Jan

12

“Geez, Everything is Abuse to You!”

Tags:
Filed Under Humorless Feminist | By Wende Hilsenrod | Leave a Comment

I took a vacation. To my amazement, everywhere I looked there was a training topic or a blog theme. Finally, one of my children uttered, “geez, everything is abuse to you!” and walked away.

I bet every single one of us has a story of taking our work home with us and having it leak out without our even knowing it. This is called burnout.  It comes from witnessing or learning about a traumatic event.  Clients process their traumatic events with us. How many stories do you hear in one day? How do you process them?

The most important part of coping with the intensity of this work is to acknowledge its effects on us. When our job becomes the sole source of satisfaction, detaching from it can become difficult. This is the paradox of burnout: the line between fighting for a cause and fighting against people gets blurred. We can become jaded, even cynical. We start telling people what to do “for their own good” instead of empowering them.

Prevention is an inside job, too. It’s not only about changing paradigms; it’s also about changing ourselves. Proactive self-care, coping strategies and “first aid for the brain” (i.e., exercise, fluids and verbalization) are as necessary for us and the work we do as they are for our clients. When I am gentle with myself, I am also gentle with others. That is something a person cannot fake.

Share