying myself a heater for my room.  My darling son is a bit controlling of me ...

Still feel pretty sad about my flare up .. I had just read in the course on Caring for people with Psychosis that we had to manage our frustrations about negative symptoms in particular .. and then all of a sudden, a couple of hours later ...  I made a scene on the road stopping all the traffic.  I was quiet but it still had that effect. 

The ambo was direct to son .. and said "it isnt working".  The triage nurse said my son had to work on his pride and get some support from a nurse or psych and go to Centrelink for financial support as well.  I was yelling "it isnt his fault it, isnt his fault". 

Hope my son is ok tomorrow when he comes home.  I have been hanging on, trying to absorb all the passsivity and lack of motivation and waiting waiting ... dreaming up a new intervention ...

One thing, he said was that it was good that the police could see how out of control I could get. I agreed. But I also had good chat talking to them about Peel's values for Community Policing.

The garden was looking absolutely fabulous.