Today’s blog is going to be another one of those blogs in which I take a step back from actual dog training topics. After last time’s light-hearted entry, today’s is going to be heavy. We’re going to be discussing depression, suicide, and mental health in dog communities. Whether they be volunteer, training, or veterinarian communities, we are all under very similar pressure and very similar emotional loads.
Even though this may seem heavy, it’s an important topic that needs an open discussion.
The topic of selflessness came to mind when I read this article and learned that Dr. Sophia Yin had killed herself. I won’t pretend to know what the circumstances were. The only thing I can do is speak towards how her suicide highlights statistics about the deaths of workers in the animal care community. It’s startling how rampant depression and symptoms of depression are: weight gain, anger, and constantly shifting moods to name a few. Working with dogs and other animals wears on our minds and will cause depression. It is honestly not a matter of if, but when depression will strike an animal care worker.
I see it on my Facebook and the Facebook's of friends. The anger and the sadness and the constant ups and downs of everyone. I can see it in my own Facebook activity too. When I’m feeling great I post a lot, when I’m down my posting frequency drops. I don’t necessarily express my anger online, but everyone has their own outlets.
Everything I’m describing is known as Compassion Fatigue. The dog care workers reading this know it well. And from the way I see it, it comes from two sources: implicit and explicit management of expectations.
I want to start with the explicit expectations we face in the pet care community. The explicit ones are given to us or put on us by outside forces. This is not the expectation we feel when we see an injured dog. The explicit is the pressure our groups and peers put on us. And surprisingly this is what seems easiest to manage.
I titled this blog the way I did because the idea of putting oneself first is often foreign in this field. Let’s cover dog trainers first, then we’ll move on to volunteers are other animal care workers. I emphasize to my new trainers and clients that you must take care of yourself before you can take care of anything or anyone else. I emphasize this because the way a person feels is so pervasive throughout everything else they do. Now this isn’t a new concept and I’m not pioneering new ground in psychology, but sometimes it’s good to make the obvious plain as day.
I see a person’s mood affect their training all the time. A client is feeling depressed about their week, so the dog gets away with pulling more often. Or even a client feels angry and all they want to do is yank their dog around. What would happen if the people in these examples decided not to dog train that day or reschedule the appointment and take care of their feelings?
My answer to that would be the person would end up with a dog more well trained than if they tried training angry.
Due to the pressure that I’ve put on my clients to train their dogs and the expectations I have for the client and their dog, my clients feel the need to go forward with a lesson, even when it’s not in anyone’s best interest (except my bank account, but let’s be honest, if money is what a dog trainer wanted, they wouldn’t be a dog trainer). When a session doesn’t go as planned due to these emotions, it makes me wonder why facing the anxiety of cancelling or rescheduling is worse than paying for a session that doesn’t work out well?
Let’s look at the rescue/volunteer world for a moment. The explicit pressure is from friends and other volunteers to constantly adopt, give resources, and advocate. If this community was filled with people who have infinite resources to give, then there wouldn’t be compassion fatigue caused by this. Instead we have people with a very finite amount of resources giving every last thing they have because, while the animals do need the help, they are receiving pressure from other volunteers to constantly do more.
I’m not saying that the expectation to constantly give more is a bad thing. I’m saying the way some people react to this is what can be bad. Becoming angry is such a common response to not being able to manage explicit expectations.
The implicit expectations come here. The voices in a person’s head would ask, “What would happen if I stopped giving all that I can? What would happen if I’m selfish with my resources?” The unfortunate I’ve got from asking this questions to worn out volunteers is always around the lines of “then animals will die.” What a burden these volunteers carry!
These implicit expectations are the ones inside a person’s head. They are made up more often than not because they are expectations of what people expect of them. Notice the degree of separation here. The volunteer is creating expectations based on what they they think is expected of them. If this sounds a bit convoluted, then good, because that’s exactly what compassion fatigue caused by implicit expectations is. It’s all about what the person thinks, not what is actually happening.
In reality, what would happen if I didn’t spend my last $20 on towels to donate as opposed to going out for a nice lunch? To the volunteer, in response to this I will often receive disgusted looks. The idea of spending money on themself instead of the animal is so off putting that it often induces anger.
This seems like the volunteer feeling like their own well-being is worth less than all of the animals at the shelter. The self-worth issues here will only get worse because improperly managing these implicit expectations means the volunteer will never feel satisfied with who they are and how they’re able to help. One victory, one dog saved, even in the face of thousands of what the volunteer perceives to be as failures won’t mean anything. Even though their efforts accomplished their ultimate goal, to save dogs, if they can’t do more than they are capable of, then they will never be happy.
Let’s consider the opposite scenario in which the volunteer goes out to a nice lunch with that $20 instead of buying towels. No amount of a dog trainer telling you that this will make you feel better would convince you that it is. You have to try it. That’s all I can say. Try spending $20 this week on yourself. Then next week spend $20 on the dogs, or something similarly applicable to your life. I promise, after spending some resources on yourself, you’ll feel recharged. You’ll feel like you actually matter.
My hope is that making one selfish instead of selfless decision will recharge the volunteer. It may take an hour away of time from the animals, but the next hour the volunteer will spend with the animals will be so much more productive than that previous hour filled with mismanaged expectations.
In writing this, I hope is that at least one person will decide to take care of themself. Maybe one person will realize that they are important, they are making a difference, and spending time on yourself doesn’t make you a selfish person. It makes that person someone who cares about themself.
Who knows what Dr. Yin was thinking. My thought was that she was facing a similar issue to the one this article is about. Someone with the amount of weight to carry like she did, it could be possible. I’m saying hope a lot because that’s all I can really do about this, but I hope after reading this, someone who needs help gets it. I hope this made talking about feelings and discussing mental health issues ok. I’ve had my fair share of mental health struggles and feeling alone is not helpful.
I’m not pretending like I have the answers and solutions to compassion fatigue and the mental health issues it causes. I’m hoping this starts a discussion, maybe not with me, but groups of volunteers.
If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear them here, on my Facebook, or by email at Michael@concentricdog.com.
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