Too much love can kill you. Too much love can be a self-destructive poison. Such is life, it needs to be measured, not excessive. A nurse who has a noble job, taking care of someone, can also get sick if she is too possessive of her patients, becoming very sensitive and overprotective.
Too attentive, over time the feelings become a burden, building up to a disease called compassion fatigue. This is a condition in which a person suffers from emotional and mental exhaustion that comes from constantly empathizing with the suffering or problems of others.
The term was originally associated with professions such as health workers, social workers, or disaster volunteers. However, it is now known that anyone who is often involved in helping or listening to other people's problems intensely, can also be affected. Not only workers in the field, office workers can also be affected by compassion fatigue.
In a report by the American Psychology Association, the founder of the Institute of Traumatology at Tulane University, Charles R. Figley PhD, says compassion fatigue is an occupational hazard of any professional who uses their emotions and heart in relation to colleagues or objects of work.
An office employee can experience compassion fatigue, especially if their job involves high empathy or intense interaction with others who are experiencing difficulties. Office employees who are at risk of developing this disease are those who usually play the role of a listener or mediator of conflict in the team; work in customer service, HR, or support that requires high empathy; face emotional pressure from coworkers or superiors; and who always feel responsible for the well-being of the team or clients.
In the long run, this can lead to burnout, cynicism, and decreased motivation.
"Compassion fatigue is like a dark cloud hanging over your head, going wherever you go and invading your mind," says Charles R. Figley.
Philosophically speaking, compassion fatigue is not just emotionalexhaustion - it is an existential crisis for the soul accustomed to giving. In a world that demands empathy as moral currency, compassion fatigue emerges as a paradox: fatigue from caring too much.
In the teachings of German philosopher Immanuel Kant, this kind of moral action is actually a rational obligation. Helping others is a categorical imperative. However, Kant also emphasized the importance of autonomy and self-dignity. Compassion fatigue tests the boundary between duty to others and duty to self. When empathy becomes destructive, do we still fulfill our moral obligations, or do we violate them?
Simone Weil, the French mystic philosopher, wrote about attentiveness - beingfully presentto the suffering of others without losing oneself. In contrast, in compassion fatigue, one is absorbed by the suffering. He is no longer present, but dissolved. "True love does not demand the elimination of the self, but the emptying of the ego in order to see the other clearly," says Weil.
On the other hand, compassion fatigue is not just individual fatigue, but a symptom of a community that does not take care of each other. If one person keeps giving without support, then the community fails to live the principle of togetherness. Therefore, empathy should be reciprocal, not one-way.
According to various studies, this symptom can be reduced by showing a commitment to self-care. And of course, this is not just a psychological technique, but a form of virtue to maintain a balance between excess and deficiency. Too much empathy without reflection is excess; too little is deficiency. Virtue lies in the middle.
Compassion fatigue teaches us that being a caring human being does not mean sacrificing ourselves indefinitely. Instead, self-care is a requirement so that we can continue to be present for others. In a world full of wounds, we need empathy rooted in awareness, not blinding sacrifice.
