You wake up in the morning, and even before coffee you open the news. One headline about the injured, another about the dead, some video that starts playing on its own without you pressing play. You scroll a bit more, maybe out of habit, maybe in an attempt to understand what is happening or out of a sliver of hope to discover something good as well. A few minutes later you close it. Not because it is not important – but because it is already too much. An hour later you return, as if something is pulling you in, even when you know you really have no space left for more. And that’s assuming you even managed to sleep more than two hours straight at night without sirens.
This does not happen only in front of the screen (small or large). A siren in the middle of a phone call, children stuck at home for four weeks already without frameworks, WhatsApp groups that never calm down for a moment – one shares a personal story, another uploads a picture of shrapnel or a crater. And slowly, you find yourself responding less, reading diagonally, skipping. Not because you have become indifferent, but because something in the ability to feel, to contain, and to be in contact with the environment has simply worn down to a thin thread.
We can call this feeling “compassion fatigue”. It may sound like a concept from some book, but in practice it is an everyday experience we all encounter – a state in which our ability to empathize with the pain and difficulty of others, to open up to it and hold it, simply reaches its limit. Not because of a lack of sensitivity, but precisely because of an excess of it.
To understand why this happens, we need to look at the broader context. We are not dealing “only” with one difficult event that has lasted three-plus weeks. We are dealing with a sequence of months – not to say years (corona, October 7, rounds, war) – of difficult news, of sirens, of ongoing uncertainty and severe disruption to routine. At the same time, life itself does not stop – there are children at home because the education system is closed, there is economic stress because work is at best unstable and at worst simply does not exist, and there is an attempt to maintain a routine within a reality that has nothing stable in it. Each of these factors on its own is a burden in itself. Together, they accumulate into something that the psyche struggles to process and withstand.
Our emotional system is not built to absorb such quantities of pain, certainly not when it arrives continuously and without interruption. In the past (try to remember when that was), encounters with suffering were usually point-based, limited in time and space. Today, we are exposed to almost everything, everywhere, at every moment. This creates a situation in which there is no breathing space between stimulus and stimulus, between one story and another, between an alert and a siren and between a fall and “the event is over”. The psyche, like any other system, also needs breaks in order to continue to function.
Not a malfunction, protection
When we do not have such breaks, various signs begin to appear. Sometimes it looks like lack of interest – you see a headline and simply move on. Sometimes it is irritability and patience that runs out faster than usual. Some people feel a decrease in the ability to be moved, and others experience flooding – but one that very quickly turns into exhaustion. In the face of all these, many people report a feeling of guilt – “How is it that I no longer respond as I used to? What does it say about me?”
The simple truth is that there is no personal malfunction here. There is a normal human response to an abnormal situation. When there is too much pain and too much difficulty, something within us begins to shut down, because our system reduces itself to the minimum necessary in order to survive. It is not that it does not want to feel, it simply cannot because it would collapse.
What is the cost?
The cost of this load is not only internal. It seeps outward into our relationships. In a couple relationship, for example, many people find themselves less patient, shorter, arguing about things that on other days would have passed them by. Not because something essential has changed in the relationship, but because each person arrives already exhausted and without emotional reserves that allow containment.
In parenting as well this is strongly felt. When children are at home for such a long time and without routine, and when the parent himself is overwhelmed – the ability to be present, calm, and containing is impaired. This can manifest in impatience, sharp reactions or simply fatigue and emotional distancing. And then guilt also arrives, adding another layer to the load and difficulty that already exist.
Beyond the daily friction, this load creates a quieter and no less painful phenomenon – loneliness within togetherness.
We can sit in the same living room, in the same safe room, when we all experience the same reality and are affected by the same news – and still feel light years away from each other. When the heart grows tired, it reduces its range of reception. Each member of the household withdraws into a small “island” of disconnection and self-protection, trying to survive his private flooding. The result is a situation in which we are physically next to each other, but lack the mental resources to bridge the distance, extend a hand or simply be truly present within the tense silence.
In relationships with friends and extended family, something quieter often happens – distancing. Less initiative and desire to meet, less desire to enter deep conversations, less ability to be there for others in general. Here too, it is not intentional disconnection, it is a narrowing in an attempt to preserve what little remains of internal resources.
So what do we do with it?
First of all, identify it.
The very understanding that this is a familiar and (very) widespread phenomenon and not just something that is happening to you, that it is not a “weakness” or a “personal problem”, already reduces some of the pressure. There is a big difference between the feeling that something in you has broken, and the understanding that you are responding reasonably to an unreasonable load.
From there, it is possible to begin making the small adjustments that are required. One of the first things to pay attention to is exposure to the news. Not complete disconnection – for most people this is neither possible nor desirable – but creating boundaries. For example, choosing certain fixed times during the day to update yourself, and avoiding continuous exposure. Giving the psyche windows of quiet.
At the same time, during those windows, it is important to create moments of physical down-regulation – simple things like breathing, movement, and going outside. The body and psyche are connected, and often the way to ease emotional load passes through the body, not through another thought. Make sure to do something for yourself every day – it can be five minutes of quiet with a cup of tea, a glass of wine on the balcony or physical activity, but be good to yourselves.
Another direction is to choose where to invest emotionally. Not every story requires a response, and not every piece of news requires involvement. You can choose one person to be in contact with at a given time, one conversation in which you are truly present. In situations of overload, limited (and chosen) depth is preferable to exhausting breadth.
And above all – allow ourselves boundaries. To recognize that it is allowed not to know everything, not to see everything, not to be available for every pain and also to take care of ourselves. This does not make us less caring. Sometimes it is what allows us to remain so.
There is something particularly complex about this period. The pain is not only present – it is also accessible and constantly present. It reaches us without us looking for it, penetrates our routine (or what remains of it), our conversations, the most personal spaces. And our psyche, despite its flexibility, cannot expand endlessly, and at a certain stage it begins to contract in order to protect itself.
If you have found yourself closing the news in the middle, skipping stories, responding less to friends and family or feeling that you simply have no more space – it is not a sign that you have become indifferent. It is a sign that you are human within a reality that places too much load on your humanity.
Not everything has to pass through us for us to remain caring people. Sometimes, in order to continue to feel – you need to know when to stop.
Or Yanir is a psychotherapist in an existentialist approach, treating in a clinic in central Tel Aviv