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So it is not enough just to think that we need to surpass capitalism, we need to think what we want to put in place of capitalism. That’s why ecosocialism is pushing forward the discussion on what we are going to put in place of the things we don’t want. So instead of just challenge the crisis and getting tired by reactionary politics, we also try to push forward the necessity and need for hope. But not a naive hope; We need to have hope together with the action, and the possibility of building a different world. We have tools to make it possible, we have more possibilities than we know. We just need to mobilize, we need to have more conscience about this crisis. We need to have the conscience that there is a system, a structure, and we need to attack the structure, the root of this crisis. There is the need of being courageous to build something different and create the power, the necessary power to make it happen.
from Eco-Socialism in a Time of Global Crisis – An Interview with Vanessa Dourado
Activist burnout isn't a moral failing of a community, it's not people being selfish. It's a natural result of how human minds work, and you can't expect communities to out-moral human psychology.
When people are exposed to the same upsetting thing over and over again, either it fucks with their mental health and makes them more depressed and anxious, or alternatively it makes them apathetic and desensitized. Neither of those things are good for a movement, and those are the ways humans are going to react to constant upsetting messages. You cannot avoid this by telling people to just be better people, you cannot use higher reasoning to make an entire community's emotions work in a fundamentally different way to how human emotions normal work.
Every successful movement account for the fact that people can't be at 100% all the time. Movements that ask for a level of extreme and undying anger, burn bright and die fast, it's a useful way of organizing a very immediate response, but cannot be done for something larger scale. If you give people, the ultimatum of either being at 100% or 0% all the time, they will choose 0% because the alternative isn't possible for most people.
If you're constantly showing the same disturbing images over and over again, they will lose their effectiveness quickly. If I see a post detailing the horrors of the current genocide, I'm probably just going to scroll past it, because it's all things I already know, and I've seen it so many times there's no emotional reaction, and this is how a lot of people are with posts like this, because you can't ask people to have the same emotional reaction to the same information hundreds of times over.
You can't stop activist burnout by being a better person because burnout isn't a choice, it's a psychological response. If your activism doesn't account for the material reality of the community (in this case being humans with human minds), then that's on you for organizing badly.
Also, if you need to hear this: you are not a bad person for experiencing compassion fatigue, it's literally part of being a person. Don't hurt yourself.
In the wake of what's going on in the world, I see a lot of rhetoric that basically boils down to the idea that everyone has a responsibility to watch every bad thing that's going on in the world all the time. That awareness itself is a responsibility that everyone has always.
I'm not going to say that people do or don't have a responsibility to be aware of things, but I want to talk about how to take care of yourself and others while doing so.
For some context, I spent close to a year and a half reading about every terrorist attack in the world as part of my work on the Global Terrorism Database. It was 2015/2016, so this was the height of ISIS/Daesh, it was a major time for Boko Haram, and it was when there was a lot of political violence that we weren't sure how to classify in places like Yemen, Crimea, and Libya (stuff the GTD didn't know how to classify had all of is information recorded, and then it went into purgatory until someone above my paygrade decided what to do with it). What this means is that I was spending 10-20 hours a week reading about hundreds or thousands of attacks a month and, in my case, recording infomation about the type of attack and the type of weapon. Much of my life was reading terrible things.
Limit what you do in isolation. One of the worst changes for me during that time, mental health-wise (even though it was great for my commute) was when I went from working in-person to working remotely. With other people, there are ways to diffuse the pain. A burden shared is a burden halved and all that. That may mean talking about it, or joking about it, or finding some other way to engage with it that isn't just reading about the most horrible things in the world and then stewing in your own thoughts about them.
Find something to do that's totally unrelated. I highly recommend finding something to do with your hands, if you can (knitting, Lego, cooking, whatever), but regardless of what it is, you should have some time when you entirely switch away to something different. During a fair amount of my time with the GTD, I was also doing my undergrad thesis about terrorism on TV, so a huge amount of my life was about terrorism in some way. The only other thing I watched was Great British Bake Off, and I would just rewatch the episodes, over and over.
Be compassionate about how you share information and with whom. Use trigger warnings, and consider using consistent tagging on places like Tumblr so people can blacklist it if they need to. Also consider whether it's appropriate or necessary to share photos of bodies or other results of horrible violence. What is it accomplishing, to show that? Can that goal be accomplished other ways that don't require the equivalent of jumpscares of unexpected photos of dead or brutalized people? Are you just showing it because you think that everyone should have to see it? If you are showing it, are there ways to mitigate against harm it may do?
Do what you can to avoid an echo chamber. Sometimes, when everyone around you is upset or angry about the same thing, it just amplifies itself, and you all get angrier and more upset in perpetuity without accomplishing anything.
Work towards action. Watching terrible things happen for the sake of saying that you haven't looked away isn't as meaningful as taking action in some way. Write to your Congressperson. Donate. Do whatever is appropriate for the thing you want to stop. But penance via watching terrible things happen doesn't accomplish anything.
Recognize compassion fatigue and do what you can to mitigate it. If you spend long enough doing this, you start to lose context, and you start to become less able to have compassion about things. If you're reading about attacks with dozens or hundreds of deaths regularly, five can start to not seem like that many. If you're reading only about the worst suffering in the world, "lesser" suffering of those around you can start to seem unimportant and petty. Do what you can to mitigate that.
Be kind to yourself. You do nobody any good if you burn out. Look away, if you need to. Take a break. Do things so you can enjoy life, because otherwise you are just another person suffering in the world. Other people's pain isn't a hair shirt for you to wear.
I...really don't know how I feel about them canceling school for this wind event in Colorado tomorrow. Like. I get you don't want to pack a bunch of kids into schools without power. But if a fire does start now you've got kids scattered all over, and many of them will likely be home alone due to the short notice. Parents won't be able to get the day off, and many may not have leave hours anyways due to the time of year.
Personally, I'd want to keep them all together at the schools. Turn it into a fun day, no actual school work. Tell their parents to send them in warm layers. Keep the buses at the ready. Then, if a fire does kick off, you've got all the kids in one spot and that spot either has buses immediately available or--worst case scenario--has a large, available parking lot to seek cover in.
Writing Notes: Compassion Fatigue
Compassion Fatigue - the burnout and stress-related symptoms experienced by caregivers and other helping professionals in reaction to working with traumatized people over an extended period of time
Can show itself in a range of symptoms and behaviors, such as:
Diminished ability or interest to care for others
Preoccupation with people you help
Mental and/or physical exhaustion
Anger and irritability
Anxiety and/or depression
Intrusive thoughts
Sleep problems
Being easily startled
Hopelessness about helping work
Flashbacks
Hypervigilance
Avoidance of certain activities, situations, or people you help
Feeling like a failure as a helper
Drops in productivity
Emotional numbness
Trouble separating personal and professional life
A decreased capacity to experience sympathy and empathy
Dysfunctional coping behaviors, e.g., misusing alcohol or drugs
Taking more time off work
Reduced decision-making ability
Feeling disconnected
Decreased satisfaction or enjoyment with work (Cocker & Joss, 2016; Clay, 2020; Stamm, 2010)
Some important factors that contribute to compassion fatigue include (Figley, 2002a):
Prolonged exposure. The feeling of responsibility for helping those in pain for a significant period of time—breaks and vacations are important to avoid this.
Traumatic recollections. Emotional memories that the client triggers for the therapist—these may reflect the therapist’s experiences of other clients who were especially difficult, demanding, or suffering greatly.
Life disruption. Any life event that disrupts your routine, schedule, or ability to manage and cope with your daily responsibilities.
Compassion fatigue is a form of stress or tension that arises from frequent contact with traumatized people, where we become preoccupied with the suffering or pain of others (Hunsaker, Chen, Maughan, & Heaston, 2015).
Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
Words alone will NEVER explain how much I hateeee the term "compassion fatigue".....
Its almost ALL THE TIME used by people who work with disabled folks and I hate how every single time I see it, people make it sound like it's the disabled person's fault for having so many needs. Also..... I hate how "compassion" is being used here cause... You don't NEEDDD compassion to help someone.
You can say you're fatigued from the workload. But don't make it sound like helping people is inherently the issue.
Like... I'm not dismissing people from being fatigued. I do know it can be a lot for someone to deal with when it comes to medical care. But you can say the issue is the work without an evenly distributed load. But phrasing it as "compassion fatigue" really does feel like the disabled person is being put to blame for it.
Idk. It's probably just a me thing but the term always irks me.
I often hear this as "caregiver burnout" instead of "compassion fatigue." If you hear compassion fatigue, encourage caregivers to use burnout instead! It's more respectful towards the disabled person AND their carers.
having compassion fatigue sucks bc my friends will tell me about something and my brain just goes 'i don't fucking care oh my god just shut up already'
