Speaker 1: Hey, this Sanny and welcome to Stuff I've Never told you.
Speaker 1: You're a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: and today Samantha is once again joining us. Umy, Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here as always as always, Yes,
Speaker 1: like that this episode, UM, I'm really relying on you
Speaker 1: a lot because this is something that I think you
Speaker 1: have had a lot of personal and you and I
Speaker 1: when we were having a discussion on what these episodes
Speaker 1: and what the series should look like, I was very
Speaker 1: passionate about want to talk about my people's the case
Speaker 1: workers out there, the therapist, the trauma workers, the second responders, UM,
Speaker 1: because I think we don't talk enough about helping and
Speaker 1: caring for those people who often see the worst and
Speaker 1: the worst of society. So yeah, here we go, because
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk a lot about personal experience, so
Speaker 1: that I hope you are ready. Yeah, because we're talking
Speaker 1: about empathy and having too much of it. Because on
Speaker 1: this if we were looking at an arc of our
Speaker 1: mini series, we're kind of on the on the other end,
Speaker 1: or like towards the end of the season, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people do after they go through a traumatic event,
Speaker 1: they do feel inspired or even like through survivor's guilt,
Speaker 1: or there's something that makes them want to help others
Speaker 1: so that they can either prevent it from happening to
Speaker 1: others or work help other people who have gone through
Speaker 1: something similar work through it. And that can be something
Speaker 1: very triggering, retraumatizing. UM. So, yeah, this question of empathy
Speaker 1: and can you have too much of it? You have
Speaker 1: too much? And you and I with you were researching
Speaker 1: and remember you're like, oh my gosh, this and this,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, that's me a problem. Well, before
Speaker 1: we get into it, trigger warnings UM for death, trauma,
Speaker 1: secondary trauma, and suicide, right and UM specifically with those,
Speaker 1: we're talking a little bit about how these can affect
Speaker 1: secondary trauma and trauma can affect your daily life. And
Speaker 1: we did. We talked about that earlier with like, UM,
Speaker 1: how it comes out and the symptoms and a part
Speaker 1: of that and some of the bad coping ideas would
Speaker 1: be some of these things that we're talking about. And
Speaker 1: it can't happen without you being the one being victimized,
Speaker 1: like personally victimized. Right, And I love a dictionary. Dictionary
Speaker 1: understand people don't know, right, So let's let's define empathy
Speaker 1: and This is from dictionary dot com. The psychological identification
Speaker 1: with our vi curious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, attitudes
Speaker 1: of another um the brain. I almost went on this
Speaker 1: whole thing where I got fascinated with the science of it.
Speaker 1: But the brain developed these mirror neurons specifically for empathy
Speaker 1: to recognize if someone was a friend or an enemy.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, I know, Like a part of that question
Speaker 1: was is a genetics, is an environmental can be learned whatever,
Speaker 1: But it comes down to it can be both obviously
Speaker 1: with everything, but there's also those I mean they talked
Speaker 1: about those who have less empathy could actually have a
Speaker 1: higher risk of autism. But yeah, it's really fascinating to see.
Speaker 1: Part of that is to be able to read others
Speaker 1: and that would be why you would read if their
Speaker 1: offriend or an enemy? Right, And that's obviously a simplification
Speaker 1: of a very right, big, big thing, yes, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to include it in there because I did find
Speaker 1: it so fun to read about. And one thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to include as well is the difference from sympathy
Speaker 1: sympathy versus empathy. So sympathy is the fact or power
Speaker 1: of sharing the feelings of another, especially in sorrow or trouble,
Speaker 1: feeling compassion or commiseration. Every time I hear that word,
Speaker 1: I think of the blink song, all the small things,
Speaker 1: who's out there? Then you know and nineties reference. There
Speaker 1: we go the ni okay, I'm actually I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Um So. Practicing good empathy means creating a safe space
Speaker 1: to identify and understand the feelings of others, as opposed
Speaker 1: to street mirroring. A lot of that is also being
Speaker 1: able to dig into yourself and kind of remembering if
Speaker 1: you went through something similar that emotion rather and there's
Speaker 1: a couple of types of empathy. There's effective empathy, which
Speaker 1: is the I know how you feel empathy. You can
Speaker 1: feel what other people are feeling, um and experience compassion
Speaker 1: for them. There's cognitive empathy, This is knowing and understanding
Speaker 1: the emotions of others, getting a more full picture of
Speaker 1: how they feel. And then there is excess or hyper empathy.
Speaker 1: So I would call this like the sponge equivalent of empathy.
Speaker 1: Or I imagine if Mantis couldn't turn off her art,
Speaker 1: control her powers and guardians of the galaxy, this would
Speaker 1: be her. But that's all theory. Um So, you suffer
Speaker 1: from the emotions of others exactly. And um, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say to kind of go back to the scientific
Speaker 1: portion of that, it could be a superpower or it
Speaker 1: could be a hinderance. For sure, if you could truly
Speaker 1: feel about that person feeling much like mantis, that's a superpower, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: she had fans, Yeah she did until that quill he
Speaker 1: would win everything with his hubris is great tomorrow, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna talk all about this now. I'm with you,
Speaker 1: I'm here with you. But yeah, and also with the
Speaker 1: effective empathy, I was going to say, that's one of
Speaker 1: those that kind of um can actually hinder a conversation
Speaker 1: if it comes back to the I know how you feel,
Speaker 1: I know this, I know that, which I know is
Speaker 1: a mistakes some therapist and some caseworkers have made and
Speaker 1: trying to be overly empathetic, but kind of it's almost
Speaker 1: dismisses the others because it becomes too common, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It feels like, oh, you feel that way,
Speaker 1: I'm not an unusual or something like that. Not that
Speaker 1: you want to be unusual, but sometimes it over takes
Speaker 1: the conversation and you need to be with them in
Speaker 1: that moment instead of you'll get past it. I've been
Speaker 1: there type of thing. Um. And then the excess of
Speaker 1: our hyper empathy, which you and I talked about. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I struggle. I'm not gonna say I
Speaker 1: could completely be diagnosed with this, but I know for me,
Speaker 1: when I watched movies that have intense, humiliating things, I
Speaker 1: cannot watch it. It took me. So when was The
Speaker 1: Office originally out? Oh, dear, a long time ago, thou
Speaker 1: some twelve. That is not correct, Okay. I was like,
Speaker 1: it's not two thousand twelve, that's wrong. Okay, let me
Speaker 1: look it up. Anyway, Um, when that show came out,
Speaker 1: I could not watch it because I remember watching the
Speaker 1: first episode and cringing so hard that I immediately had
Speaker 1: to turn it off, Like my face turned red, my
Speaker 1: heart kind of had this anxiety, and I was like, nope, nope, nope. Now,
Speaker 1: yeah it came out two thousand five. Um, you were
Speaker 1: way off. So yes, The Office came out in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. When I originally try to watch because everybody
Speaker 1: was in love with this show, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: oh my god, no, this is the worst thing ever.
Speaker 1: And for me, the Office English version is even worse,
Speaker 1: and I still can't get past season one. I don't
Speaker 1: think I passed the first three episodes because it was
Speaker 1: the British version. I was like, I can't do this.
Speaker 1: That's awful, cringe like beyond controty, like I physically cannot
Speaker 1: sit to watch it. And now like two thousand I
Speaker 1: think I've watched it for the first time last year,
Speaker 1: and now I watched all the time because I know
Speaker 1: when to fast forward it. That's how I watch it now.
Speaker 1: Any cringeworthy, I just best forward it through. So usually
Speaker 1: usually yeah, pretty much all I'm watching is like the
Speaker 1: whole Antics between Um Dwight and Andy and Jim and
Speaker 1: Jim and Pam. Like that's pretty much the Michael Michaels
Speaker 1: kindly does not exist essentially. Um, they've got no no
Speaker 1: who is Michael Um. But yeah, that's how I watch things.
Speaker 1: But also when I go to movies, if I don't
Speaker 1: know what to expect, um, I take even if it's
Speaker 1: like ninety d degrees outside, I'll have a jacket or
Speaker 1: a blanket so I can hide underneath it, and I'll
Speaker 1: cover my face and cover my ears. Like that's the
Speaker 1: level that I get to so it's I definitely understand that.
Speaker 1: And even in work, like I will have moments where
Speaker 1: I read an ace and I have I think I've
Speaker 1: told people one of the things I have to do
Speaker 1: is read about their past um charges in our events
Speaker 1: or whatever the situation was, to put us to that moment.
Speaker 1: So there's been a crime committed, there's been that, like,
Speaker 1: I feel the intensity of either the victim or the
Speaker 1: kids so much that I have to put it aside um,
Speaker 1: and it can break me down to the point that
Speaker 1: sometimes I've been questioned, is this a good job for you?
Speaker 1: But at the same time that is partially to me
Speaker 1: be like, nobody motivates me too, But yeah, I know that,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm not the only one. We all
Speaker 1: have different ways. Because I was talking to my coworker
Speaker 1: today and I asked her how did she handle it,
Speaker 1: And she literally says, I make myself forget because that's
Speaker 1: the level of that excess empathy that you don't know
Speaker 1: how to quite turn it off and you have to
Speaker 1: figure out your defense mechanisms right um, And I found
Speaker 1: this creat I wanted to include from Emmett Fitzgerald. I
Speaker 1: had never been told that empathy is a finite resource.
Speaker 1: You can run out as a normal psychological response. You
Speaker 1: cannot give up yourself again and again and again without replenishing, right.
Speaker 1: And I would think that's where we would talk about burnout,
Speaker 1: and you talk about burnout and and I know you
Speaker 1: mentioned this later, but compassion fatigue UM and how it
Speaker 1: does wear you down and and part of that is
Speaker 1: the mere fact when I looked through some of the studies,
Speaker 1: people like doctors and nurses and who are hands on
Speaker 1: have I think that the rate of society, which is
Speaker 1: not as high as I thought it would be. And honestly,
Speaker 1: social workers are even less. That surprised me too because
Speaker 1: I assumed social workers and case workers would have that mindset.
Speaker 1: But I know addiction is pretty high, relationship failures are
Speaker 1: pretty high for social workers and case workers and therapists
Speaker 1: and such um. But it is it's uh, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that you do eventually run out and
Speaker 1: it gets to the point that I call it being decisonized.
Speaker 1: I mean not I don't call it, but it's being
Speaker 1: decision ties to what it is and becoming more and
Speaker 1: more crafts and being more and more hardened. And I
Speaker 1: hate because that's being in social work for ten years,
Speaker 1: I feel like nothing affects me as much. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, I still have breakdowns and I still look
Speaker 1: for the good. But I do feel like I've become
Speaker 1: a little more harsh and more critical of today's society
Speaker 1: because of all the things that I've had to try
Speaker 1: to learn to deal with and or empathize with, and
Speaker 1: or even try to fix. Yeah, and UM, one of
Speaker 1: the the thing you said about your friend, UM, kind
Speaker 1: of making herself forget, reminded me of something I read.
Speaker 1: And it was an account from a I think it
Speaker 1: was a new nurse and she witnessed I think somebody
Speaker 1: die and she was so upset and like trying to
Speaker 1: pull herself together. And I saw the nurse who had
Speaker 1: been there longer than her, completely fine. And she asked
Speaker 1: that nurse like, how are you? How did you get
Speaker 1: to this point? I need to have this control that
Speaker 1: you did, And and the other nurse said to her,
Speaker 1: I wish I could deal feel things like good, right, Um?
Speaker 1: And I think that's a pretty powerful, powerful story, right,
Speaker 1: and it it becomes a constant thing. I remember when
Speaker 1: I started with the children Family and Children's Services and
Speaker 1: being an investigator. Um, one of the first things that
Speaker 1: I learned is all people coming in with bright eye,
Speaker 1: but you tell hopes of saving the world. And don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, that's the whole reason I wanted to
Speaker 1: social work. I wanted to save the world. I want
Speaker 1: to save the kids. I want to help these women,
Speaker 1: I want to empower others. And then a year later,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I'm putting band aids on you know,
Speaker 1: gunshot wounds essentially, and hoping for the best, or I'm
Speaker 1: picking I mean, I remember using the term picking the
Speaker 1: lesser evil all the time because it literally was do
Speaker 1: I take this child away from something that they're used
Speaker 1: to with a parent that they grew up with, or
Speaker 1: do I put them into a new situation that's a
Speaker 1: better environment, but they are taken away and they have
Speaker 1: nothing familiar. As well as because they're older, they're probably
Speaker 1: never going to find stability again. You know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, at least it was a bad stability, but
Speaker 1: it was stability or new stability without or without the
Speaker 1: actual grounding of family and caring. And I remember just
Speaker 1: having to sit with the judges, like I had one
Speaker 1: of the best judges that I worked with, as well
Speaker 1: as large were like, what is the better choice? And
Speaker 1: oftentimes I would look and say it's better for them
Speaker 1: to be with a family with us looking on hopefully,
Speaker 1: instead of yanking them out of a placement um and
Speaker 1: putting them in this situation. And you know, I want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to all the foster care
Speaker 1: parents too, like I don't think enough credit is given
Speaker 1: to the ones that are really great, because I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you there's some not great ones, just like
Speaker 1: in anything else, but the great ones are taken advantage
Speaker 1: of and they are the first to be burned out,
Speaker 1: um immediately and I would say burned out probably six months.
Speaker 1: And because if we find if a defense worker or
Speaker 1: a family children service worker who's a foster care worker,
Speaker 1: find one good family, they will try to use them
Speaker 1: all the time because we know what to expect. We
Speaker 1: know they'll do a good job. And oftentimes it's so
Speaker 1: taxing on them with the very little support they get.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you, majority of the people
Speaker 1: who think you get money, that's not a thing. Um.
Speaker 1: It can be a build up, Like if you have
Speaker 1: ten kids in your home and you have some kind
Speaker 1: of backing, maybe things it can happen. It has happened,
Speaker 1: But oftentimes this is not about money. And when we
Speaker 1: look at these foster parents and the good ones, we
Speaker 1: run them into the ground. And I could see that
Speaker 1: they are probably one of the first to be like,
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. And that's where that's where
Speaker 1: we leave in such a mess of not having enough
Speaker 1: homes for some of these teenagers who are just trying
Speaker 1: to find something safe. Yeah, and um, while empathy is right,
Speaker 1: generally a good thing and can help you not get
Speaker 1: replaced by robots in the future, according to research, that's
Speaker 1: one of the few things that robots have not figured out.
Speaker 1: That's what I said. I argued with someone about that
Speaker 1: on my social workers will not be replaced. Um, case
Speaker 1: workers and therapists will not be replaced by robots. People
Speaker 1: have argued with me, I don't understand how they would
Speaker 1: learn empathy. Well, now that you said that, they're going
Speaker 1: to figure it out. That's all they need. I believe
Speaker 1: it's Yeah, it's like a complex social job that requires
Speaker 1: some kind of right empathy. Anyway, that's a different podcast.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk about the droids, well we should,
Speaker 1: but right now we're talking about empathy, and yes, too
Speaker 1: much of it can be a bad thing, and we'll
Speaker 1: get into that, but first let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
Speaker 1: Empathy can become a bad thing if it starts to
Speaker 1: impact your mental, emotional, and or physical health, which we've
Speaker 1: been talking about all these right. It can lead to
Speaker 1: high concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol and feelings of depression, guilt, pain, exhaustion,
Speaker 1: being overwhelmed, all of which can lead to burnout, especially
Speaker 1: if you take on the responsibility of fixing someone else's problems. Yes,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think
Speaker 1: I may have used this word before, and I realized
Speaker 1: later that a lot of people don't understand what it is.
Speaker 1: Perentified UM and that's when which child takes on the
Speaker 1: role of a caretaker or a parent. UM. So you'll
Speaker 1: see this with families who have drug issues in the home.
Speaker 1: I would I would run into that all the time,
Speaker 1: where I would see the parents we've passed out. But
Speaker 1: there's two kids, a five year old and two year old.
Speaker 1: In the five year old would be taking care of
Speaker 1: the two year old UM. And also you, and I
Speaker 1: talked about the fact earlier in our own trauma when
Speaker 1: people would be like, oh, you're so you're so adult,
Speaker 1: you're so mature, which is not necessarily a healthy thing,
Speaker 1: and to me, it is very unhealthy. Um, when a
Speaker 1: child can't be a child, That's what I like to say,
Speaker 1: because for myself, I think I had talked about this
Speaker 1: earlier too, when my mom and I were talking about
Speaker 1: my relationship with her growing up. And then my brother,
Speaker 1: who is their biological child and I am adopted, was
Speaker 1: right here when I was seven. Our relationships were so different,
Speaker 1: and I remember UM at one point she was trying
Speaker 1: to talk about UM, the brother, you know, being used
Speaker 1: to being the only child, the youngest child, and you
Speaker 1: know whatever, and she was like, you were already an
Speaker 1: adult when I got you. That's how she put it,
Speaker 1: And she was right, because I was always in survival mode.
Speaker 1: And so for me coming to a home does not
Speaker 1: make me um a child again, that doesn't immediately happen.
Speaker 1: And I think part of my empathy comes from want
Speaker 1: to take care of myself as well as others, because
Speaker 1: that's what I did. That's what I've known, like, that's
Speaker 1: the only thing I've known, and I see that in
Speaker 1: a lot of younger kids as well. And if you
Speaker 1: kind of look at like um oldest kids, the older kids,
Speaker 1: they're much the bossy ones, they're much like that as well.
Speaker 1: And I think is the caretaker coming out in them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the empathy of wanting to care for everyone
Speaker 1: and making sure they're safe and feeling the best that
Speaker 1: are part of their responsibility. Yeah, that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: I think I just went want to change it the
Speaker 1: middle child? Where do I fall? Trying to keep the peace?
Speaker 1: Middle children? Try to keep the peace. That's what I
Speaker 1: have said. I would agree with that. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to make any sweeping generals generalization. Yes, that's what
Speaker 1: I see. So if you do have too much empathy,
Speaker 1: or you're burning out from empathy, some things you might
Speaker 1: start doing or notice yourself start doing. Is Um. You
Speaker 1: might start pushing people away if you're feeling their emotions.
Speaker 1: That make sense. Um, if you're suffering from their emotions.
Speaker 1: You might walk into a room with people and experience
Speaker 1: as an emotion without knowing why for anyone to said
Speaker 1: anything to you. Um, you might feel physical pain. You
Speaker 1: might not be able to stop thinking about the other
Speaker 1: person's pain. The thought of going to an event with
Speaker 1: someone with an emotional state that will impact you might
Speaker 1: fill you with dread. Yeah. Um, Honestly, I know people
Speaker 1: who have too much empathy that are not in my
Speaker 1: field can't be around me. And I know I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand that I'm exhausting. I'm like the negative Nelly
Speaker 1: of the group because if I've had a rough day,
Speaker 1: which I walked in today, I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm a most cell um. It literally becomes taxing yea
Speaker 1: for others around me, and I recognize that. I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason I'm also an introverted, like
Speaker 1: I can't deal with me today, which I have to recognize, Yep,
Speaker 1: I've had a really stressful day, or I've had a
Speaker 1: really hard week, or I've had a really traumatic week,
Speaker 1: and I can't figure out how not to let this
Speaker 1: affect me on a daily basis, or like my every
Speaker 1: every moment, normal moment be affected by this. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of like I think we talked about it in
Speaker 1: the Trauma episode about our coping mechanism. I have two
Speaker 1: or three or four people that I trust that know
Speaker 1: me well enough that they can't handle that, or also
Speaker 1: they can tell me to stop, because that's part of
Speaker 1: that too, and because a few of those people are
Speaker 1: social workers in or in the field as well, and
Speaker 1: they also have their own dilemma where we will both
Speaker 1: have to be like, Okay, I can't buy this right now,
Speaker 1: and that's that line. Um And And honestly, I definitely
Speaker 1: felt that physical pain. I definitely had my I think
Speaker 1: I told the story about my neck giving out for
Speaker 1: weeks at a time because I was so stressed and
Speaker 1: I was so worried about um, these children dying in
Speaker 1: or something happening because I didn't do something fast enough,
Speaker 1: or being blamed for it. And that came from like
Speaker 1: not only did these individual things happened, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely a build up, so you get stressed out. I
Speaker 1: stopped sleep, being stopped sleeping as my next started hurting,
Speaker 1: my next started hurting, I started getting tense. Everything hid
Speaker 1: into and I'm shut down. The same thing that that
Speaker 1: I used to get sick all the time, and I
Speaker 1: mean like Blu Sintons and all of that. And it
Speaker 1: was a lot to do with the fact that I
Speaker 1: wasn't taking care of myself. We all know, sleep is very, very,
Speaker 1: very important, and if you have anxiety attacks, panic attacks, whatever,
Speaker 1: and you can't sleep, that disrupts everything. You know, that's
Speaker 1: part of the whole empathy partition is how do you
Speaker 1: let it go? Yeah, and I know later on we're
Speaker 1: going to talk. We talked to Dr Jane, who I'm
Speaker 1: always like, I'm already fascinated by and I've been talking
Speaker 1: about people to her. No, let me try it again.
Speaker 1: I've been talking to people about her because I think
Speaker 1: she's fascinating. I think she's got some really groundbreaking eye
Speaker 1: um concepts when it comes to PTSD and treatment of PTSD,
Speaker 1: which again I'm gonna talk about later. But I know
Speaker 1: that the whole idea is you have to be able
Speaker 1: to separate yourself, but it's almost impossible sometimes because you
Speaker 1: have that again, that idea that you're gonna come and
Speaker 1: fix something, and when you fail, it is the one
Speaker 1: of the most painful blows I think you can go
Speaker 1: through when you really stacked up in My life is
Speaker 1: built here and I want to do these for these people,
Speaker 1: and holy sh I felt again it's just so heartbreaking
Speaker 1: and it's kind of one of those things that again
Speaker 1: Lisa burnout and you just want to quit because you
Speaker 1: just can't see the better or the good ending to
Speaker 1: any of it. Yeah, And we talked about that a
Speaker 1: little bit in our episode around women in the medical
Speaker 1: field and how high the burnout rate is. According to
Speaker 1: the d s M five, hyper empathy syndrome is associated
Speaker 1: with personality disorders an ongoing difficulty to function due to
Speaker 1: the distress from the syndrome. So this is a thing.
Speaker 1: It's like recognized, um. And here are some of the
Speaker 1: key symptoms. Breakdown of identity and loss of social skills,
Speaker 1: mood swings. I need to solve everyone's problems, to cultivate
Speaker 1: the image of being valuable and needed by constantly doing
Speaker 1: favors for others, finding it hard to say no to
Speaker 1: people for fear of disappointing them, lack of boundaries, over
Speaker 1: protectiveness to an extreme, going so far as to impact
Speaker 1: the autonomy of others. And all of this can lead
Speaker 1: to resentment from feeling that no one understands you know.
Speaker 1: One get they think you're being overprotective. Don't they see
Speaker 1: I'm just doing I'm just being nice. Um. And it
Speaker 1: can yeah, impact your immune system. So I feel personally attacked, right, now,
Speaker 1: sorry intervention, just from reading this list. You know what though,
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, these things are very real, and these
Speaker 1: things are very personal to me, because I will absolutely
Speaker 1: this is me to a t um I'm a bossy one.
Speaker 1: Hey hey, hey, hey too quickly stop that um no.
Speaker 1: I uh. It's funny because in my little apartment complex
Speaker 1: it's like a Ford quadplex. I'm the mother of the group,
Speaker 1: to the point that they go on trips and like,
Speaker 1: can you text me when you make it there? I
Speaker 1: have no reason to. We don't live together. I barely
Speaker 1: know them that well. I do know them. They're really
Speaker 1: good friends, but like their neighbors, that's it. But I
Speaker 1: feel the need to make sure they're okay. I'm also
Speaker 1: the same one that goes around parties. Have you had
Speaker 1: enough food? Did you eat this? Did you want to
Speaker 1: try this? How about I give you this? Like it's
Speaker 1: just an overall need to make sure you're comfortable and
Speaker 1: that you're happy. And because if you're anxious, I'm anxious.
Speaker 1: I see it, and I'm nervous, and I hate the
Speaker 1: feeling of like someone not feeling welcomed. That gives me nightmares.
Speaker 1: But when I was younger, I would cry about that
Speaker 1: if I felt like someone felt like they were left out,
Speaker 1: like I was in turmoil about all of that. But
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to stick it to all of
Speaker 1: the workers out there, all of our therapists and social
Speaker 1: workers and teachers and nurses and medical people. I know
Speaker 1: I'm leaving out so many who are pretty much in
Speaker 1: combat all the time in their job. But it's so
Speaker 1: hard not to be these things and trying to be effective.
Speaker 1: And that's that's like kind of like how do you
Speaker 1: find those boundaries? And you do and you have to.
Speaker 1: And the reason we want to talk about this is
Speaker 1: because again, people who have gone through trauma like myself,
Speaker 1: want to be in a field that can help others.
Speaker 1: And I can guarantee, if not way more probably of
Speaker 1: social workers and people who are in UM protective type
Speaker 1: of services and including nursing and all of that, it's
Speaker 1: because they want they have gone through something and they
Speaker 1: want to make something better, right. And I think part
Speaker 1: of our problem, and that is we have put so
Speaker 1: much about identity and doing good that if we don't
Speaker 1: see the results, especially in a lifetime, sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: like I've I've never seen the result, a good result,
Speaker 1: um that you have failed in life and the things.
Speaker 1: So for me it goes as deep as to say
Speaker 1: that I used my trauma because I want to say
Speaker 1: I went through these bad things to do these good things,
Speaker 1: and then when I don't have the end result of
Speaker 1: doing good things, it just feels like I've failed, and
Speaker 1: which is absolutely untrue. Um, And have to tell myself
Speaker 1: that all the time. I have to tell other people
Speaker 1: that all the time. And I would tell our listeners,
Speaker 1: those who out there who know exactly what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: you have not failed, just because in the self that
Speaker 1: you care and are trying that has done so much
Speaker 1: more for our society than anything else, that that's probably
Speaker 1: why we haven't completely crumbled into the nastiness that it
Speaker 1: could be. Just to go on my tangent, the patented
Speaker 1: Samantha and I haven't had a lot of those, especially
Speaker 1: when I'm especially I I remember once somebody asked me like,
Speaker 1: if you could go back to this this event and
Speaker 1: not have gone through it, would you? And I had
Speaker 1: to think about it for for it because I I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'm not the obvious answer be yes,
Speaker 1: But then at the same time I don't know what
Speaker 1: I would have come Um, so there is that kind
Speaker 1: of weird if I went through this, at least it
Speaker 1: meant this, right, I mean, it went as far as
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're I know you already said it that
Speaker 1: at least it didn't happen to someone else. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: that's that's the underlying But as well, like I which
Speaker 1: is absolutely not true that you were meant to handle
Speaker 1: this situation, because we're going to throw out with that
Speaker 1: whole you're only given as much as you can handle.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily true. Sometimes you've just given really the hands, um,
Speaker 1: and that's what happens. But in the end, usually people
Speaker 1: who have gone through these things come out I mean,
Speaker 1: for me and I know you love for you, at
Speaker 1: least it wasn't someone else. At least it wasn't your
Speaker 1: siblings as you were spoken about, and at least it
Speaker 1: wasn't other kids and that you know, orphanage. For me,
Speaker 1: that's how I think think through um. At the same time, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sucks. I still don't want to remember that. No, Nope.
Speaker 1: And going back to this whole hyper empathy thing. Science
Speaker 1: is looking into why that happens, and all of the
Speaker 1: research is pretty new, but it points to it possibly
Speaker 1: being a genetic disorder. Oh really, well, I did read
Speaker 1: the case, um, when we were looking through this, about
Speaker 1: a woman who went through a brain injury and coming
Speaker 1: out with hyper sensitive to the point that it was
Speaker 1: physically hurting her this hyper empathy. Beforehand, she did not
Speaker 1: have any of those types of symptoms. So that's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I would love to love more and what exactly is
Speaker 1: completely wrong with me? This syndrome and too much empathy
Speaker 1: in general, particularly in women in heterosexual relationships, can lead
Speaker 1: to women justifying the actions of abusive or psychopathic partners.
Speaker 1: People who are who are too empathetic might be unable
Speaker 1: to recognize or too ready to excuse predatory behavior. Right.
Speaker 1: And then at the same time, we all I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the women who have children and these relationships,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes I've heard it many times they're good to
Speaker 1: my kids, um, and or they're protecting their kids and
Speaker 1: or as financial, as we've talked about previously, the fine
Speaker 1: Meal slayers, like, yes, all these bad things are happening
Speaker 1: to me, but without him, my kids could not do
Speaker 1: a BC and D, you know, And that's that's absolutely
Speaker 1: part of that whole empathy thing. Again, protecting others blaming
Speaker 1: themselves UM and then just feeling like I deserved this
Speaker 1: maybe you know what I mean. And it's such a
Speaker 1: whole again. Also, these partners understand that and use that
Speaker 1: and manipulate that. As we've talked about previously with grooming UM,
Speaker 1: they know they can see. And this is why I
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that domestic violence as well as
Speaker 1: partner violence can be a thing that we looked at
Speaker 1: as UM a manipulative thing. And why we say that
Speaker 1: is grooming and and part of that is that personality
Speaker 1: factor of Okay, well you can see she's easy to manipulate.
Speaker 1: I can groom hard of life this way, and this
Speaker 1: is where we go. And then too much empathy would
Speaker 1: be a very good point in what you see mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And related to this, a tendency to overgive UM might
Speaker 1: come from a past abusive relationship or growing up with
Speaker 1: a narcissistic guardian. It can also result from being in
Speaker 1: a community that focuses on giving. I read in places
Speaker 1: like a religious community or I would say women in
Speaker 1: general being socialized that way. And we talked about religion
Speaker 1: before as part of like grooming as well. I know
Speaker 1: we did that, but let that honestly comes through UM.
Speaker 1: When you see, especially in the way in the past,
Speaker 1: that women were told not to leave their husbands. Literally
Speaker 1: when they talked about the Bible, the only reason a
Speaker 1: woman could leave a man was for adultery, and that's
Speaker 1: after being like confronted by four or five and they
Speaker 1: could not and the woman could not remarry or that
Speaker 1: would be considered considered adultery. They don't talk about the
Speaker 1: physical abuse, they don't about physical violence, they don't talk
Speaker 1: about rape as a thing. You know, all of these
Speaker 1: things that we know right now that it's wrong, it's
Speaker 1: never really addressed. So therefore, I know I have seen
Speaker 1: in my lifetime where women were told to stay with
Speaker 1: their men in an abusive relationship because you made about
Speaker 1: a god. I literally have heard that, and it's the
Speaker 1: most unreal thing to me that I just I don't
Speaker 1: quite understand that. And honestly, we could even talk about
Speaker 1: today's um abortion laws coming through talking to about the
Speaker 1: fact that women who are going to be made to
Speaker 1: have a pregnancy or be charged, even if if it
Speaker 1: was against their will. That's absurd and that's a very
Speaker 1: religious idea. And this is the whole level of like
Speaker 1: from what I can gather empathy, I'm gonna say empathy.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's a whole underlying turn with like a
Speaker 1: patriarchy and and this is the whole idea that women
Speaker 1: can't be trusted and women's body should monitored whatever. But
Speaker 1: there's also this bit where the women feel, especially women
Speaker 1: who have had children, will say, well, you've never had children,
Speaker 1: this is a murderer. I would never do this to
Speaker 1: my child. So that that level of weird empathy comes
Speaker 1: to an unborn being, I guess, just for all intendent
Speaker 1: purposes of fetus, essentially in going beyond the regular Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what about the woman? What about who again should
Speaker 1: be trusted? Never mind that, But the empathy goes onto
Speaker 1: the fetus, and that's from the women in itself, which
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, but you're a woman, you want someone to
Speaker 1: tell you whether you can be trusted with your body?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, because it goes into that level. To me,
Speaker 1: that's an odd example because it's almost like an example
Speaker 1: of having no empathy for the woman, um, but all
Speaker 1: that's empathy for the unborn child. And frankly, men, I
Speaker 1: mean that that's because the women that some of the
Speaker 1: women that I work with and just being in the
Speaker 1: South and just being with an old you know, in
Speaker 1: an old fashioned town where they are supporting this bill,
Speaker 1: which seems ridiculous in itself, especially they're talking about criminalizing doctors,
Speaker 1: criminalizing women who um may have late term abortions, not
Speaker 1: because they want to, but because they have to medically,
Speaker 1: and they still are talking about penalizing them. Um. You
Speaker 1: see these impassioned bets from these other women who talk
Speaker 1: about how why don't they care about the children? This
Speaker 1: is murder, This is murder, and I that's it's really
Speaker 1: hard to argue murder. Let's just leave that out there. Um,
Speaker 1: But that's where they're coming from, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them genuinely break down on that note without thinking about
Speaker 1: the women's perspective, the the adult female who is having
Speaker 1: to go through this. What you may not understand the
Speaker 1: background of that it was incest, rape, or whether it's
Speaker 1: men coal problems that that are happening. They just don't
Speaker 1: give all outs to that. They just think about that
Speaker 1: unborn child or fetus. I'm just gonna leave it that
Speaker 1: the fetus before they're actually developed into Sure, I'm a
Speaker 1: church child or whatever you wanna call it. And We've
Speaker 1: been talking already about certain careers that are higher risk
Speaker 1: for this UM empathy burnouts, and yeah, it is people
Speaker 1: in kind of caring fields. And it's something that is
Speaker 1: called frequently compassion fatigue. Right. And I pulled this out
Speaker 1: from one of the articles written in a social work
Speaker 1: UM magazine talking about too much empathy or how to
Speaker 1: self care UM, and they talk about seconday trauma is
Speaker 1: a reaction to dealing with other people's situations. UM. But
Speaker 1: burnout is related to the job environments when in which
Speaker 1: we work, and the stress is attached to these jobs
Speaker 1: and requirements like paperwork or poor supervision or support, which
Speaker 1: is a constant. When you have to have these giant
Speaker 1: results with very minimal support, it's impossible. And that's when
Speaker 1: burnett happens because you really can't do much UM. And
Speaker 1: when burnout and the secondary trauma are both present and
Speaker 1: an individual is to be said, UM, they are experiencing
Speaker 1: compassion fatigue. UM. So just exactly what it is. You're
Speaker 1: you're just tired, and you just want to give up,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to think about it, and you
Speaker 1: just don't care. That's kind of where it comes down to,
Speaker 1: and you become numb UM, and you can become jaded,
Speaker 1: but there is UM. Something they were talking about also
Speaker 1: that there is something called compassion satisfaction UM and being
Speaker 1: satisfied with doing the work of a care in other words,
Speaker 1: UM gratification for helping others makes the strains of the
Speaker 1: work worth it. UH. And it's not uncommon to see
Speaker 1: social workers continuing their jobs because even after the breakdown
Speaker 1: and that was me. I literally had a breakdown when
Speaker 1: I was a child abuse, an investigator went and didn't
Speaker 1: any and then I came back because I missed advocating. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's still really hard to continue day to day sometimes.
Speaker 1: And UM, I think one of the things that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen enough now When I tell people I'm a social worker,
Speaker 1: the response is usually oh wow, that's hard to almost pity.
Speaker 1: That is not the best reaction to get it sometimes,
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think we need to do more.
Speaker 1: I would love it if people truly heard what was
Speaker 1: happening and instead of them like deeming them the bad guys,
Speaker 1: because if you watched, like I'm really build law in
Speaker 1: order like SVU, the social workers were always the bad guys.
Speaker 1: They were never they always lied or they did this
Speaker 1: like it was awful or they just didn't care enough,
Speaker 1: or they were compassion enough, and they were just too cold.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, come on, guys, why do you have
Speaker 1: to make them look like the bad guy here? You know,
Speaker 1: of course, what's her name? The main character? I've never
Speaker 1: seen it. What I know, I exist outside of space
Speaker 1: and time. I've never seen an episode of Law and
Speaker 1: Order anything. Well, Olivia was her name, and the character Um.
Speaker 1: She was always the most compassionate one, caring for the
Speaker 1: kids and all of that. And there's an episode I
Speaker 1: see has with Um. His name is Finn in the
Speaker 1: character has been a long time. Um has a battle
Speaker 1: with one of the social workers and she gets blamed
Speaker 1: for this death of this child. It was this whole
Speaker 1: big thing, and I hate that. And even in the
Speaker 1: news today you read so much about how and don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, it may have absolutely been the worker's fault.
Speaker 1: Why didn't they check up on this CHOBD, why didn't
Speaker 1: they do this whatever, But they don't understand the backlash
Speaker 1: of what things happened, like how the judicial system works.
Speaker 1: And the fact is we honestly case workers cannot do
Speaker 1: much without the approval of someone higher up at all times,
Speaker 1: but that's what you see them as the bad guy,
Speaker 1: and I think stuff like that. And then also that's
Speaker 1: one of the big cuts that happened. They don't get
Speaker 1: paid much um, they don't get any kind of rewards,
Speaker 1: and they don't really get many raises. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's been any rays in the State of Georgia in
Speaker 1: a while, not even cost of living. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that could. I haven't been in Defects and the
Speaker 1: Children's the investigative side in a long time, but I
Speaker 1: know when I worked there there wasn't um. And that's
Speaker 1: part of the problem is when yes, this is really
Speaker 1: nice and I would love to fix things and I
Speaker 1: would love my work to be this, But if I
Speaker 1: can't take care of myself, and if I'm being blamed
Speaker 1: and all the time that I'm scared to death of
Speaker 1: being blamed for something that I can't control, how do
Speaker 1: you keep going right? And how do you get that
Speaker 1: compassion satisfaction mm hmm, passion satisfaction And I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think Page from Charmed was a social worker, and
Speaker 1: I think Christianity from it takes two for the Mary
Speaker 1: Kate Nashley, if I don't know she she works, she
Speaker 1: was involved somehow. I was gonna say, if I'm a
Speaker 1: witch and I have powers, it would be fantastic. I
Speaker 1: could do so many things with some telepowers. Telepowers, that's
Speaker 1: like you're calling it. Yes, if I had some powers
Speaker 1: in general, Oh sure, I could do all the things
Speaker 1: or whatever your power allowed you to do, do that
Speaker 1: thing specifically. But we do have a little bit more
Speaker 1: for you listeners. But first we have one more quick
Speaker 1: break for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank
Speaker 1: you sponsor. So we wanted to include in here tips
Speaker 1: on practicing good empathy because a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about is the negative side of empathy, or
Speaker 1: the extreme that's too much empathy. What this could look
Speaker 1: like if you have too much empathy, right, But if
Speaker 1: you wanna practice good empathy, um, you want to practice
Speaker 1: self awareness, openness, and non judgmental listening. If you notice
Speaker 1: that you are reacting to something emotionally, then you want
Speaker 1: to take a moment, take a breath, clear your mind,
Speaker 1: and focus on how you want to feel, which is
Speaker 1: open or like listen. Right, and again, I think again,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we talked about with in general,
Speaker 1: with trauma, PTSD and being triggered, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what happens here. Sometimes meditation, doing the one two three
Speaker 1: technique or being grounded it actually is helpful for that
Speaker 1: as well. To prevent burnout, experts recommend setting up boundaries,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, have compassion for yourself UM, and
Speaker 1: be mindful of your knees, recognize toxic behavior in others
Speaker 1: and learning to keep a distance and learning that that
Speaker 1: is okay. It doesn't mean you aren't empathetic. You're keeping
Speaker 1: your identity and emotions from getting mixed up with others.
Speaker 1: And I call this responsible empathy UM, because if you
Speaker 1: get burnt out or become numb, you can't help others
Speaker 1: as successfully. Yeah. And as we talked about before the
Speaker 1: fact that is, if you're not caring for yourself, how
Speaker 1: you expected to care for others UM, And all of
Speaker 1: that again as to remember that you are a person,
Speaker 1: and you have flaws and you can make mistakes and
Speaker 1: it's okay. And I think that's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: thing is to forgive yourself and to allow yourself to
Speaker 1: be human. It's really hard when you want to fix things.
Speaker 1: It's really hard when you feel too much I mean,
Speaker 1: believe me, I beat myself up every day aslim sometimes
Speaker 1: sit down and just go back over the wrong things
Speaker 1: that I did, which is a horrible practice. Please don't
Speaker 1: do this, and if you do, do what I also do.
Speaker 1: Huggle into your dog if you don't have a dog,
Speaker 1: look at pictures of what makes you happy, whether it's
Speaker 1: to read ben fiction, place some d and d um.
Speaker 1: Actually you and I have gotten into some card games.
Speaker 1: I'm now jumping into that world. I feel like I
Speaker 1: have to start concentrating a little more so I can
Speaker 1: be a part of the crew now. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: doing things and allowing yourself to turn off your brain.
Speaker 1: And I know I talked about babysit your brain, movies
Speaker 1: type of thing to turn that off, and it's so hard,
Speaker 1: and whether it's sometimes I had to play Candy Rush.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I actually love words, see things those the word finders,
Speaker 1: love those and just sitting and watching reruns where I
Speaker 1: don't have to think about anything else, but I can
Speaker 1: just concentrate on whatever nonsense is happening. And that's really
Speaker 1: important too. And it's important to again be empathetic towards
Speaker 1: yourself and remember again you're not God. Hey, God, You're
Speaker 1: not a superhero as much as you would like to be, UM,
Speaker 1: and even the superheroes have bad days. We saw this
Speaker 1: on all of the vengeances. Is like a superhero is bad, right,
Speaker 1: And and being UM, caring for yourself and keeping a distance,
Speaker 1: like you said, and shutting things off doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: being nomin or callous, and sometimes that can regenerate you.
Speaker 1: And to literally one of the big things we've been
Speaker 1: talking about in our own field, taking a vacation, turning
Speaker 1: your email off, turning your settings off, go out of
Speaker 1: the country if you can afford it, and turning your
Speaker 1: phone off if not, literally giving your phone, your work phone,
Speaker 1: and your computer to someone else and walk away like
Speaker 1: and I will say, up until last year, I never
Speaker 1: did this. I never took a loan more than two
Speaker 1: days off, and even then I had my phone on
Speaker 1: me all day, all times, because in the back of
Speaker 1: my mind, like this is affects a child's life, Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't just stop because I'm on vacation. But because
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing this, I was failing them because I
Speaker 1: would becoming more and more angry. I became resentful UM
Speaker 1: at my job, you know. And then the fact that
Speaker 1: I had to invest so much, and I would look
Speaker 1: around and like people are doing this like me, which
Speaker 1: is not true at all. That was me being one
Speaker 1: of the hyper empathy symptoms that we talked about earlier. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just being able to walk away physically and
Speaker 1: literally from whatever it is that has taken you down
Speaker 1: this bad path. Right, and we are planning a beach vacation.
Speaker 1: We are other things that have come up a lot
Speaker 1: in our conversation around good coping. But it's also useful here,
Speaker 1: things like yeah, meditation, yoga, exercise or yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: that helps you let go of your absorbed negative emotions
Speaker 1: UM and helps you practice mindfulness. And again, community is
Speaker 1: really really important UM. And I have a really great
Speaker 1: community for different aspects of my life and my coworkers.
Speaker 1: I think I've talked about the co worker I had
Speaker 1: when I was at as a child, a beast investigator.
Speaker 1: We literally would take Saturdays and go hiking all day
Speaker 1: UM and that, and we would talk about whatever was happening,
Speaker 1: but then we would also talk about our personal life
Speaker 1: and it was really nice and releasing. UM. Even now
Speaker 1: I will get together with my coworker, we leave the office,
Speaker 1: go to lunch and have a long lunch where we
Speaker 1: can actually talk about our day, what's going on, and
Speaker 1: checking in on each other. And then when I get
Speaker 1: with my community and my friends, when we can come
Speaker 1: out and I can give like a ten minute this
Speaker 1: is the worst, and then come to oh, but this
Speaker 1: has been really hilarious. This is what's happening here, and
Speaker 1: this is what's happening here. Like it's really important to
Speaker 1: not isolate yourself. Again when when we were talking about
Speaker 1: and it's really easy to do so, especially when you
Speaker 1: feel when I feel like I'm being toxic not only
Speaker 1: to myself, but it could be to others or sometimes
Speaker 1: I just don't have the energy talk, which again being
Speaker 1: alone is good too, Like you just need to have
Speaker 1: balance and and know yourself and know what works and
Speaker 1: what what works. When I did UM last weekend, I
Speaker 1: did the uh the week Hip to Heal, which you
Speaker 1: heard from the founders in a previous episode. UM, but
Speaker 1: that they did this thing I loved, which was you
Speaker 1: had to speak for two minutes only positive things in
Speaker 1: your life to someone, and you couldn't do you couldn't
Speaker 1: have any qualifiers in it. You couldn't be like well yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was really cool. And if if you ever
Speaker 1: are experiencing a like a bad day or something, I
Speaker 1: would recommend it if it's like surprisingly hard. But yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, those are difficult when you have to be
Speaker 1: nice to yourself out loud and you're not used to
Speaker 1: doing that. I like my hair today. I was like,
Speaker 1: I've watched all the Marvel movies. Another okay, but in
Speaker 1: the context of trauma, I wanted to include here as well.
Speaker 1: One of the main reasons I never have spoken up
Speaker 1: about it before because I didn't want other people to
Speaker 1: feel bad. I I felt this responsibility for making everyone happy.
Speaker 1: So I think that's another It's almost like anticipating some
Speaker 1: way's empathy, right, So that's an other thing. And and
Speaker 1: my dn D character who is based on a character
Speaker 1: I wrote and um in his book, she was an impact,
Speaker 1: like she could feel everybody's what they were feeling, and
Speaker 1: she suffered for it. She suffered and it pretty much
Speaker 1: killed her. So I mean, yeah, again, um, that was
Speaker 1: obviously an extreme version sometimes. Yeah, I definitely feel that.
Speaker 1: I definitely have moments where if I hear something, or
Speaker 1: if I see something, or if I know about something,
Speaker 1: anything that has to do with UM child trauma that
Speaker 1: has to do with adoption, fostering. It gets me, It
Speaker 1: gives me every time. Obviously it's so close to me anyway, UM,
Speaker 1: but I feel it. I feel that over again. It
Speaker 1: it shuts me down sometimes. UM. I remember I was asked,
Speaker 1: I think I was offered a job for adoption agency
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't do it. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is too close. I don't know if I can actually
Speaker 1: survive doing that portion. And for me working on this show,
Speaker 1: I I built something that I called the callous, which
Speaker 1: I think is that it's essentially the distance because it
Speaker 1: was so difficult in some days I would leave work
Speaker 1: rex UM and we wanted to close out here with
Speaker 1: some tips from Dr Shelley Jane, who wrote a whole
Speaker 1: book that about PTSD called The Unspeakable Mind, and she
Speaker 1: had some tips right I had. Actually I asked her
Speaker 1: because I think it was so personal for me, because
Speaker 1: all of these things were fantastic new ideas and new
Speaker 1: concepts that she was bringing out. And she was talking
Speaker 1: about this as in like physical medical field. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's completely different to the usual when we treat PTSD
Speaker 1: as a mental health thing. She's taking it as a
Speaker 1: physical medical thing, which is fantastic because that's exactly how
Speaker 1: it should be looked to get to the root of
Speaker 1: a lot of it. But UM, during that time, I
Speaker 1: did want to ask, what are you your advice? Because
Speaker 1: she talked about she's been in this for twenty years
Speaker 1: and that's unheard of, and she still loves it, and
Speaker 1: she does a passion project about it, which is fantastic,
Speaker 1: and some of the stories and there were heartbreaking, as
Speaker 1: you and I talked about. And so one of the
Speaker 1: first things, one of the big things I want to
Speaker 1: know is what would you say to those who are
Speaker 1: in this field and who want to remain in this field?
Speaker 1: How do they care for themselves? So here you go,
Speaker 1: trauma's infecture. Right. Any body who through the course of
Speaker 1: their profession is routinely exposed to traumatic situations like bearing
Speaker 1: witness to trauma, whether it be like first responders, whether
Speaker 1: it be in military, whether it be UM, you know,
Speaker 1: mental health professionals. To professionals, I think we have to
Speaker 1: recognize it for what it is. We are high risks
Speaker 1: are being exposed to trauma. This is like my twentieth
Speaker 1: year of being a doctor. UM actually nasar mark twenty years.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like, um, as I was reaching
Speaker 1: that twenty year mark, I feel like there was a
Speaker 1: lot of visage that had been building up. You know,
Speaker 1: in your clinical experiences day today, when you're trying to
Speaker 1: take care of patients. You know, there's what happens in
Speaker 1: real time, right you meet them, you make the different
Speaker 1: make dignilities, you come up position in turn. But there
Speaker 1: is so much that happens in that there there are
Speaker 1: so many other dimensions that get touched on, moral, ethical, philosophical, emotional, psychological,
Speaker 1: not only for the patients but for me too, and
Speaker 1: they often don't get the home with the real time ready,
Speaker 1: you don't have time to deal with everything. You have
Speaker 1: to kind of do the work that needs to get
Speaker 1: done to kind of getting moving um, you know, and UM,
Speaker 1: when those other dimensions do not get extended. Two, I think,
Speaker 1: UM issue start to build up and it's like a
Speaker 1: stubborn kind of entered your studdn saying, you know, you
Speaker 1: start to lose your shine. There's definitely something burning inside
Speaker 1: of me that needs to get out. And I think
Speaker 1: from kind of creative angle, being able to draw on
Speaker 1: twenty years of clinical experiences and kind of relive them
Speaker 1: and hash them out through the process of writings was
Speaker 1: really valuable. I felt like I could leave a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff on the page. I think I emerged feeling lighter,
Speaker 1: more rejuvenated, and hopeful that you know, maybe I can
Speaker 1: do this for the twenty years. Um. So for me
Speaker 1: answered your question, I think the writing is what helps
Speaker 1: me personally. One thing I don't think health care professional
Speaker 1: laws and care givers what we don't do enough as
Speaker 1: is just admit that what we do it's really really hot, right,
Speaker 1: what the work we do and the circumstances under which
Speaker 1: operate are really hard. And I do feel like we
Speaker 1: live in this world that celebrates the trivial and doesn't
Speaker 1: value doing complicated things where you're not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: get a massive return on your investment. So I think
Speaker 1: there's a cultural turn where we have to reclaim so
Speaker 1: what we do is important, must to be done, but
Speaker 1: it's really really hard. So I think studying really realistic
Speaker 1: expectations it's really important. And then of course that's what
Speaker 1: it's really important. You have your own ways of caring
Speaker 1: for yourself and getting any any attention that you might need,
Speaker 1: you know, mental health wise, health wise into self care,
Speaker 1: and I think is an absolute non negotiable if you're
Speaker 1: going to do this type of world, so I do
Speaker 1: asually for yourself, You're you're going to survive another day
Speaker 1: to do something for somebody else. So it's not being
Speaker 1: selfish having healthy boundaries that brings us to the end
Speaker 1: of this episode and uh for for our self care
Speaker 1: bit my D and D fact um. This one should
Speaker 1: have gone at the beginning, but recording times are hilario
Speaker 1: is So, I'm actually pretty new to Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: and um. When we first started playing, I was super
Speaker 1: nervous because I was problem really nervous, like you texted
Speaker 1: me about like a bad that kid do it um.
Speaker 1: And there was somebody in our group who I knew,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know her very well, and I was
Speaker 1: nervous about playing. I think there's it's one thing if
Speaker 1: it's a group of friends that you really well, but
Speaker 1: if you started someone in there, they're like, oh no, um.
Speaker 1: But together we are we're a bit impulsive, as I've said,
Speaker 1: and our motto is fools rush in. And I had
Speaker 1: cuzies made for us in the Game of Thrones. Font
Speaker 1: Let's say that I want I want one. Maybe I
Speaker 1: could sell me thrones wouldsume me, they would sue you,
Speaker 1: But I just want one. Okay, I will gift to
Speaker 1: you one. I feel like we should give it a
Speaker 1: listener one that's like super into it. We need to
Speaker 1: do like a game. Oh, we are going to do
Speaker 1: the get together, so maybe to give a couple of way.
Speaker 1: Now that's true. Very what a fun story to tell someone.
Speaker 1: I got this from a podcast where she plays d
Speaker 1: n D and then anyway, um, and it works so
Speaker 1: with this player that I didn't know very well. And
Speaker 1: when I think our first session with her, UM, we
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out this cave thing and they're
Speaker 1: just small opening with running water and the only way
Speaker 1: it was the only way into the next room. And
Speaker 1: she could turn into animals, but only animals that she saw,
Speaker 1: and she had seen like a crab, so she turned
Speaker 1: into a crab, but she couldn't crawl up the wall,
Speaker 1: so we had to roll, because that's how DND works,
Speaker 1: you rolled dies. We had to roll to see if
Speaker 1: we could successfully throw the crab like a thrisbee, and
Speaker 1: we succeeded. Role to throw a crab is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite roles. Was she so excited about this or
Speaker 1: was she like what was her response? Because I can't
Speaker 1: imagine saying I had this idea and then like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw you like a frisbee and then you're like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: I think it was her idea. She is called her
Speaker 1: the chaos player. She always has the most hilarious creative ideas.
Speaker 1: That one of them is she wanted to fill my
Speaker 1: bag of holding with water and then turn into a whale.
Speaker 1: And I can't remember why what purpose that would have
Speaker 1: served As a person who has never played dn D
Speaker 1: and still don't quite understand D and D all of
Speaker 1: these things that are in my head. I wish you
Speaker 1: could understand how like dissected each of these things are
Speaker 1: for me that I'm like, what, this doesn't belong to this?
Speaker 1: And wait, I have to cut it and paste. You're
Speaker 1: going to come to work. I am going to come
Speaker 1: to one of these and you'll see excited. It'll be fun.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. Um. And then my part to the fact
Speaker 1: we're talking any more about Peaches, UM actually put a
Speaker 1: really cute Instagram story of her and Um in our
Speaker 1: little neighborhood. I put a little flower crown on her
Speaker 1: that she ate immediately after that the pictures were taken, uh,
Speaker 1: and made a mess of my living room with it.
Speaker 1: That's my fault. But I got an offer, she was like.
Speaker 1: They were like this little company was like, oh, we
Speaker 1: love your dog. We would love for you to moll
Speaker 1: have her all our stuff. And I was like, first
Speaker 1: of all, this doesn't look real. But if I'm really
Speaker 1: get some free dog things, sure, So I emailed and
Speaker 1: they're like, well, it's twenty five. I was like, okay, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. First of all, my dog does allow to
Speaker 1: wear things. This would be from my benefit more than
Speaker 1: her benefit. Secondly, I don't have the money because I
Speaker 1: have to pay for this dog's grain free food first
Speaker 1: as well as like the grain free trees and her
Speaker 1: bath and nah this this dog eats better than I
Speaker 1: do essentially, So no, I'm not buying a fifty dollar
Speaker 1: handkerchief thingy to go around her neck a scarf for
Speaker 1: are those I think it's a handkerchiefs, handkerchiefs, dogs scarfs,
Speaker 1: trying to think of it. But anyway, I was really
Speaker 1: excited that my dog was gonna be a model. And
Speaker 1: then I felt very very tricked. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of you being like a dot dot mom model. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, at the beauty pageants with the parents,
Speaker 1: but it's like just pieces. Yeah, like the entire time
Speaker 1: here looking at me like mm, she would hate it, Yes,
Speaker 1: she would. If you have any self care stories you'd
Speaker 1: like to share, we would love to hear them. You
Speaker 1: can email us at Mom's Stuff at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can find us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcasts or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never
Speaker 1: Told You. Thanks as always to our producer Andrew Howard.
Speaker 1: Thanks Andrew, Thanks to you for listening as send me
Speaker 1: your stuff. I want to know how you care for yourself,
Speaker 1: social workers and people out there. Stuff I've Never Told
Speaker 1: You as a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.