The Invisible Weight: When Compassion Becomes Our Burden

The compassion fatigue you can't see!
We talk about burnout in healthcare and first responders, but what about the invisible compassion fatigue that lives quietly in our daily lives?
It's the friend who's always available to help, the caregiver who's forgotten what it feels like to laugh, the empath who absorbs everyone's pain until they can't sleep at night. It's become an alter ego, so integrated into who we are that when we try to set a boundary, people say "That's not like you!"
My father once carried 50 men from a burning psychiatric ward to safety. Heroic? Absolutely. But it also shaped how I learned to give, always going above and beyond, often at my own expense.