I Care Enough: Coping Through Humour and Knowing Your Limits

Caring for someone you love can be exhausting, but what if that exhaustion isn't a personal failing, just the natural cost of showing up again and again? In this presentation from our CPD-Accredited 20th Anniversary Compassion Fatigue Conference, 20 Years of Compassion – Navigating with Purpose, comedian and storyteller Tracy Hamilton offers a warm, refreshingly honest take on caregiving, and why it was never meant to be all-or-nothing.

In "I Care Enough: Coping Through Humour and Knowing Your Limits", Tracy draws on a lifetime of caregiving, including supporting a parent with Alzheimer's while carrying real responsibility with little control. Rather than handing out advice or another self-improvement checklist, she talks about discernment: figuring out where your care matters most and trusting yourself to spend your energy there. With warmth, candour, and a bit of dark humour, she reframes compassion fatigue as part of the reality of caring, not something to judge yourself for, in a talk that celebrates endurance, boundaries, and the quiet achievement of still showing up.

A Toronto-based stand-up comedian, Tracy brings a conversational style and cheerful sarcasm that put any room at ease. She has performed at festivals across North America, filmed two nationally televised galas for the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, and appeared on CBC's The Debaters and Laugh Out Loud. She's also a published poet and personal essayist who has toured her critically acclaimed storytelling show, I'm Actually Right About Everything.