Too Much Empathy

Is it possible to have too much empathy?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this Sanny and welcome to Stuff I've Never told you.
You're a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works,
and today Samantha is once again joining us. Umy, Hey,

(00:27):
thanks so much for being here as always as always, Yes,
like that this episode, UM, I'm really relying on you
a lot because this is something that I think you
have had a lot of personal and you and I
when we were having a discussion on what these episodes
and what the series should look like, I was very

(00:48):
passionate about want to talk about my people's the case
workers out there, the therapist, the trauma workers, the second responders, UM,
because I think we don't talk enough about helping and
caring for those people who often see the worst and
the worst of society. So yeah, here we go, because

(01:10):
I'm going to talk a lot about personal experience, so
that I hope you are ready. Yeah, because we're talking
about empathy and having too much of it. Because on
this if we were looking at an arc of our
mini series, we're kind of on the on the other end,
or like towards the end of the season, and a
lot of people do after they go through a traumatic event,

(01:31):
they do feel inspired or even like through survivor's guilt,
or there's something that makes them want to help others
so that they can either prevent it from happening to
others or work help other people who have gone through
something similar work through it. And that can be something
very triggering, retraumatizing. UM. So, yeah, this question of empathy

(01:58):
and can you have too much of it? You have
too much? And you and I with you were researching
and remember you're like, oh my gosh, this and this,
and it's like, yeah, that's me a problem. Well, before
we get into it, trigger warnings UM for death, trauma,
secondary trauma, and suicide, right and UM specifically with those,

(02:20):
we're talking a little bit about how these can affect
secondary trauma and trauma can affect your daily life. And
we did. We talked about that earlier with like, UM,
how it comes out and the symptoms and a part
of that and some of the bad coping ideas would
be some of these things that we're talking about. And
it can't happen without you being the one being victimized,

(02:40):
like personally victimized. Right, And I love a dictionary. Dictionary
understand people don't know, right, So let's let's define empathy
and This is from dictionary dot com. The psychological identification
with our vi curious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, attitudes

(03:00):
of another um the brain. I almost went on this
whole thing where I got fascinated with the science of it.
But the brain developed these mirror neurons specifically for empathy
to recognize if someone was a friend or an enemy.
That's interesting, I know, Like a part of that question
was is a genetics, is an environmental can be learned whatever,

(03:21):
But it comes down to it can be both obviously
with everything, but there's also those I mean they talked
about those who have less empathy could actually have a
higher risk of autism. But yeah, it's really fascinating to see.
Part of that is to be able to read others
and that would be why you would read if their
offriend or an enemy? Right, And that's obviously a simplification

(03:44):
of a very right, big, big thing, yes, but I
wanted to include it in there because I did find
it so fun to read about. And one thing I
wanted to include as well is the difference from sympathy
sympathy versus empathy. So sympathy is the fact or power
of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble,

(04:05):
feeling compassion or commiseration. Every time I hear that word,
I think of the blink song, all the small things,
who's out there? Then you know and nineties reference. There
we go the ni okay, I'm actually I'm not sure.
Um So. Practicing good empathy means creating a safe space

(04:28):
to identify and understand the feelings of others, as opposed
to street mirroring. A lot of that is also being
able to dig into yourself and kind of remembering if
you went through something similar that emotion rather and there's
a couple of types of empathy. There's effective empathy, which

(04:48):
is the I know how you feel empathy. You can
feel what other people are feeling, um and experience compassion
for them. There's cognitive empathy, This is knowing and understanding
the emotions of others, getting a more full picture of
how they feel. And then there is excess or hyper empathy.

(05:10):
So I would call this like the sponge equivalent of empathy.
Or I imagine if Mantis couldn't turn off her art,
control her powers and guardians of the galaxy, this would
be her. But that's all theory. Um So, you suffer
from the emotions of others exactly. And um, I was
gonna say to kind of go back to the scientific

(05:32):
portion of that, it could be a superpower or it
could be a hinderance. For sure, if you could truly
feel about that person feeling much like mantis, that's a superpower, right, Okay,
she had fans, Yeah she did until that quill he
would win everything with his hubris is great tomorrow, I'm

(05:55):
just gonna talk all about this now. I'm with you,
I'm here with you. But yeah, and also with the
effective empathy, I was going to say, that's one of
those that kind of um can actually hinder a conversation
if it comes back to the I know how you feel,
I know this, I know that, which I know is
a mistakes some therapist and some caseworkers have made and
trying to be overly empathetic, but kind of it's almost

(06:17):
dismisses the others because it becomes too common, you know
what I mean. It feels like, oh, you feel that way,
I'm not an unusual or something like that. Not that
you want to be unusual, but sometimes it over takes
the conversation and you need to be with them in
that moment instead of you'll get past it. I've been
there type of thing. Um. And then the excess of
our hyper empathy, which you and I talked about. I

(06:38):
was like, yeah, I struggle. I'm not gonna say I
could completely be diagnosed with this, but I know for me,
when I watched movies that have intense, humiliating things, I
cannot watch it. It took me. So when was The
Office originally out? Oh, dear, a long time ago, thou

(06:59):
some twelve. That is not correct, Okay. I was like,
it's not two thousand twelve, that's wrong. Okay, let me
look it up. Anyway, Um, when that show came out,
I could not watch it because I remember watching the
first episode and cringing so hard that I immediately had

(07:22):
to turn it off, Like my face turned red, my
heart kind of had this anxiety, and I was like, nope, nope, nope. Now,
yeah it came out two thousand five. Um, you were
way off. So yes, The Office came out in two
thousand five. When I originally try to watch because everybody
was in love with this show, and I was like, no,
oh my god, no, this is the worst thing ever.

(07:45):
And for me, the Office English version is even worse,
and I still can't get past season one. I don't
think I passed the first three episodes because it was
the British version. I was like, I can't do this.
That's awful, cringe like beyond controty, like I physically cannot
sit to watch it. And now like two thousand I
think I've watched it for the first time last year,

(08:06):
and now I watched all the time because I know
when to fast forward it. That's how I watch it now.
Any cringeworthy, I just best forward it through. So usually
usually yeah, pretty much all I'm watching is like the
whole Antics between Um Dwight and Andy and Jim and
Jim and Pam. Like that's pretty much the Michael Michaels

(08:29):
kindly does not exist essentially. Um, they've got no no
who is Michael Um. But yeah, that's how I watch things.
But also when I go to movies, if I don't
know what to expect, um, I take even if it's
like ninety d degrees outside, I'll have a jacket or
a blanket so I can hide underneath it, and I'll
cover my face and cover my ears. Like that's the

(08:51):
level that I get to so it's I definitely understand that.
And even in work, like I will have moments where
I read an ace and I have I think I've
told people one of the things I have to do
is read about their past um charges in our events
or whatever the situation was, to put us to that moment.
So there's been a crime committed, there's been that, like,

(09:12):
I feel the intensity of either the victim or the
kids so much that I have to put it aside um,
and it can break me down to the point that
sometimes I've been questioned, is this a good job for you?
But at the same time that is partially to me
be like, nobody motivates me too, But yeah, I know that,
and I know I'm not the only one. We all
have different ways. Because I was talking to my coworker

(09:34):
today and I asked her how did she handle it,
And she literally says, I make myself forget because that's
the level of that excess empathy that you don't know
how to quite turn it off and you have to
figure out your defense mechanisms right um, And I found
this creat I wanted to include from Emmett Fitzgerald. I

(09:55):
had never been told that empathy is a finite resource.
You can run out as a normal psychological response. You
cannot give up yourself again and again and again without replenishing, right.
And I would think that's where we would talk about burnout,
and you talk about burnout and and I know you
mentioned this later, but compassion fatigue UM and how it
does wear you down and and part of that is

(10:17):
the mere fact when I looked through some of the studies,
people like doctors and nurses and who are hands on
have I think that the rate of society, which is
not as high as I thought it would be. And honestly,
social workers are even less. That surprised me too because
I assumed social workers and case workers would have that mindset.
But I know addiction is pretty high, relationship failures are

(10:40):
pretty high for social workers and case workers and therapists
and such um. But it is it's uh, it's one
of those things that you do eventually run out and
it gets to the point that I call it being decisonized.
I mean not I don't call it, but it's being
decision ties to what it is and becoming more and
more crafts and being more and more hardened. And I
hate because that's being in social work for ten years,

(11:03):
I feel like nothing affects me as much. Don't get
me wrong, I still have breakdowns and I still look
for the good. But I do feel like I've become
a little more harsh and more critical of today's society
because of all the things that I've had to try
to learn to deal with and or empathize with, and
or even try to fix. Yeah, and UM, one of

(11:26):
the the thing you said about your friend, UM, kind
of making herself forget, reminded me of something I read.
And it was an account from a I think it
was a new nurse and she witnessed I think somebody
die and she was so upset and like trying to
pull herself together. And I saw the nurse who had

(11:47):
been there longer than her, completely fine. And she asked
that nurse like, how are you? How did you get
to this point? I need to have this control that
you did, And and the other nurse said to her,
I wish I could deal feel things like good, right, Um?
And I think that's a pretty powerful, powerful story, right,
and it it becomes a constant thing. I remember when

(12:10):
I started with the children Family and Children's Services and
being an investigator. Um, one of the first things that
I learned is all people coming in with bright eye,
but you tell hopes of saving the world. And don't
get me wrong, that's the whole reason I wanted to
social work. I wanted to save the world. I want

(12:31):
to save the kids. I want to help these women,
I want to empower others. And then a year later,
I'm like, no, I'm putting band aids on you know,
gunshot wounds essentially, and hoping for the best, or I'm
picking I mean, I remember using the term picking the
lesser evil all the time because it literally was do
I take this child away from something that they're used

(12:51):
to with a parent that they grew up with, or
do I put them into a new situation that's a
better environment, but they are taken away and they have
nothing familiar. As well as because they're older, they're probably
never going to find stability again. You know, it's kind
of like, at least it was a bad stability, but
it was stability or new stability without or without the
actual grounding of family and caring. And I remember just

(13:15):
having to sit with the judges, like I had one
of the best judges that I worked with, as well
as large were like, what is the better choice? And
oftentimes I would look and say it's better for them
to be with a family with us looking on hopefully,
instead of yanking them out of a placement um and
putting them in this situation. And you know, I want
to give a shout out to all the foster care
parents too, like I don't think enough credit is given

(13:39):
to the ones that are really great, because I'm going
to tell you there's some not great ones, just like
in anything else, but the great ones are taken advantage
of and they are the first to be burned out,
um immediately and I would say burned out probably six months.
And because if we find if a defense worker or
a family children service worker who's a foster care worker,
find one good family, they will try to use them

(14:01):
all the time because we know what to expect. We
know they'll do a good job. And oftentimes it's so
taxing on them with the very little support they get.
And I'm going to tell you, majority of the people
who think you get money, that's not a thing. Um.
It can be a build up, Like if you have
ten kids in your home and you have some kind
of backing, maybe things it can happen. It has happened,

(14:23):
But oftentimes this is not about money. And when we
look at these foster parents and the good ones, we
run them into the ground. And I could see that
they are probably one of the first to be like,
I can't do this anymore. And that's where that's where
we leave in such a mess of not having enough
homes for some of these teenagers who are just trying

(14:44):
to find something safe. Yeah, and um, while empathy is right,
generally a good thing and can help you not get
replaced by robots in the future, according to research, that's
one of the few things that robots have not figured out.
That's what I said. I argued with someone about that

(15:04):
on my social workers will not be replaced. Um, case
workers and therapists will not be replaced by robots. People
have argued with me, I don't understand how they would
learn empathy. Well, now that you said that, they're going
to figure it out. That's all they need. I believe
it's Yeah, it's like a complex social job that requires

(15:25):
some kind of right empathy. Anyway, that's a different podcast.
And we're gonna talk about the droids, well we should,
but right now we're talking about empathy, and yes, too
much of it can be a bad thing, and we'll
get into that, but first let's take a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.

(15:54):
Empathy can become a bad thing if it starts to
impact your mental, emotional, and or physical health, which we've
been talking about all these right. It can lead to
high concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol and feelings of depression, guilt, pain, exhaustion,
being overwhelmed, all of which can lead to burnout, especially

(16:16):
if you take on the responsibility of fixing someone else's problems. Yes,
which is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think
I may have used this word before, and I realized
later that a lot of people don't understand what it is.
Perentified UM and that's when which child takes on the

(16:36):
role of a caretaker or a parent. UM. So you'll
see this with families who have drug issues in the home.
I would I would run into that all the time,
where I would see the parents we've passed out. But
there's two kids, a five year old and two year old.
In the five year old would be taking care of
the two year old UM. And also you, and I
talked about the fact earlier in our own trauma when
people would be like, oh, you're so you're so adult,

(16:58):
you're so mature, which is not necessarily a healthy thing,
and to me, it is very unhealthy. Um, when a
child can't be a child, That's what I like to say,
because for myself, I think I had talked about this
earlier too, when my mom and I were talking about
my relationship with her growing up. And then my brother,
who is their biological child and I am adopted, was

(17:20):
right here when I was seven. Our relationships were so different,
and I remember UM at one point she was trying
to talk about UM, the brother, you know, being used
to being the only child, the youngest child, and you
know whatever, and she was like, you were already an
adult when I got you. That's how she put it,
And she was right, because I was always in survival mode.

(17:41):
And so for me coming to a home does not
make me um a child again, that doesn't immediately happen.
And I think part of my empathy comes from want
to take care of myself as well as others, because
that's what I did. That's what I've known, like, that's
the only thing I've known, and I see that in
a lot of younger kids as well. And if you

(18:03):
kind of look at like um oldest kids, the older kids,
they're much the bossy ones, they're much like that as well.
And I think is the caretaker coming out in them.
Maybe it's the empathy of wanting to care for everyone
and making sure they're safe and feeling the best that
are part of their responsibility. Yeah, that's an interesting thing.

(18:26):
I think I just went want to change it the
middle child? Where do I fall? Trying to keep the peace?
Middle children? Try to keep the peace. That's what I
have said. I would agree with that. Well, I don't
want to make any sweeping generals generalization. Yes, that's what
I see. So if you do have too much empathy,
or you're burning out from empathy, some things you might

(18:48):
start doing or notice yourself start doing. Is Um. You
might start pushing people away if you're feeling their emotions.
That make sense. Um, if you're suffering from their emotions.
You might walk into a room with people and experience
as an emotion without knowing why for anyone to said
anything to you. Um, you might feel physical pain. You
might not be able to stop thinking about the other

(19:09):
person's pain. The thought of going to an event with
someone with an emotional state that will impact you might
fill you with dread. Yeah. Um, Honestly, I know people
who have too much empathy that are not in my
field can't be around me. And I know I'm like, yeah,
I understand that I'm exhausting. I'm like the negative Nelly

(19:30):
of the group because if I've had a rough day,
which I walked in today, I'm like, oh my gosh,
I'm a most cell um. It literally becomes taxing yea
for others around me, and I recognize that. I think
that's part of the reason I'm also an introverted, like
I can't deal with me today, which I have to recognize, Yep,

(19:50):
I've had a really stressful day, or I've had a
really hard week, or I've had a really traumatic week,
and I can't figure out how not to let this
affect me on a daily basis, or like my every
every moment, normal moment be affected by this. And that's
kind of like I think we talked about it in
the Trauma episode about our coping mechanism. I have two

(20:12):
or three or four people that I trust that know
me well enough that they can't handle that, or also
they can tell me to stop, because that's part of
that too, and because a few of those people are
social workers in or in the field as well, and
they also have their own dilemma where we will both
have to be like, Okay, I can't buy this right now,
and that's that line. Um And And honestly, I definitely

(20:35):
felt that physical pain. I definitely had my I think
I told the story about my neck giving out for
weeks at a time because I was so stressed and
I was so worried about um, these children dying in
or something happening because I didn't do something fast enough,
or being blamed for it. And that came from like
not only did these individual things happened, but it was

(20:56):
definitely a build up, so you get stressed out. I
stopped sleep, being stopped sleeping as my next started hurting,
my next started hurting, I started getting tense. Everything hid
into and I'm shut down. The same thing that that
I used to get sick all the time, and I
mean like Blu Sintons and all of that. And it
was a lot to do with the fact that I
wasn't taking care of myself. We all know, sleep is very, very,

(21:17):
very important, and if you have anxiety attacks, panic attacks, whatever,
and you can't sleep, that disrupts everything. You know, that's
part of the whole empathy partition is how do you
let it go? Yeah, and I know later on we're
going to talk. We talked to Dr Jane, who I'm
always like, I'm already fascinated by and I've been talking

(21:38):
about people to her. No, let me try it again.
I've been talking to people about her because I think
she's fascinating. I think she's got some really groundbreaking eye
um concepts when it comes to PTSD and treatment of PTSD,
which again I'm gonna talk about later. But I know
that the whole idea is you have to be able
to separate yourself, but it's almost impossible sometimes because you

(22:05):
have that again, that idea that you're gonna come and
fix something, and when you fail, it is the one
of the most painful blows I think you can go
through when you really stacked up in My life is
built here and I want to do these for these people,
and holy sh I felt again it's just so heartbreaking
and it's kind of one of those things that again

(22:27):
Lisa burnout and you just want to quit because you
just can't see the better or the good ending to
any of it. Yeah, And we talked about that a
little bit in our episode around women in the medical
field and how high the burnout rate is. According to
the d s M five, hyper empathy syndrome is associated

(22:48):
with personality disorders an ongoing difficulty to function due to
the distress from the syndrome. So this is a thing.
It's like recognized, um. And here are some of the
key symptoms. Breakdown of identity and loss of social skills,
mood swings. I need to solve everyone's problems, to cultivate
the image of being valuable and needed by constantly doing

(23:10):
favors for others, finding it hard to say no to
people for fear of disappointing them, lack of boundaries, over
protectiveness to an extreme, going so far as to impact
the autonomy of others. And all of this can lead
to resentment from feeling that no one understands you know.
One get they think you're being overprotective. Don't they see

(23:30):
I'm just doing I'm just being nice. Um. And it
can yeah, impact your immune system. So I feel personally attacked, right, now,
sorry intervention, just from reading this list. You know what though,
I mean, yes, these things are very real, and these
things are very personal to me, because I will absolutely

(23:50):
this is me to a t um I'm a bossy one.
Hey hey, hey, hey too quickly stop that um no.
I uh. It's funny because in my little apartment complex
it's like a Ford quadplex. I'm the mother of the group,
to the point that they go on trips and like,
can you text me when you make it there? I
have no reason to. We don't live together. I barely

(24:12):
know them that well. I do know them. They're really
good friends, but like their neighbors, that's it. But I
feel the need to make sure they're okay. I'm also
the same one that goes around parties. Have you had
enough food? Did you eat this? Did you want to
try this? How about I give you this? Like it's
just an overall need to make sure you're comfortable and
that you're happy. And because if you're anxious, I'm anxious.
I see it, and I'm nervous, and I hate the

(24:33):
feeling of like someone not feeling welcomed. That gives me nightmares.
But when I was younger, I would cry about that
if I felt like someone felt like they were left out,
like I was in turmoil about all of that. But
and I'm not going to stick it to all of
the workers out there, all of our therapists and social
workers and teachers and nurses and medical people. I know

(24:54):
I'm leaving out so many who are pretty much in
combat all the time in their job. But it's so
hard not to be these things and trying to be effective.
And that's that's like kind of like how do you
find those boundaries? And you do and you have to.
And the reason we want to talk about this is
because again, people who have gone through trauma like myself,

(25:16):
want to be in a field that can help others.
And I can guarantee, if not way more probably of
social workers and people who are in UM protective type
of services and including nursing and all of that, it's
because they want they have gone through something and they
want to make something better, right. And I think part

(25:37):
of our problem, and that is we have put so
much about identity and doing good that if we don't
see the results, especially in a lifetime, sometimes I feel
like I've I've never seen the result, a good result,
um that you have failed in life and the things.
So for me it goes as deep as to say

(25:59):
that I used my trauma because I want to say
I went through these bad things to do these good things,
and then when I don't have the end result of
doing good things, it just feels like I've failed, and
which is absolutely untrue. Um, And have to tell myself
that all the time. I have to tell other people
that all the time. And I would tell our listeners,

(26:20):
those who out there who know exactly what I'm talking about,
you have not failed, just because in the self that
you care and are trying that has done so much
more for our society than anything else, that that's probably
why we haven't completely crumbled into the nastiness that it
could be. Just to go on my tangent, the patented

(26:42):
Samantha and I haven't had a lot of those, especially
when I'm especially I I remember once somebody asked me like,
if you could go back to this this event and
not have gone through it, would you? And I had
to think about it for for it because I I
was like, well, I'm not the obvious answer be yes,

(27:04):
But then at the same time I don't know what
I would have come Um, so there is that kind
of weird if I went through this, at least it
meant this, right, I mean, it went as far as
I'm sure you're I know you already said it that
at least it didn't happen to someone else. Yeah, like
that's that's the underlying But as well, like I which

(27:28):
is absolutely not true that you were meant to handle
this situation, because we're going to throw out with that
whole you're only given as much as you can handle.
That's not necessarily true. Sometimes you've just given really the hands, um,
and that's what happens. But in the end, usually people
who have gone through these things come out I mean,

(27:48):
for me and I know you love for you, at
least it wasn't someone else. At least it wasn't your
siblings as you were spoken about, and at least it
wasn't other kids and that you know, orphanage. For me,
that's how I think think through um. At the same time, yeah,
it sucks. I still don't want to remember that. No, Nope.
And going back to this whole hyper empathy thing. Science
is looking into why that happens, and all of the

(28:11):
research is pretty new, but it points to it possibly
being a genetic disorder. Oh really, well, I did read
the case, um, when we were looking through this, about
a woman who went through a brain injury and coming
out with hyper sensitive to the point that it was
physically hurting her this hyper empathy. Beforehand, she did not
have any of those types of symptoms. So that's really fascinating.

(28:33):
I would love to love more and what exactly is
completely wrong with me? This syndrome and too much empathy
in general, particularly in women in heterosexual relationships, can lead
to women justifying the actions of abusive or psychopathic partners.
People who are who are too empathetic might be unable

(28:54):
to recognize or too ready to excuse predatory behavior. Right.
And then at the same time, we all I want
to talk about the women who have children and these relationships,
and oftentimes I've heard it many times they're good to
my kids, um, and or they're protecting their kids and
or as financial, as we've talked about previously, the fine
Meal slayers, like, yes, all these bad things are happening

(29:15):
to me, but without him, my kids could not do
a BC and D, you know, And that's that's absolutely
part of that whole empathy thing. Again, protecting others blaming
themselves UM and then just feeling like I deserved this
maybe you know what I mean. And it's such a
whole again. Also, these partners understand that and use that

(29:37):
and manipulate that. As we've talked about previously with grooming UM,
they know they can see. And this is why I
talked about the fact that domestic violence as well as
partner violence can be a thing that we looked at
as UM a manipulative thing. And why we say that
is grooming and and part of that is that personality
factor of Okay, well you can see she's easy to manipulate.

(30:00):
I can groom hard of life this way, and this
is where we go. And then too much empathy would
be a very good point in what you see mm hmm.
And related to this, a tendency to overgive UM might
come from a past abusive relationship or growing up with
a narcissistic guardian. It can also result from being in

(30:20):
a community that focuses on giving. I read in places
like a religious community or I would say women in
general being socialized that way. And we talked about religion
before as part of like grooming as well. I know
we did that, but let that honestly comes through UM.
When you see, especially in the way in the past,
that women were told not to leave their husbands. Literally

(30:43):
when they talked about the Bible, the only reason a
woman could leave a man was for adultery, and that's
after being like confronted by four or five and they
could not and the woman could not remarry or that
would be considered considered adultery. They don't talk about the
physical abuse, they don't about physical violence, they don't talk
about rape as a thing. You know, all of these
things that we know right now that it's wrong, it's

(31:06):
never really addressed. So therefore, I know I have seen
in my lifetime where women were told to stay with
their men in an abusive relationship because you made about
a god. I literally have heard that, and it's the
most unreal thing to me that I just I don't
quite understand that. And honestly, we could even talk about

(31:28):
today's um abortion laws coming through talking to about the
fact that women who are going to be made to
have a pregnancy or be charged, even if if it
was against their will. That's absurd and that's a very
religious idea. And this is the whole level of like

(31:48):
from what I can gather empathy, I'm gonna say empathy.
Of course, there's a whole underlying turn with like a
patriarchy and and this is the whole idea that women
can't be trusted and women's body should monitored whatever. But
there's also this bit where the women feel, especially women
who have had children, will say, well, you've never had children,

(32:08):
this is a murderer. I would never do this to
my child. So that that level of weird empathy comes
to an unborn being, I guess, just for all intendent
purposes of fetus, essentially in going beyond the regular Yeah,
but what about the woman? What about who again should
be trusted? Never mind that, But the empathy goes onto

(32:29):
the fetus, and that's from the women in itself, which
I'm thinking, but you're a woman, you want someone to
tell you whether you can be trusted with your body?
I mean yeah, because it goes into that level. To me,
that's an odd example because it's almost like an example
of having no empathy for the woman, um, but all

(32:51):
that's empathy for the unborn child. And frankly, men, I
mean that that's because the women that some of the
women that I work with and just being in the
South and just being with an old you know, in
an old fashioned town where they are supporting this bill,
which seems ridiculous in itself, especially they're talking about criminalizing doctors,

(33:14):
criminalizing women who um may have late term abortions, not
because they want to, but because they have to medically,
and they still are talking about penalizing them. Um. You
see these impassioned bets from these other women who talk
about how why don't they care about the children? This
is murder, This is murder, and I that's it's really

(33:37):
hard to argue murder. Let's just leave that out there. Um,
But that's where they're coming from, and a lot of
them genuinely break down on that note without thinking about
the women's perspective, the the adult female who is having
to go through this. What you may not understand the
background of that it was incest, rape, or whether it's

(33:59):
men coal problems that that are happening. They just don't
give all outs to that. They just think about that
unborn child or fetus. I'm just gonna leave it that
the fetus before they're actually developed into Sure, I'm a
church child or whatever you wanna call it. And We've
been talking already about certain careers that are higher risk

(34:24):
for this UM empathy burnouts, and yeah, it is people
in kind of caring fields. And it's something that is
called frequently compassion fatigue. Right. And I pulled this out
from one of the articles written in a social work
UM magazine talking about too much empathy or how to
self care UM, and they talk about seconday trauma is

(34:47):
a reaction to dealing with other people's situations. UM. But
burnout is related to the job environments when in which
we work, and the stress is attached to these jobs
and requirements like paperwork or poor supervision or support, which
is a constant. When you have to have these giant
results with very minimal support, it's impossible. And that's when

(35:09):
burnett happens because you really can't do much UM. And
when burnout and the secondary trauma are both present and
an individual is to be said, UM, they are experiencing
compassion fatigue. UM. So just exactly what it is. You're
you're just tired, and you just want to give up,
and you don't want to think about it, and you
just don't care. That's kind of where it comes down to,

(35:31):
and you become numb UM, and you can become jaded,
but there is UM. Something they were talking about also
that there is something called compassion satisfaction UM and being
satisfied with doing the work of a care in other words,
UM gratification for helping others makes the strains of the
work worth it. UH. And it's not uncommon to see

(35:51):
social workers continuing their jobs because even after the breakdown
and that was me. I literally had a breakdown when
I was a child abuse, an investigator went and didn't
any and then I came back because I missed advocating. UM.
But it's still really hard to continue day to day sometimes.

(36:12):
And UM, I think one of the things that doesn't
happen enough now When I tell people I'm a social worker,
the response is usually oh wow, that's hard to almost pity.
That is not the best reaction to get it sometimes,
But I mean, I think we need to do more.
I would love it if people truly heard what was
happening and instead of them like deeming them the bad guys,

(36:35):
because if you watched, like I'm really build law in
order like SVU, the social workers were always the bad guys.
They were never they always lied or they did this
like it was awful or they just didn't care enough,
or they were compassion enough, and they were just too cold.
And I'm like, come on, guys, why do you have

(36:56):
to make them look like the bad guy here? You know,
of course, what's her name? The main character? I've never
seen it. What I know, I exist outside of space
and time. I've never seen an episode of Law and
Order anything. Well, Olivia was her name, and the character Um.
She was always the most compassionate one, caring for the

(37:16):
kids and all of that. And there's an episode I
see has with Um. His name is Finn in the
character has been a long time. Um has a battle
with one of the social workers and she gets blamed
for this death of this child. It was this whole
big thing, and I hate that. And even in the
news today you read so much about how and don't
get me wrong, it may have absolutely been the worker's fault.

(37:39):
Why didn't they check up on this CHOBD, why didn't
they do this whatever, But they don't understand the backlash
of what things happened, like how the judicial system works.
And the fact is we honestly case workers cannot do
much without the approval of someone higher up at all times,
but that's what you see them as the bad guy,
and I think stuff like that. And then also that's

(38:01):
one of the big cuts that happened. They don't get
paid much um, they don't get any kind of rewards,
and they don't really get many raises. I don't think
there's been any rays in the State of Georgia in
a while, not even cost of living. I don't think
that that could. I haven't been in Defects and the
Children's the investigative side in a long time, but I

(38:23):
know when I worked there there wasn't um. And that's
part of the problem is when yes, this is really
nice and I would love to fix things and I
would love my work to be this, But if I
can't take care of myself, and if I'm being blamed
and all the time that I'm scared to death of
being blamed for something that I can't control, how do
you keep going right? And how do you get that

(38:45):
compassion satisfaction mm hmm, passion satisfaction And I like that. Yeah.
I think Page from Charmed was a social worker, and
I think Christianity from it takes two for the Mary
Kate Nashley, if I don't know she she works, she
was involved somehow. I was gonna say, if I'm a
witch and I have powers, it would be fantastic. I

(39:09):
could do so many things with some telepowers. Telepowers, that's
like you're calling it. Yes, if I had some powers
in general, Oh sure, I could do all the things
or whatever your power allowed you to do, do that
thing specifically. But we do have a little bit more

(39:30):
for you listeners. But first we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank
you sponsor. So we wanted to include in here tips

(39:50):
on practicing good empathy because a lot of what we've
been talking about is the negative side of empathy, or
the extreme that's too much empathy. What this could look
like if you have too much empathy, right, But if
you wanna practice good empathy, um, you want to practice
self awareness, openness, and non judgmental listening. If you notice

(40:12):
that you are reacting to something emotionally, then you want
to take a moment, take a breath, clear your mind,
and focus on how you want to feel, which is
open or like listen. Right, and again, I think again,
one of the things that we talked about with in general,
with trauma, PTSD and being triggered, which is kind of
what happens here. Sometimes meditation, doing the one two three

(40:34):
technique or being grounded it actually is helpful for that
as well. To prevent burnout, experts recommend setting up boundaries,
take care of yourself, have compassion for yourself UM, and
be mindful of your knees, recognize toxic behavior in others
and learning to keep a distance and learning that that

(40:56):
is okay. It doesn't mean you aren't empathetic. You're keeping
your identity and emotions from getting mixed up with others.
And I call this responsible empathy UM, because if you
get burnt out or become numb, you can't help others
as successfully. Yeah. And as we talked about before the
fact that is, if you're not caring for yourself, how
you expected to care for others UM, And all of

(41:18):
that again as to remember that you are a person,
and you have flaws and you can make mistakes and
it's okay. And I think that's one of the biggest
thing is to forgive yourself and to allow yourself to
be human. It's really hard when you want to fix things.
It's really hard when you feel too much I mean,

(41:40):
believe me, I beat myself up every day aslim sometimes
sit down and just go back over the wrong things
that I did, which is a horrible practice. Please don't
do this, and if you do, do what I also do.
Huggle into your dog if you don't have a dog,
look at pictures of what makes you happy, whether it's
to read ben fiction, place some d and d um.

(42:01):
Actually you and I have gotten into some card games.
I'm now jumping into that world. I feel like I
have to start concentrating a little more so I can
be a part of the crew now. Um. But yeah,
doing things and allowing yourself to turn off your brain.
And I know I talked about babysit your brain, movies
type of thing to turn that off, and it's so hard,

(42:22):
and whether it's sometimes I had to play Candy Rush.
Sometimes I actually love words, see things those the word finders,
love those and just sitting and watching reruns where I
don't have to think about anything else, but I can
just concentrate on whatever nonsense is happening. And that's really
important too. And it's important to again be empathetic towards

(42:43):
yourself and remember again you're not God. Hey, God, You're
not a superhero as much as you would like to be, UM,
and even the superheroes have bad days. We saw this
on all of the vengeances. Is like a superhero is bad, right,
And and being UM, caring for yourself and keeping a distance,

(43:06):
like you said, and shutting things off doesn't mean you're
being nomin or callous, and sometimes that can regenerate you.
And to literally one of the big things we've been
talking about in our own field, taking a vacation, turning
your email off, turning your settings off, go out of
the country if you can afford it, and turning your
phone off if not, literally giving your phone, your work phone,

(43:28):
and your computer to someone else and walk away like
and I will say, up until last year, I never
did this. I never took a loan more than two
days off, and even then I had my phone on
me all day, all times, because in the back of
my mind, like this is affects a child's life, Like
it doesn't just stop because I'm on vacation. But because

(43:48):
I wasn't doing this, I was failing them because I
would becoming more and more angry. I became resentful UM
at my job, you know. And then the fact that
I had to invest so much, and I would look
around and like people are doing this like me, which
is not true at all. That was me being one
of the hyper empathy symptoms that we talked about earlier. UM.

(44:10):
But yeah, just being able to walk away physically and
literally from whatever it is that has taken you down
this bad path. Right, and we are planning a beach vacation.
We are other things that have come up a lot
in our conversation around good coping. But it's also useful here,

(44:31):
things like yeah, meditation, yoga, exercise or yeah, it's something
that helps you let go of your absorbed negative emotions
UM and helps you practice mindfulness. And again, community is
really really important UM. And I have a really great
community for different aspects of my life and my coworkers.

(44:52):
I think I've talked about the co worker I had
when I was at as a child, a beast investigator.
We literally would take Saturdays and go hiking all day
UM and that, and we would talk about whatever was happening,
but then we would also talk about our personal life
and it was really nice and releasing. UM. Even now
I will get together with my coworker, we leave the office,

(45:13):
go to lunch and have a long lunch where we
can actually talk about our day, what's going on, and
checking in on each other. And then when I get
with my community and my friends, when we can come
out and I can give like a ten minute this
is the worst, and then come to oh, but this
has been really hilarious. This is what's happening here, and
this is what's happening here. Like it's really important to

(45:34):
not isolate yourself. Again when when we were talking about
and it's really easy to do so, especially when you
feel when I feel like I'm being toxic not only
to myself, but it could be to others or sometimes
I just don't have the energy talk, which again being
alone is good too, Like you just need to have
balance and and know yourself and know what works and
what what works. When I did UM last weekend, I

(45:59):
did the uh the week Hip to Heal, which you
heard from the founders in a previous episode. UM, but
that they did this thing I loved, which was you
had to speak for two minutes only positive things in
your life to someone, and you couldn't do you couldn't
have any qualifiers in it. You couldn't be like well yeah, yeah, yeah,
so that was really cool. And if if you ever

(46:20):
are experiencing a like a bad day or something, I
would recommend it if it's like surprisingly hard. But yeah,
oh yeah, those are difficult when you have to be
nice to yourself out loud and you're not used to
doing that. I like my hair today. I was like,
I've watched all the Marvel movies. Another okay, but in

(46:41):
the context of trauma, I wanted to include here as well.
One of the main reasons I never have spoken up
about it before because I didn't want other people to
feel bad. I I felt this responsibility for making everyone happy.
So I think that's another It's almost like anticipating some
way's empathy, right, So that's an other thing. And and
my dn D character who is based on a character

(47:04):
I wrote and um in his book, she was an impact,
like she could feel everybody's what they were feeling, and
she suffered for it. She suffered and it pretty much
killed her. So I mean, yeah, again, um, that was
obviously an extreme version sometimes. Yeah, I definitely feel that.

(47:26):
I definitely have moments where if I hear something, or
if I see something, or if I know about something,
anything that has to do with UM child trauma that
has to do with adoption, fostering. It gets me, It
gives me every time. Obviously it's so close to me anyway, UM,
but I feel it. I feel that over again. It

(47:46):
it shuts me down sometimes. UM. I remember I was asked,
I think I was offered a job for adoption agency
and I just couldn't do it. I was like, this
is too close. I don't know if I can actually
survive doing that portion. And for me working on this show,
I I built something that I called the callous, which
I think is that it's essentially the distance because it

(48:07):
was so difficult in some days I would leave work
rex UM and we wanted to close out here with
some tips from Dr Shelley Jane, who wrote a whole
book that about PTSD called The Unspeakable Mind, and she
had some tips right I had. Actually I asked her

(48:27):
because I think it was so personal for me, because
all of these things were fantastic new ideas and new
concepts that she was bringing out. And she was talking
about this as in like physical medical field. So I'm like,
that's completely different to the usual when we treat PTSD
as a mental health thing. She's taking it as a
physical medical thing, which is fantastic because that's exactly how

(48:47):
it should be looked to get to the root of
a lot of it. But UM, during that time, I
did want to ask, what are you your advice? Because
she talked about she's been in this for twenty years
and that's unheard of, and she still loves it, and
she does a passion project about it, which is fantastic,
and some of the stories and there were heartbreaking, as
you and I talked about. And so one of the
first things, one of the big things I want to

(49:08):
know is what would you say to those who are
in this field and who want to remain in this field?
How do they care for themselves? So here you go,
trauma's infecture. Right. Any body who through the course of
their profession is routinely exposed to traumatic situations like bearing
witness to trauma, whether it be like first responders, whether
it be in military, whether it be UM, you know,

(49:30):
mental health professionals. To professionals, I think we have to
recognize it for what it is. We are high risks
are being exposed to trauma. This is like my twentieth
year of being a doctor. UM actually nasar mark twenty years.
You know, I feel like, um, as I was reaching

(49:51):
that twenty year mark, I feel like there was a
lot of visage that had been building up. You know,
in your clinical experiences day today, when you're trying to
take care of patients. You know, there's what happens in
real time, right you meet them, you make the different
make dignilities, you come up position in turn. But there
is so much that happens in that there there are

(50:13):
so many other dimensions that get touched on, moral, ethical, philosophical, emotional, psychological,
not only for the patients but for me too, and
they often don't get the home with the real time ready,
you don't have time to deal with everything. You have
to kind of do the work that needs to get
done to kind of getting moving um, you know, and UM,

(50:37):
when those other dimensions do not get extended. Two, I think,
UM issue start to build up and it's like a
stubborn kind of entered your studdn saying, you know, you
start to lose your shine. There's definitely something burning inside
of me that needs to get out. And I think
from kind of creative angle, being able to draw on

(51:02):
twenty years of clinical experiences and kind of relive them
and hash them out through the process of writings was
really valuable. I felt like I could leave a lot
of stuff on the page. I think I emerged feeling lighter,
more rejuvenated, and hopeful that you know, maybe I can

(51:24):
do this for the twenty years. Um. So for me
answered your question, I think the writing is what helps
me personally. One thing I don't think health care professional
laws and care givers what we don't do enough as
is just admit that what we do it's really really hot, right,
what the work we do and the circumstances under which

(51:47):
operate are really hard. And I do feel like we
live in this world that celebrates the trivial and doesn't
value doing complicated things where you're not necessarily going to
get a massive return on your investment. So I think

(52:07):
there's a cultural turn where we have to reclaim so
what we do is important, must to be done, but
it's really really hard. So I think studying really realistic
expectations it's really important. And then of course that's what
it's really important. You have your own ways of caring
for yourself and getting any any attention that you might need,

(52:29):
you know, mental health wise, health wise into self care,
and I think is an absolute non negotiable if you're
going to do this type of world, so I do
asually for yourself, You're you're going to survive another day
to do something for somebody else. So it's not being
selfish having healthy boundaries that brings us to the end
of this episode and uh for for our self care

(52:53):
bit my D and D fact um. This one should
have gone at the beginning, but recording times are hilario
is So, I'm actually pretty new to Dungeons and Dragons
and um. When we first started playing, I was super
nervous because I was problem really nervous, like you texted

(53:13):
me about like a bad that kid do it um.
And there was somebody in our group who I knew,
but I didn't know her very well, and I was
nervous about playing. I think there's it's one thing if
it's a group of friends that you really well, but
if you started someone in there, they're like, oh no, um.
But together we are we're a bit impulsive, as I've said,

(53:37):
and our motto is fools rush in. And I had
cuzies made for us in the Game of Thrones. Font
Let's say that I want I want one. Maybe I
could sell me thrones wouldsume me, they would sue you,
But I just want one. Okay, I will gift to
you one. I feel like we should give it a
listener one that's like super into it. We need to
do like a game. Oh, we are going to do

(53:59):
the get together, so maybe to give a couple of way.
Now that's true. Very what a fun story to tell someone.
I got this from a podcast where she plays d
n D and then anyway, um, and it works so
with this player that I didn't know very well. And
when I think our first session with her, UM, we
were trying to figure out this cave thing and they're

(54:19):
just small opening with running water and the only way
it was the only way into the next room. And
she could turn into animals, but only animals that she saw,
and she had seen like a crab, so she turned
into a crab, but she couldn't crawl up the wall,
so we had to roll, because that's how DND works,
you rolled dies. We had to roll to see if
we could successfully throw the crab like a thrisbee, and

(54:42):
we succeeded. Role to throw a crab is one of
my favorite roles. Was she so excited about this or
was she like what was her response? Because I can't
imagine saying I had this idea and then like, oh yeah,
I'm gonna throw you like a frisbee and then you're like, okay, cool.
I think it was her idea. She is called her
the chaos player. She always has the most hilarious creative ideas.

(55:06):
That one of them is she wanted to fill my
bag of holding with water and then turn into a whale.
And I can't remember why what purpose that would have
served As a person who has never played dn D
and still don't quite understand D and D all of
these things that are in my head. I wish you
could understand how like dissected each of these things are

(55:28):
for me that I'm like, what, this doesn't belong to this?
And wait, I have to cut it and paste. You're
going to come to work. I am going to come
to one of these and you'll see excited. It'll be fun.
I'm excited. Um. And then my part to the fact
we're talking any more about Peaches, UM actually put a
really cute Instagram story of her and Um in our

(55:50):
little neighborhood. I put a little flower crown on her
that she ate immediately after that the pictures were taken, uh,
and made a mess of my living room with it.
That's my fault. But I got an offer, she was like.
They were like this little company was like, oh, we
love your dog. We would love for you to moll
have her all our stuff. And I was like, first
of all, this doesn't look real. But if I'm really
get some free dog things, sure, So I emailed and

(56:13):
they're like, well, it's twenty five. I was like, okay, no, no, no, no,
no no. First of all, my dog does allow to
wear things. This would be from my benefit more than
her benefit. Secondly, I don't have the money because I
have to pay for this dog's grain free food first
as well as like the grain free trees and her
bath and nah this this dog eats better than I

(56:36):
do essentially, So no, I'm not buying a fifty dollar
handkerchief thingy to go around her neck a scarf for
are those I think it's a handkerchiefs, handkerchiefs, dogs scarfs,
trying to think of it. But anyway, I was really
excited that my dog was gonna be a model. And
then I felt very very tricked. I love the idea

(56:58):
of you being like a dot dot mom model. Yeah,
like you know, at the beauty pageants with the parents,
but it's like just pieces. Yeah, like the entire time
here looking at me like mm, she would hate it, Yes,
she would. If you have any self care stories you'd
like to share, we would love to hear them. You

(57:18):
can email us at Mom's Stuff at how stuff Works
dot com, or you can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcasts or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never
Told You. Thanks as always to our producer Andrew Howard.
Thanks Andrew, Thanks to you for listening as send me
your stuff. I want to know how you care for yourself,
social workers and people out there. Stuff I've Never Told

(57:39):
You as a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
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