Dr. Mark Abrahams

Don't "Should" on Yourself

I am a caregiver to my dad who has Alzheimer’s. I got totally burnout around Easter and I basically broke down and had a nervous breakdown and my sister had to come and stay with us for a while to take care of dad while I went away on vacation and got myself back together. She has left now and we made a lot of changes to try to make sure that I won’t get so overwhelmed again, like we have a caregiver helper that comes in 5 days a week now in the mornings so I can go out and run errands. Therefore things are much better, however there is one thing that is really troubling me. One of the main symptoms of burnout is losing your empathy and compassion. That definitely happened to me. But even now that things are way better and I am not burnout any more, I still don’t feel much empathy or compassion for my dad, like I used to. Like a normal human being should. And this makes me feel really upset. What is going on with me?