Compassion Fatigue
“Most days, it does not feel very easy. And yet, in an odd way, life does feel mostly meaningful. It does feel mostly beautiful. I don’t want to just live life because it is easy. I want to live a life of purpose, even if it means there is fatigue from balancing the good with the hard. “
Guest article by Ruth Potinu
“Is he ok? Are you ok?”
My friend’s message surprised me. She had innocently asked how my day was going and I told her how our neighbor was attacked with a bush knife while coming home by public bus. Was I ok? Not really—and yet, somehow I was.
I think at times my abnormal life becomes so “normal” I no longer take time to process traumatic events. Being woken up by the cries of my sister-in-law telling the story of how thugs stopped the bus our neighbor was on and how he was attacked in the process was, of course, an unsettling way to start the day.
Step one: Calm down my over-excited children.
Step two: Assess the situation. Which neighbor? The one whose three kids are over at our house on a daily basis.
Step three: Clear up language confusion. The words for “head” and “hand or arm” in Tok Pisin are very similar words. In this case, our neighbor’s arm had been injured—not his head, as it first seemed. Thankfully, he was alive and on his way home. He did need stitches.
Step four: Message my husband (who, of course, was currently taking that very same bus route on an overnight trip to collect some boxes we’d recently had shipped over). He had already heard the story.
Step five: Make breakfast.
Step six: Offer the neighbor’s son some bananas while he sat outside by a tree waiting for his dad to come home.
The rest of the day progressed like “normal”.
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I once had someone comment after reading a book I wrote on grief that reading about my life gave her compassion fatigue (insert laughing emoji or maybe crying emoji or maybe the laughing/crying emoji). How do you respond to a comment like that? How do you think I feel living in the middle of this mess? And yet, is it strange to say I mostly love it?
I don’t think it is healthy to work until burnout, and I know compassion fatigue is a very real thing. I know my neighbors experience even more trauma than I do. They don’t get the blessing of a six-month furlough. I live in a country with high rates of domestic violence. Poverty and substance abuse seem to go hand in hand. The average life expectancy for someone from Papua New Guinea is sixty-five years old, which is much lower than our neighbors in Australia where the average life expectancy is eighty-three years old. Medical care is often limited, especially for those in rural areas. However, those in the city struggle as well.
Just last week, we had country-wide fuel shortages, long power blackouts several times during the week, and a day of no water throughout the city, which resulted in my son’s school closing early for the day. I could go on. I was talking to a friend about the things that happen in this country and how unreal it can all feel at times. Stranger than fiction, really. She agreed, and commented how boring life would be if we returned to more normal environments. This is true.
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“Come to me,” God says “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Most days, it does not feel very easy. And yet, in an odd way, life does feel mostly meaningful. It does feel mostly beautiful. I don’t want to just live life because it is easy. I want to live a life of purpose, even if it means there is fatigue from balancing the good with the hard.
Maybe this is why I rarely share some stories with friends from my passport country. Like the story of the man who was shot just one garden over from our house in the village when a fight over a land dispute broke out. It just takes too much emotional effort to even begin to explain the complexities of the situation, for one thing.
And what about the fatigue of not having family nearby when you’re sick and you just want your mom to come over? What about the fatigue of support raising? What do you do with the emotional fatigue of having people constantly watching you?
Maybe I don’t share because I don’t want to give someone else compassion fatigue.
I don’t share because, as crazy as it probably sounds, this is the life I have chosen. This is a life that I love. I am grateful that my kids get to grow up in a flawed but incredible community. I am thankful that, in spite of the challenges, God meets our family here and continues to grow us daily.
I don’t have all the answers, but my Shepherd has led me here to this place even with its proverbial wolves and lions. He is here giving me the peace that surpasses all understanding. He is here making a way when there is no way. He is here healing the broken-hearted, including my heart that seems to break continually.
So I stay. And as I stay, the heavy yoke—the compassion fatigue—does feel lighter. He who has called me gives me rest. Not the rest of a day at the spa, but the rest that allows my heart to face one more day, take one more step, and be okay in the midst of circumstances that often feel the opposite of okay.
Is it easy? No. Is it beautiful? Yes. Do I want to quit on a much too frequent basis? Yes. Did I recently sign up for online counseling? Yes. Do I get compassion fatigue? Sometimes, but most days I just live one step at a time—one mundane moment at a time, one trauma at a time. What more can one do? Most days I get to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. I get to weep with those who are weeping.
And some days, I get to give bananas to a little boy who is quietly waiting for his dad to come home.
This guest article is written by Ruth Potinu. Ruth is the author of Permission to Mourn: Engaging with Culture, Story, and Scripture in a Quest for Healing with Hope. She works alongside her husband and their three children in Papua New Guinea. There they seek to minister to the vulnerable, especially widows and their children. She loves a good cup of chai, connecting with friends and writing whenever she can carve out the time. You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, or on her blog.