Have you ever heard the phrase “live vicariously”? It is usually used in a positive context, to experience a desired goal through the life and stories of another. Maybe you’ve always wanted to go to Italy but never had the money or time. So when your best friend goes, when they return you ask her all of the questions you can think of. You look at the holiday photos longer than anyone else. You ask in-depth, lengthy questions about the sights and everything your friend witnessed.
Nurses
This is “living vicariously” – the act of fulfillment through another person’s experience.
It is an interesting phenomenon and one we, as humans, experience with some level of frequency. However, unfortunately, vicarious living does not just apply to good experiences, and people within certain professions are exposed to a very real form of mental illness – vicarious trauma.
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Vicarious Trauma And How It Works
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When you become a registered nurse or other healthcare professional, you need to be prepared for something. You may think of the position as a prestigious career that will earn you respect among your peers – and to a true extent. However, a nurse’s nine-to-five (particularly surgical nurses) is in dealing with people who are not healthy. People who are often injured or abused. Working in healthcare means dealing with people who are hurting, seeing people’s insides, and dealing with blood, feces, and death.
The job of healthcare workers is never only physical, but the things these people witness daily can have a devastating effect on the mind. Aside from the “burnout” that we frequently hear of, which is more of a persistent mental state characterized by unfulfillment and disillusionment; vicarious trauma (VT) is a condition whereby through repeated exposure to the trauma of others, the sufferer’s outlook on life changes.
People who regularly deal with abuse victims may begin to develop a fear of that same abuse. People who frequently assist injured people may become overly anxious about their safety. Where burnout is a mental condition rooted in apathy and disdain, vicarious trauma more closely mirrors PTSD, and can affect the sufferer in much the same way.
The Symptoms of Vicarious Trauma
VT, otherwise known as “compassion fatigue”, has a wide range of symptoms that, if untreated, can be devastating to the individual suffering from it.
These symptoms are capable of causing distress on just about every level of a person’s life. The emotional state of a person with vicarious trauma becomes decidedly darker, experiencing persistent and severe anger, grief, and sadness. They may also feel isolated, or unsafe in places they once had a sense of security in. In severe cases, sufferers of VT may begin to self-medicate through drugs or alcohol. They may also undergo shifts in their eating habits or sleep cycles. In extreme cases they can plunge themselves into their work, deepening the hold their trauma takes on them. People who suffer from vicarious trauma may also get more frequent headaches, as well as rashes, or ulcers. Their cognition may be impaired, becoming foggy, cynical, and unable to stop thinking about the traumas of their patients. VT Can also instill a distinct lack of hope, or faith, and foster feelings of disconnectedness from the world, or communities that previously gave the patient joy.
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Getting Your Life Back
If you are or if you know someone suffering from vicarious trauma, the truth is that no one has to go through this alone. Vicarious trauma is serious and can have catastrophic impacts on the lives of those it affects.
The first thing to do is to recognize and try to hold onto the fact that suffering this way does not mean you are weak, and it does not mean you have failed. You have been exposed to horrors that no one should have to go through, and even though it might not have happened to you, the repeated and persistent exposure to the initial trauma’s effects has taken just as significant a hold on you. Your feelings are real and valid – but they don’t have to be there forever.
The initial step for you may be to go through the Vicarious Trauma Toolkit, created by The U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime. This toolkit provides a wealth of information and resources to those suffering from this little-known form of trauma.
There Is Hope
Countless people have suffered from vicarious trauma in the world. Many of those people have healed from it and made their way back to the life they deserve. It might feel like it, but it’s important to remember that you aren’t the exception to healing. What you are going through is more difficult than most will ever know, and the journey of healing in and of itself is hard.
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However, there are resources out there for you. If other people have healed from this, you can too, and perhaps the greatest thing to draw strength from is the fact that your chosen career path demands a character of strength and persistence. The way we see it, that means you’re already better equipped than most for the healing journey. Best of luck.
References
Jimenez, R. R., Andersen, S., Song, H., & Townsend, C. (2021). Vicarious trauma in mental health care providers. Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, 24, 100451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2021.100451
Kennedy S, Booth R. Vicarious trauma in nursing professionals: A concept analysis. Nurs Forum. 2022 Sep;57(5):893-897. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12734. Epub 2022 May 8. PMID: 35478459.
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