“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ~ Charles Dickens.

In my blog of the same title earlier this week we talked about compassion fatigue and the warning signs you might be at risk for this form of secondary traumatic stress (STS). Today we will look at how to intervene on your own behalf or on the behalf of a professional at risk.

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“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.” ~ Emory Austin.

Anyone who has ever cared for another during an illness, following a death, during a mental illness, drug addiction, or any of the many loss scenarios that exist understand that compassion will involve fatigue and stress.

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“In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.” ~ Jeanette Winterson.

Teenagers are graduating in May and June from high school. This long anticipated date is mixed with emotion. It is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. It is a transition and transitions are dangerous, as well as profound opportunities. Transitions are also part of the path of a teen’s life journey.

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“I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~ Carl Jung

I have been thinking a lot about cancer these days. Almost half my caseload has cancer or I see children who have lost a parent to cancer or spouses with a partner with cancer. It seems like cancer is everywhere. Cancer does affect everyone.

Grief is an intimate process of a uniquely individual design initiated for the purpose of transitioning loss.

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“It was a spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather.” ~ Susanna Kaysen.

The suicide rates increase as we turn to the warmer months. They amp up in April and reach their peak in May and June. May is a peak month as schools ready to dismiss for the summer months and parents prepare for a different non-academic manner of relating. Warmer months encourage awareness of economic woes.

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“Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.” ~ Leo Buscaglia.

Abuse knows no rules, no boundaries, and does not take exception with the wealthy or the poor. Abuse doesn’t care if you are the clever one, the beauty, or the hunk down the street. Anyone can find themselves in a potentially abusive relationship. Once in one of these relationships it may place you in a trance and you may find yourself unable to extract yourself.

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“I know this: fire blooms, blooms again, marking us, dismantling what we believed inviolable. At times we can do nothing but record its stunning recklessness. Later, we sift through the ashes by hand.” ~ Nancy Reisman, House Fires.

Fossil records show that wild fires took place over 420 million years ago. Wild fires are a natural disaster. They are a phenomenon of nature and of man within nature. When our geography is wounded or destroyed a part of us is wounded as well. One plays off the other. Geography affects people and people affect the geography.

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“Widow. The word consumes itself.” ~ Sylvia Plath.

When a person loses their spouse or partner we refer to this as widowhood. A woman who loses her husband is a widow and a husband is referred to as a widower. Depending on the strength of the bond and the length of the relationship this can be a devastating loss.

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Introverts have received considerable attention recently by way of books, Internet articles, blogs, websites, and on the news. It seems that being an introvert is the thing to be.

I have been in the field of mental health for over thirty years. I was around within the field when the first discussions were up and about around introverts and extroverts. I admit I felt both definitions, in the 1960′s, left some to be desired. Neither categorization felt comfortable. After all, they were spoken about in terms of extremes. They were also personality traits, which is not to be confused with personality.

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“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe.

Many people suffer from addictions. The usual problem makers include alcohol, street drugs such as heroin, cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine. Prescription drugs compete with street drugs and these include all of the oxy’s, as in oxycodone, as well as the hydro’s, as in hydrocodone. Addictions are stubborn and they are maintained because the desired effects work.

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