Compassion Fatigue is Real

Here’s what you can do about it

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

I can say I am a pretty strong person, both mentally and emotionally. I’ve been through a lot in life that would make some people crumble. Not that I’m bragging. I just have a lot of fortitude. Maybe it’s because I come from a family of strong women including a mother who was a street cop in Atlanta. If we’d cry, she’d give us something to cry about. We had to toughen up. There’s no crying in baseball!

I also co-founded and operate a nonprofit animal rescue. I see the best and worst in humanity everyday. There’s no shortage of animal abuse, neglect, and abandonment. I receive messages day in and day out via Facebook, Instagram, email, or text about animals in our kill shelters that are about to be put to sleep; images that you wouldn’t even want your worst enemy to see and that you can’t unsee. Never mind the actual hands-on, front line, in the trenches stuff we have to personally witness. People often say: “I don’t know how you do it.” Really, I don’t either other than I have a job to do, and if I’m a blubbering mess, then I can’t do that job. Sure, there are times when it’s over, and I pour a bottle of wine down my throat while sobbing on the kitchen floor. Thank God for my dogs. They seem to always know when mama’s had a rough day in rescue.