Drained from Within: The Causes and Consequences of Burnout in Our Movement

When I was at the Animal Rights Conference recently, I was fortunate enough to sit in on a session called “Healing the Movement from Within.” This spoke to me for obvious reasons: one doesn’t need a background in social work or psychology to notice that there is a great deal of emotional pain among vegan activists and social justice-minded individuals in general and that this emotional pain can manifest in ways that create real consequences for our entire movement. How we manage this pain – or fail to do so – is writ large on social media platforms as we lash out against each other, shame one another, mistreat each other and jump to the worst possible conclusions about each other based on the merest suggestion of grounds to do so. This is not a startling insight; anyone can observe it daily.

Of particular interest to me at the panel was the contribution from Associate Professor Paul Gorski, who spoke emphatically about the serious repercussions of burnout, described by Merriam-Webster as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration,” among activists and what we are beginning to understand about its roots and consequences. The research says that burnout among social justice activists has some consistent patterns on the emotional spectrum: it can register as depression, anxiety, exhaustion, a growing sense of cynicism and hopelessness, and combinations of these things. According to Mr. Gorski, these psychological symptoms are distinct from the daily travails of life in that they are chronic and they are debilitating. If the consequences of burnout persist, they pose a threat of diminishing our normal resilience and disrupting our ability to sustain our activism, which singularly jeopardizes our potential to create meaningful change for the animals. If the symptoms persist and are not addressed, a common result is the withdrawal from activism, perhaps temporarily, perhaps irrevocably. The research also tells us that 50% to 60% of social justice activists eventually drop out of their cause.

Maybe many who leave activism would quit anyway – we all know someone who got swept up in the initial emotional rush of a social justice movement but missed the deeper connection that is needed for the long haul – but do some, perhaps many, get pushed out the door by the continual hammering away at one another that is so pervasive in our movement? While the research is still being conducted (more on that later), Mr. Gorski believes that contrary to the common assumption that burnout usually happens as a result of butting up against a society that is antagonistic to our message, it is actually hostility from within the movement – in other words, intra-movement combat in the form of in-fighting and an unwillingness to address oppressions, like sexism, racism, classism, etc. – that wreaks the biggest toll on our ability to sustain ourselves for a lifetime as contributing, effective activists. Further, according to Mr. Gorski, it is the “culture of martyrdom” - a pervasive attitude that denigrates and mocks the need for self-care within our movement - that is one of our biggest challenges to the well-being and longevity of our activists and one of the biggest sources of burnout. (From my notes taken during the panel: “We need to see self-care as part of sustaining our movement.”)

What does this mean? It means that our growth as a movement is disrupted and stunted by the streaming out of those who might ordinarily remain active if not for feeling attacked from within. It means that our ability to collaborate and help one another with reaching goals is hindered. It means that progress stagnates. It means that the entrenched, powerful forces that benefit from a disrupted, more fragmented movement – in our case, animal agribusiness and other industries that exploit and violate animals – gain even more traction as we lose precious momentum despite holding the moral high ground. It is the animals who pay the ultimate price for our unwillingness to foster fewer conditions for burnout as we continue to try to score points off of one another and disregard our innate need for connection, support and being treated with respect.

I am a longtime vegan. I don’t feel particularly vulnerable to burnout but I can tell you that I am not impervious to it, either. For example, when a hunter shows up on the Vegan Street Facebook page and says, “Mmm…bacon” or verbally attacks us, it makes no impression on me. Nothing. What causes me to lose morale, though, is meanness and vitriol from other vegans. Truly, that is what feels like a punch to the gut to me and what makes me question if my efforts are worth the abuse. I am absolutely not alone with this; I observe the internecine attacks daily and I also see people who were once active become silenced, cynical, isolated and withdrawn as they grow tired of feeling pummeled by those within their very movement. Every day, I see vegans, newbies and seasoned activists alike, treated like the worst kinds of offenders by people within the movement and I just cringe. We are all going to disagree with one another and that is essential to creating a robust and effective social justice movement. Abuse and attacks, however, lead to nothing more than a flight away from vegan activism and this has profoundly negative consequences for our bottom line, which is building a more just and compassionate world. So:

If you say things like, “You should be doing [insert form of outreach] instead of [insert different form of outreach] or you are hurting the animals,” you are fostering burnout and you are hurting the animals.

If you say things like, “Sexism [or racism, homophobia, etc.] is nothing compared to what the animals go through! Stop being a selfish whiner and making everything all about you,” you are fostering burnout and you are hurting the animals.

If you say things like, “If you’re not a real activist [in other words, in the way the person recognizes as the only legitimate way], you suck and you should just disappear,” you are fostering burnout and you are hurting the animals.

We have always had a culture of blame, shame and misdirected aggression in our movement and now with social media, it’s like it’s been doused with kerosene. The end result is that people are continuing to get burned out, giving up their activism and muting their voices for creating the positive changes that are so desperately needed.

The way out of this? The more we lend one another support out of the line of fire and model more effective strategies for communication when we see other vegans being shamed, scolded or attacked online, the more we are helping to create a strong, healthy movement of people who are not afraid to contribute. I have no research to back this up but my guess is that connection and community are our best tools for sustaining and building our activist base. We are not robots: the human animal craves connectivity and community, which fosters a meaningful life of participation and altruism, believed by researchers to be more valuable than a happy one.

This isn’t rocket science. Want to help the animals? Don’t contribute to the burnout of other vegans. (By the way, if you would like to participate in research on activist burnout, please consider contacting Paul Gorski.)