If you take pride in anticipating the needs of others and meeting them before they ask, or if you insist on helping someone-even if they don’t want, ask for, or need your help-you might be taking more than you’re giving.
But there’s a difference between stressful care-taking and compassionate caring. Helping others is a wonderful thing that makes the world-go-round. Careaholics hit bottom from compassion burnout which shows up in a variety of ways: depletion of emotional energy and physical fatigue, gastrointestinal irritations, insomnia, despair, hypertension, lack of purpose, or depression.ĭon’t get me wrong.
As the stress cycle kicks in, the relief (over-caring) eventually becomes the problem. And, if you're a careaholic, when you don’t have anyone needing you, you start to feel empty and lack purpose. Your inability to say no and put yourself last takes its toll. If you feel emotionally depleted when you give to others, ask yourself if you’ve taken time to give to yourself first. On a deeper level, she recognized that a part of her would have rather things go wrong than run smoothly so the people in her life would lean on her, satisfying her need to feel important.Īs this case illustrates, the inability to focus on yourself eventually works against the care you give. She felt badly that they hadn’t needed her more and felt guilty for feeling that way. Upon her return, much to her chagrin, she discovered that everyone had done quite well in her absence. She found it hard to relax and enjoy her sister’s company because she felt guilty for being away. During her “vacation,” Stephanie worried that her family and coworkers couldn’t manage without her.
Natural actions of a loving mother and caring colleague, right? Hold on. At work where she was a staff supervisor, she delegated her responsibilities and assigned tasks to be completed while she was gone. She washed their clothes, cleaned the house and arranged for her children’s car pool. She cooked, labeled and froze meals for each day she would be gone. When Stephanie took her first-ever vacation from her husband, kids, and job to visit her sister, she made sure everyone would be taken care of in her absence.
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