How do I keep going when my caregiving work goes unrecognized?

You do intensive, tender work. You hold people through the loss of a creature they loved, and you do it for low pay and little thanks. Compassion fatigue is real, and it is worse when almost no one sees or names what it takes out of you. That invisibility is its own kind of tired. So name it yourself, plainly. What you do is hard and it is good. You are often the calm hand in someone's worst hour. The fact that a paycheck does not reflect that, and that most people never notice, does not make it less true. Your own honest recognition is worth more than you think, because it is the one that is always with you. Find the few who do see it. A coworker who gets it. A patient's family who thanked you and meant it. Keep those close, because they are the proof. And guard your rest hard, since no one else will guard it for you. You cannot keep holding others up if you never let yourself be held.