Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Rockpool]

There are 3 things I am going to draw your attention to:

Increasing self-awareness

Increasing our ability to pick up on the signs mentioned above is really important. The way we view the caring role can change day to day and so can the levels of stress or compassion we feel. An easy way of increasing your awareness around how you are feeling is to regularly check-in with yourself and think about how you are travelling in that moment. Setting up a regular time for you to do this can be helpful. For example, you may decide what works for you is to check in with yourself in the morning and determine where you are at and help this to guide your actions through the day if stress or compassion levels are feeling quite high. Thinking about this in terms of a scale of 1-10 can help to quantify it for yourself and can also allow you to think about what you need to bring the level or stress or compassion fatigue down by one point.

Another thing that can be helpful in terms of increasing your self-awareness is knowing which of the signs you can pick up on first. For some of us, it is easier to pick up on how we are feeling in our bodies, or to check-in with our thoughts or emotions. Knowing what is the easiest for you to grasp as a flag that you are needing some attention yourself can make intervening and managing signs of CF or burnout much easier.

[Volcanogirl]

smc perhaps it's worth finding a carer retreat just for yourself while hubby takes over caring for a few days, I've been on a few and they really help. Other carers are so supportive.

[Rockpool]

Self-care

The dreaded strategy of self-care!! I understand that this is something that is spoken about so frequently and is something that people would be encouraging for carers to do all the time. I know I often found this to be quite frustrating and at times even felt that it was diminishing my experience. Please know that when I suggest self-care that I understand that it isn’t all that straight forward. There is a reason why it is spoken about so frequently and encouraged and that is because it is the thing that helps us to take care of ourselves and when we are feeling emotionally and physically exhausted this is what we need.

Being in a caring role can mean that time to do this can be tricky. As a starting point, making sure your basic needs are covered can be something to think about as we often put even the most basic of things aside when others need our support. This includes good nutrition, adequate sleep, tending to our hygiene and even moving our bodies and connecting with people we love.

Following from this, moving onto any other things that you may not be able to do all that frequently but helps to top us up is where self-care can lead to when it is available to you. We all have our own strategies or activities that we like to do that acts as a measure of self-care. I know for me this is yoga, reading, painting, being by the beach or in nature are things I like to do when I am able to. Having a list of go-to things to draw upon can be helpful.

[Rockpool]

Self-compassion

Another thing to be mindful of is the way you are talking to yourself. I know this can be a strange concept, as we often don’t think about the way we talk to ourselves. What I mean by this is, what sorts of things are you saying to yourself in those moments when CF or burnout is creeping in? When those feelings of guilt are at a high? And how are you saying these things? What sort of tone are you using?

We often talk to ourselves in a negative and sometimes berating way which can leave us feeling really horrible. In these moments it can be helpful to ask yourself…would I speak to my friends in this way? If the answer is no, then making an effort to try and frame this self-talk in a more supportive way can assist in managing both the thoughts and the way you feel.

[Rockpool]

@Adge to answer your question from earlier in regards to what I did to get my passion back, it was a combination of things. I did take a break which allowed me to replenish my reserves and then implemented a self-care strategies. I've never been the best at self-care and often put others before myself so I knew this was what I needed to work on. 

[Rockpool]

We can often want to do a lot of things at once to try and change the way we are feeling or if you are in the thick of burnout you may not be feeling motivated to take action at all. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you are sitting at currently, I encourage you to pick one thing that you can implement now. This is because if we try to “bite of more than we can chew” we may be able to sustain it for a little while but then feel disheartened when we can’t keep it up and feel as though it doesn’t work or if we are unmotivated starting with something small can make a really difference even if it feels like it’s too much.

Following on from tonight, it may be helpful to think about what you could try to implement to either prevent or manage CF and/or burnout?

Thank you everyone for joining me for tonight Topic Tuesday on Compassion Fatigue.

I hope you have learnt something new, identified how to pick up on the signs of CF and burnout or have your own unique strategy to implement whether to stop these signs in their tracks or to begin some healing both physically and emotionally while experiencing CF or burnout.

 Take care everyone

[Lauz]

Hey everyone! its unfortunately that time of the evening where we need to finish off. What a wonderful night of sharing and gaining great insight and knowledge into compassion fatigue. @Rockpool a big thanks for your guidance tonight! 

[Volcanogirl]

I always like the idea of good nutrition, sleep, and so on for self care but when the chance comes for a break, I'm out the door heading to the local beach, to swim, read a book or even just stare at the ocean. Nature brings me the greatest relief. I do a lot of helpful activities like carer groups, weekends away, swimming in the ocean, riding my bike, seeing friends, singing in a choir but the basics like physical care I'm crap at because they are boring and I'm already so jaded from boredom of caring.

[CheerBear]

Thanks so much @Rockpool (and everyone) for sharing your experiences and your knowledge. I've appreciated the time out for self-care I took in joining in tonight 😉🙂

[Rockpool]

We will be leaving the thread open until tomorrow so please feel welcome to continue posting here and share your own staregies for managing CF and burnout or to discuss any of the questions raised throughout the night. It is always helpful to know that your not alone in this experience and to hear what has been helpful for others 

Thanks for having me tonight @Lauz.

Goodnight everyone!