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Shared Voice by 10-42 Project, A First Responder Podcast
"Shared Voices"
The 10-42 Project is a faith-based resource and refuge organization dedicated to supporting first responders. We equip individuals with essential mental health tools, restore hope during times of crisis, and guide people toward a renewed purpose through the everlasting love of Jesus.
Shared Voice by 10-42 Project, A First Responder Podcast
When trauma keeps coming. A community in healing with Jess Machado
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The silent epidemic ravaging our first responder community takes center stage in this raw, unfiltered conversation with Jess, an 18-year law enforcement veteran from California. Her story unfolds against a backdrop of unimaginable loss – five officer suicides in her jurisdiction within a devastatingly short timeframe, including colleagues she worked with daily. Despite California's relative wealth of resources for first responder mental health, the deadly stigma surrounding help-seeking remains deeply entrenched.
What makes this conversation uniquely powerful is Jess's perspective as a female officer navigating the male-dominated world of law enforcement. She articulates the distinct challenges women face in the profession while offering crucial insights into how gender influences trauma processing. As both she and her husband serve in law enforcement while raising their children, Jess reveals how parenthood fundamentally transformed her emotional responses to traumatic calls involving kids – creating a vulnerability that many officers struggle to acknowledge.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring the physical manifestations of trauma. Jess describes feeling distinct sensations in her chest when triggered, while fellow guest Jake identifies a knot in his stomach as his body's early warning system. These somatic responses represent critical early intervention opportunities that many first responders miss until they're already in crisis. Their candid sharing offers listeners practical tools for recognizing their own trauma responses before they become overwhelming.
Perhaps most hopeful is Jess's observation about the newest generation of officers coming through the academy where she teaches. Unlike their predecessors, these recruits demonstrate a refreshing willingness to discuss mental health concerns openly – potentially transforming department cultures from within as they advance in their careers.
Whether you're a first responder, love someone who is, or simply care about the well-being of those who protect our communities, this conversation offers rare insight into the true cost of service and the urgent changes needed to support those who sacrifice so much. Listen, share, and join the 10-42 Project's mission to break the stigma around first responder mental health before we lose another hero to suicide.
If you or someone you know is in crisis and at risk of self-harm, please call or text 988, the suicide and crisis lifeline.
To contact us directly send an email to Dan@10-42project.org or call 515-350-6274
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Introducing Jess: Female Law Enforcement Perspective
Speaker 1Welcome back to the Shared Voices podcast from the 1042 Project. This is the founder and the director of the 1042 Project, Dan Deffenball, and welcome Introduce you all to kind of covering the globe here, Well, at least part of the United States anyway. We got Jake from Iowa. He's an Iowa boy, local boy. We have Jess from she's a California girl out there, but she ain't no sissy California girl. She kick your butt, California girl. But her and her husband I'm wearing the badge, wear the badge. I'll let her tell her story.
Speaker 1But I really wanted to bring her on, Jess, because we don't bring on enough females to talk about the female side of the first responder world. You know, and I'm smart enough to know to not pretend to tell women what to do or how to go through their career as a guy, as a guy. So we're really wanting to grow our organization and grow that. They can, you know, have a group to lean on as well, Because in our organization we like to. This is just because I know hurt people hurt people and I want to be very careful with the first responders that come to our organization or ambassadors of our organization that we keep it male help male, female helping female when we're, when we're matching up people that are struggling and mentors and stuff, because I just it's. It gets messy when you, when you don't. So we really need to build up our female community.
Speaker 1So, if're listening, you're a first responder in the Midwest. Reach out to us. We would love to be one of our ambassadors. We need your help. We need your help. Start the and build the community up to the powerhouse Life-changing. Thank you for joining us, Jess. I'm going to tell us a little bit about you, your family and where you're working us. A little bit about you, your family and where you're working. A little bit of your history, because I think it's kind of fascinating. You and your husband both do this job and what a unique thing to have both parents. It's got to be unique for your kids to have both parents you know, kicking butt, saving lives and making names.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I've been in law enforcement this is my 18th year and started off patrol like everybody does when you go into law enforcement at a local sheriff's office. So broke worked in a very rural area even though it's California, there is rural areas out here. So sometimes my nearest backup, 40 minutes away, there was areas I worked. Where I was, that was me. I was the deputy 40 miles or 40 minutes at least, had some sticky moments, learned to hold my own. I'm only 5'2 so I'm not super tall or anything by any means. But met my husband on the job about 14 years ago. Friend of ours thought he'd be a good fit. He was right. He asked us to name our first child after him and my first child was a girl. So that didn't happen. But he worked for a state agency. My husband's only got a couple more years before he retires if he wants to, but he's in investigations now, so he's not on the road anymore oh good funny enough.
Speaker 2I don't think our kids really remember us on the road um. My daughter might have remembered very oh really yes, I was always at investigation unit after she was born, um, and she's going to be 12. So, and my husband was an investigator.
Speaker 2That's the blessing yeah, so when they see a patrol car they don't think that that's what we do. Um, I'm in the. I'm in the DA's office now, so I'm inside um working cases from the angle with the attorneys and going to court a lot more. Um, I also testify as a domestic violence expert in our cases. So my kids sometimes don't, they don't think I'm a cop. Sometimes that's a little hurtful, but that's fine. Whatever, you know, I don't, I don't. I don't let the ego there, but what do they think you are?
Speaker 1I don't. What do they think you are?
Speaker 2I have no, they don't think I'm an attorney, so I know that much. I don't know.
Speaker 2So I, my son, is like you don't you don't drive a patrol car and I'm like it's still a cop car, it's just undercover, it's unmarked and but and then teaching at the academy as well. I do that with the recruits with certain classes that I can obviously help with and then try to help, especially some of the female recruits that ended up from the academy going into law enforcement I still stay in touch with, so we still talk and actually, speaking of females in the law enforcement community, I've talked to a couple of the females, some that graduated last class and that graduated the class before. We're talking about possibly organizing something to where our incoming recruits that are female because there's a lot of questions that come up with going through the academy as a female that don't have to deal with. So some of those things that we're going to possibly put a group together where we sit down with the new recruits and explain to them things that they need to know specifically to be helpful for them.
Speaker 1So how long have you been in the academy then?
Speaker 2I started in 2019. So we're called adjunct teachers, so we just come in for like a four hour block here and then I had yesterday. I did a four hour block. I'll come back in a month do another four hour block and then, um, I teach again towards the end. Um, and it's going to be more investigative style is what I'm teaching, so the investigations on specific crimes, not just general law enforcement stuff.
Speaker 1So, but it's mostly the book stuff, um, yeah, that's what I teach the nerd stuff, yeah, the stuff that most cops don't want to sit down for, but they need. They need more than anything, is that part of it. But we just want to go on.
Speaker 2We just want to go out and kick in doors and yeah, yeah I have to explain them before they can kick in those doors, those doors. There are certain things I have to explain them before they can kick in those doors. There are certain things they have to do first before that can happen.
Speaker 1Other doors you got to open first, right, yeah, yeah, well, cool, well, that's awesome and you are. So I think what's interesting, you're out in California and we are, and here we are in Iowa, but yet really, and it's two completely different states and your guys' crime rate's probably higher than ours, but still it's kind of the same setting as Iowa, meaning that your backup's a long ways away, like this isn't like LA where you just turn around and there's a cop every 13 feet, right, I mean yeah, where you just turn around, there's a cop every 13 feet, right, I mean you, yeah, so you, so the people listening, especially the iowa we have listeners listening all over, but the iowa people, man, yeah, she can relate to what that's like to to be out there on your own and and really learn how to use verbal judo. You know, yeah, to talk, talk things down. That's the seems like in rural iowa. That's the key the power of the lips, right?
Speaker 2Yes, very much so, Very much so.
Speaker 1So we had talked and I know you're passionate about first responders, mental health, and you're passionate about people getting help, getting rid of the stigma that's behind it all. You're tired of seeing people dying, just like I am, and I know you're hard on it because I got to hear you talk about it. But explain to me why I already know. But explain to our listeners why you're so passionate about it. Because when you shared with me the situation out in your area over the last I forget the timeline, year or two, maybe less, I forget what it is but when you told me what's been going on out there, it kind of really surprised me that there was that many issues.
Jess's Career Journey and Family Life
Speaker 1And we're talking about suicides for first responders, because California, florida and the East Coast you guys have have. You still don't have enough, but you have the most resources of first responder, inpatient, outpatient retreats and all this stuff because we're sending people out to california all the time for treatment. Um, so are we not getting enough treatment out there? Are people not utilizing it or is there just more to the picture? We haven't figured out yet to stop this, because and I'll let you tell the numbers, but I believe it's somewhere around five suicides that had happened. But can you tell me, tell us a little bit about that and because I know that's you've always had a heart for it, but that's one thing that's really triggered you lately, where you're like tired of it, you're ready for some change.
Speaker 2So tell us about that yeah, so working actually on patrol at the time. I I was a detectives, I think, at the time when, um I first started seeing more of a pattern. Um, but to kind of start at the beginning, my daughter so my daughter's born in 2013. So 2014,. It would have been January 10th of 2014. Um, I had learned my former FTO, who was no longer in law enforcement, some mental health issues. Um ended up committing suicide. I was actually on my way it was actually the 9th, I'm sorry, because I was on my way to my best friend's wedding in a different area. So it was the night before her wedding when I got a phone call and we knew he had issues. But it was one of those things, I think he what. Luckily, we had a really good sheriff at the time and he was trying to help him. But you can only help people that want the help.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2And it just kind of got to the point where they couldn't help. Wasn't I guess he wasn't taking the help? And you don't think much of it. You think, ok, that's one in my career. You know, in this job I knew it was bound to happen. But 2018, we ended up having a local police department. They had a officer who committed suicide and at the time I didn't understand. I felt like a bad person and later on I go back and tell my buddy, who I was very close with at that police department. I had to profusely apologize to him, which he understood. But at the time when everything happened with that officer, it was an off-duty incident. He went out early in the morning and committed suicide and nobody really knew that he was fighting these demons, that he was fighting, um. But my department got put in charge of doing the investigation just to make sure there was no, it is a suicide.
Speaker 1It wasn't, uh, suspicious yeah, and at the time the police department was kind.
Speaker 2Yeah, they were kind of treating it like an in-line-of-duty death. They were watching over the body the 24 hours around the clock. An officer stood by him and I kind of didn't understand it at the time because I'm like, well, it's not an in-line-of-duty death. This is me being extremely naive. And about a year later we had one of our own from my department commit suicide um so this is the third one this would be number three.
Speaker 2So this is, under the same circumstances. Uh, as kind of the, as kind of the one in 2018 from the neighboring city. Um, a lot more fam. It wasn't necessarily the job itself. There was some job aspects that were coming up, but a lot of it was stemming from family life. But I think they just clenched. They were trying to help him. The agency was actually doing a really good job trying to help him, but, again, I think the stigma was always there and he was a former Marine when he came in, so the stigma was always there for him. So I think that might have been harder to take the help, but he, from what I understood, he was very much taking help and trying, but I think it just got too overwhelming. So when my friend died, I went to my buddy who worked at the agency.
Speaker 2That I was like well, why are you guys treating this as an inline of duty death. Then I understood. I understood and I apologized to him because he came from this police department and came to our sheriff's office and helped us with and we brought Tom back from Bakersfield, um, and we did the procession and he came and he was right there and he was helping us organize everything because we were falling apart and I profusely apologized to him and I profusely thanked him for everything he's done and him and I bonded very. We were very, we still are, we're still very close. And then, about a month later, we had a murder suicide. It was one of their officers from the same police department that lost the gentleman in 2018. They had a murder suicide.
Speaker 2I just came back from a family, well, that lost the gentleman in 2018. They had a murder suicide. I just came back from a family trip with my husband and I got a phone call and they said, hey, are you able to come out? And I said it's an officer who was killed. I said, yeah, I'll be out there, find out who the officer is. And then we found out the person who killed him was also another officer, um, off duty at a party. Um, the suspect was trying to do some harm to his girlfriend and, and jonathan was the officer that was killed. He saved, he saved her. He saved her life um, got her out of there. She ended up being. She survived, um, thank god. Yeah, he was in the process of killing her. If jonathan would have walked in, he she probably would have been dead, um. So he saved her life, but he paid the ultimate sacrifice for saving her life, um. So then we we had two there.
Speaker 2At that point I was like I don't, I don't really want to be on patrol anymore. I need to go into an office setting. I need to kind of get away from all this. I want to help, but this is breaking my heart and it's too much.
Speaker 2Memories being at that department my old department is fantastic. They handled everything super, super well. They did absolutely nothing wrong. They did everything they were supposed to do for us. I just it was just memories. So I left, and when I started my new agency last year we ended up having a suicide. So I kind of left thinking that, okay, we're all in the office, we're not out in the field, we're not being reintroduced to trauma every single day in our jobs like we were when we were out in the field. And then we had another one. So and this was a person who our agency is very small, not a very big agency within the cops, and so we know each other very well and I got to know him and he helped me through some tough times, um, you know, kind of changing job focus and how things work and, um, being newer to the county that I'm in now, and so that I, I, we all, our whole agency took it very hard when that happened.
Speaker 1I can only imagine that's talking about devastating to the community. That is five in a very short period of time.
Speaker 2Yeah, we also have.
Speaker 1I can imagine what that was like to go through.
Speaker 2Yeah, we also had another officer. I did not know him. My husband actually went to. He actually worked with him beforehand when they worked like their civilian job. My husband, he worked for a local agency within the county even now and he committed suicide, I believe in April of 2023, on duty. He was on duty when it happened.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh. Yeah, how far is that from where you live.
Speaker 2So actually, from where I live it's only about 30 minutes, but from where I work it's within the same county, so it's about 15 minutes from where my, like our big city is.
Impact of Suicide in Law Enforcement
Speaker 1Wow, so that's six. Yes, are there any other ones that you've heard about that? We don't know that you haven't.
Speaker 2You know I I'm trying to think of, like the more surrounding areas. There might have been a few, but I know that Well, like kind of around.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's a lot. I do think our people are pretty resilient and we do have people who want to help, but I still think, like you said, I think the stigma is still there with a lot of us, a lot of old schoolers. Um, I think I told you, dan, I think we are trying to change things, but the real change is going to come with all these kids that are just I call them kids because I feel like they're my children the ones that are graduating the academy, the ones that are going into law enforcement right now. I think they're going to actually be the real change. They're going to be a real change in this.
Speaker 1I do too I think Jake would agree, like so, when I go to the academy now, when I go to the academy now, I've never seen such a young group that has no issue talking about their mental health. It is so refreshing. And it's not all of them, but I'm just comparing them to like our generation, right, like I went through the Academy 25 years ago, nobody talked about any of this stuff. But now it's amazing, this younger generation is more open to it. They don't look down on it, they don't judge people on it and really I've noticed and I encourage them to do so a lot of them are kind of leading the change in their departments the younger ones of just talking about it openly around the table and and just kind of starting their own change. I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2I agree with you yeah, I, I see it. I see it just because, especially, like you know, when we would go on these calls that were pretty horrific, we literally cleared the call and go to the next. I think I told you, dan, we had an incident where we had a little boy that drowned. I was in the office, I was working background, so I was just getting ready to leave and I heard the call over the radio and my buddy, who was a sergeant at the time. I knew he was busy and I called him. I said don't got to say anything. All I'm asking you is you do you need me to go to the hospital and meet the deputy that's driving these, this mom and dad, to the hospital? And because I said he's by himself, he goes, yes, go. So I drove to the hospital, I met that deputy to make sure he was not by himself with these grieving parents.
Speaker 2Little boy ultimately died. He, I, we were actually the parents were in a room while myself and the other deputy were basically at the bedside of this child and watched, watched it and my sergeant showed up because he knew the family and we brought them in to say goodbye and my sergeant had to physically grab the child from them and take him out into the corner van, because it just how everything was going it was. There was no way we were gonna be able to get how we normally do everything. It wasn't to work that same way, and I mean literally call was done, okay, everyone, go home. Go home, have a good night. Um, and I remember a couple of days later I have a fence around my pool, don't?
Speaker 2be late tomorrow. I have a fence around my pool and my kids were little. They were little. We were outside playing. The fence is secure. I knew they can't get in and all of a sudden I started feeling really hot and my heart started beating and I was like what is going on with me? I'm like they can't get in the pool. They can't. I'm right here. And I realized later it was my anxiety because we'd just gone through that and it's a trauma I had, because I saw this little boy and I thought he had a heartbeat because it kept going, that he had a rhythm. And I go oh, look, they're bringing him back. And the nurse comes up to me and she puts her hand on my shoulder and she goes honey, that's just us doing CPR. I go what?
Speaker 2And she's like no, he's, he doesn't have a pulse. That's our, our, us moving his. And I went and that's when it like hit me. So when I got home I kind of brought that home, not realizing I brought that home you had mentioned.
Speaker 1When you were saying that and Jake probably caught it too you said you felt it in your chest. Um, jake was telling me uh, um, one of his counselor, what somebody was talking to, but he learned that there's signals in your body that are our earliest triggers, that if you learn, you can find them, and and I don't know if this is exactly what you were talking about, but, jake, where you tell me a little bit about it, I feel like I got kicked in the stomach.
Speaker 3It's like a knot, like a big knot, like right below my rib cage, in my like, in my stomach, is the the first sign that I'm having a response or an activation? Personally and I learned that from a trauma coach, actually, who does uh somatic, uh somatic processing work, and it was for me immensely beneficial just to figure that out, because prior to that I was just oblivious to what any of those sensations meant at all yeah, for our listeners.
Speaker 1The reason why we're talking about this is because the sooner we can notice the triggers in our body that's reacting, the sooner we can identify them, the sooner, the sooner we know what we're fighting against and what we can. Now. We can put in our we can, we can start to use the, the coping mechanisms. We have the safe coping mechanisms. We have to kind of de-escalate it. Go for a walk, run whatever it may be, pray and but um, but jess, or is that right? So do you feel it in your chest first? Is that what yours is?
Speaker 2yeah, definitely I'll never, even now, talking about it. It kind of brings it back. I remember that very well, very, very busy you feel it.
Speaker 1You still feel it today, like, yeah, I can still feel my heart rate a little bit.
Speaker 2It's going up, but I can remember it clear as day, like clear as day feeling, and I'm like what's wrong with me? Why am I, you know, doing this so?
Speaker 3I uh during during my career, I unfortunately uh attempted cpr on three infants and and failed all three times, and so you're telling the story three infants and and failed all three times.
Speaker 2And so you're telling the story.
Speaker 3I mean it didn't work. I didn't bring it back. Um, and the story you just told, I've had, I've, I've lived that exact story, uh, with a few minor details, but that exact thing. But as you're telling the story, I'm feeling, I'm like all right, that's, that's hitting me, that's triggering me a, a little bit too.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it's weird because of all the things you see, and I know it sounds corny a little bit, but it's things with kids that really get to you, um, and I never really had these issues until I had my own, and that's when it happened.
Speaker 3Yeah, yep, I 100%, I would agree five years ago and I so I'd been an officer for I don't know a little while, but yeah, that changed everything. And then, when you know, we brought our, our son, home and I could not stop watching him because two of the two of the three were cases, which is just yes, no one knows what causes, and so it created this massive level of anxiety. I put a camera on him. We got a pulse ox, like the outlet pulse ox Like I don't think I slept for a year just because I'm so worried about it.
Speaker 2Yeah, my a little extra for my son, who's just extra in life, my daughter's oldest he's very extra and he was extra from day one, so he was born at 35 weeks.
Speaker 2I mean, he literally just punched his way into the world and so, yeah, that was a very he was very dynamic, but when he was delivered he was not breathing. So I just remember, because when my daughter was born she was a screamer Like I'm like, oh, she's fine, he wasn't. I just remember looking at my husband saying he's not, he's not crying, he's not crying, he's not crying. They get him onto the elevator still not crying. They said the minute they got him into the elevator he started crying.
Speaker 3He's like seriously but he had to have the c-pap.
Speaker 2He had to have all that. He was in the NICU for six days.
Speaker 1You don't, and you don't forget that. You don't forget those images when my second child, Andrew, was born. He was. He was born in the hospital. We were told he was fine. And then we're we're getting ready to go home, we got the bags packed, we're getting ready to walk out, We've got the bags packed, we're getting ready to walk out of the hospital. They come up and check Andrew one more time and they hear something weird. Weird with his heart. And next thing we knew they were.
Speaker 1They were rushing him to a surgery in Iowa city, um two hours away, and his heart was apparently built backwards. It's called transposition of the great arteries, where his heart was flipped. So instead of the main arteries coming in this side and then coming in this side and out this side, his heart was flipped so they crossed and he had a big hole in the middle of his heart. So it was all like purple blood. So they didn't think he was going to live. So they took him there and did an open heart surgery on him and again we thought we were going home.
Speaker 1Man, we balled all the way to Iowa city so we had to. We stay at the Ronald McDonald house for a long time where Andrew was recovering and we lost. They apparently lost him on the surgery room but they got him back and we just seen your kid in those NICUs with all those tubes. It's like once you go through that, being a parent's hard enough, Then when you go through that, then when you go on these calls it's like can be crippling. It was for me.
Speaker 2For sure.
Trauma Triggers and Physical Responses
Speaker 3For sure my my can be crippling. It was for me, for sure, for sure, my my, sorry so, my second son no, I almost forgot about this, which is probably speaks to the amount of therapy I've done. But uh, he was born with a, his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice. And the only reason, the only reason it didn't do any permanent damage is for some reason the umbilical cord was like twice as long as it's supposed to be. The doc, the delivering doctor, said she she'd been doing this for I don't know 20 years or whatever. She said I've never seen an umbilical cord that long. Call it a jump, a jump man. It was. I mean, it was crazy. But when he but when he popped out, so he started to uh, what do they call that? His oxygen started it. What do they call it d cell? Or in the womb, okay, ready to deliver. You know, my wife would start pushing and he was. I think they call it d cell, right, like, or something like that he started his eyes I don't know.
Speaker 1That's a battery that I used in flashlights back in the day.
Speaker 3The big old mag light. Yeah, but so then they all freaked out. So then you know, everyone comes rushing in with carts and gloves and everything and I'm standing in the corner and I'm feeling all the I mean I was having essentially a panic attack internally. While that was going on Popped out and then that was the reason, and then he's just fine, like he's just fine, like he's just fine, but he's just fine. But it was just that moment. That moment was not just fine.
Speaker 2No, I'm guessing he's the one that keeps you on your toes.
Speaker 3No, he's actually a lot more mellow. The first our oldest you talk about being extra. My five year old is extra, like extra, needs attention, attention all the time, never stops talking. But my younger son, he'll just like do his own thing.
Speaker 2Yeah, funny.
Speaker 1It's a different pain when it's your kids, man. It's a different pain. It just is. You know, what's awesome about parenthood is you kind of learn a little bit about the love of Jesus, what God has for us. Think about how much we love our kids and the things we would do for them, how much more he loves us. We can't even fathom that when you become a parent. In my opinion, it helped build a relationship with Christ because you kind of get that parent-father-child relationship. Die for your kids at any cause, protect them at any cause, but yet you still want to discipline them and make sure they're not turning into Jake's or Dan's.
Speaker 2I just want to be good people. That's all my. That's all. My goal is at this point Be good people, be kind, don't. Don't go to jail, yeah.
Speaker 1Yes. So question for you, jess. Maybe this is a stupid question. I love asking stupid questions, just so you know I didn't used to. I used to be embarrassed to ask them, but I love. Have you noticed that the female, do female officers told you to be stupid? Do female officers? Do you see the female officers and male officers process trauma differently and have a different?
Speaker 2vision or a different view of the stigma.
Speaker 1Or is it the same? I truly don't know.
Speaker 2Sometimes I think that there is a difference only because, I mean, you guys know this, we like to talk, women like to talk, and most females not not all, but most females in the job we have our core group of friends are out of the job. Uh, I have two female friends in law enforcement. The rest are from high school, um. So, and one of my friends from high school she's I see her more often because she still lives here and, um, she's very understanding, which is great. She's actually gone on ride alongs with me so she is easier to talk to her about these things, because she knows these things are going to be a little more traumatic than what she's dealing with. But she gets that I need to talk to somebody. I think a lot of guys, guys, my personal opinion is you, you form a friendship within law enforcement and then you kind of make that your core group of friends, which don't I don't think anybody any but male or female shouldn't do that um, you need to have some outside friends. But no right.
Speaker 2I just you need to have other people to bring you out of the cop talk and all that jazz, but I think just women are more willing to talk about our feelings and about how we're feeling, and guys have always been taught, you know, I think that's also another stigma is, women are taught, you know, we can talk about our feelings, but we need to be kind, we need to always be courteous, we always need to be, um, you know, kind of kind of that way where men are taught you don't cry, you don't talk about things, you don't talk about your feelings, um, so I think there is a difference with how we process it, just with how our upbringing is.
Speaker 2Um, I know I'm saying I'm a lot because I'm trying to think I. I do see, though, that we, like, when we went through our stuff, I was probably one of the only two females at the time that really knew a lot of these people, um, in my department. So the nice thing was these guys, we all kind of responded the same way, and they knew we knew we could talk to each other and we knew we can be very brutally honest. I knew I just needed to go cry, I can. One of the guys would follow me out and be like let's go, let's go get some coffee, and we just literally drive around and I would just cry and then he would cry, that's just you had said this to me before that and I think that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1Cool. You really praised your department for how well they have each other's backs, support each other, you know, understand the mental health side of it, right yeah, my, the sheriff's office, especially where I came from.
Parenting Challenges for First Responders
Speaker 2The sheriff was amazing. Um, he was fully on board with when. When we lost tom, he's like, look, whatever you need, whatever you need, and he actually relayed to one particular sergeant who's a friend of mine, because he knew that sergeant was going to never say who said what, never going to give names, and so he became like the liaison with our HR department.
Speaker 2And so he just call and say, hey, I have somebody going to an appointment, this is a day and time. And no name was given, not nothing. He actually went and met with a therapist first that we were using, and she actually called him out and said you're here to vet me, aren't you? So how did you know your guys's debrief? Everyone was looking at you wow so yeah, so he took on the role um, so he's not like that everywhere, yeah, that changes he's.
Speaker 2He's a very important person in my life. He had to medically retire. Um, he was a go-getter. I worked with him for a very long time and he was very hyperactive, um, but he got injured on the job and he had to medically retire. But I mean through and through one of the best people on the planet that I've ever met, and he will literally give you the shirt off his back. So that was just his personality.
Speaker 1That's cool.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really cool. That was not my experience at either department I worked for, unfortunately, really.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1That was not my experience at either department I worked for, unfortunately, really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3I've told Dan this story, but in 2019, a friend of mine another cop was involved in a shooting where he got hit in the face multiple times with CO2 pell. Co2 pellet pellet rounds like little metal beam from point blank and I was the first one to get there and uh and and help him and his it. I mean at the time we didn't thank God it was a pellet gun and not an actual gunner. You know he would not he wouldn't have made it.
Speaker 3But, uh, it looked. It looked the same, I mean it. Just his face is covered in blood and he had the most in the most, fear I've ever seen on a person's face, um, and he asked me if he was gonna make it. And I had to, I did, had to. Well, I didn't end up lying to him, but in the moment I didn't know and I had to just decide to say, yeah, I think, yeah, you're gonna be fine. I can hear the ambulance coming, um, but uh, so then from there, that was that was the first 10 minutes of my shift that day, and from there I was just given an order to go take calls, because it was, it was a midsize department and an incident like that takes up all a lot of our staffing resources, and so I spent the rest of the you know the rest of my shift call to call.
Speaker 3I worked in a pretty busy town and and most of our calls we would send two officers on, but it was just me. I went to domestics by myself. I went to, I mean, I. That was normal where you were. It was not normal for me. Uh, none, nothing about that day was normal, and so I was just counting down the minutes until I could leave.
Speaker 3And then I got the order to go to the hospital and sit with the suspect who he had, he had he had shot her. Uh, and I, that's, I mean I, I, I freaked out, I and prior to this I was like an officer of the year, like I had all this extra duty stuff. I, I mean, I was my, my career was thriving. I'd never been disciplined, I never, never even voiced an opinion different than than command. And I drove to the station and freaked, just freaked out. And, uh, and my Lieutenant and Sergeant at the time, just they, they waited until I stopped and they said, are you done? And I was like, yeah, and they're like, then go to the hospital, and that was it. And so I had to go and sit with her at the hospital for another four hours after that. And now, looking back, that's where that's where my PTSD started. It's not the only but that. That looking back, uh, that's where that's where my ptsd started. It's not the only but that.
Speaker 2That's the culture, that that's the culture I came from, and that was that was like normal where I worked see, and it's crazy because I think about, like I, when you're talking about situation, when you're telling what's happening, I was like, okay, how would my, my old department because again I'm not on the streets anymore, but taking myself back to the sheriff's office when I worked there what would my sheriff, what would he have done? We have jail staff. We're lucky and fortunate for that. They would have sent jail staff to go watch, and actually most of them like doing that over time, so they would have sent jill's uh, jail staff to go do that. Um, she probably would have called in another shift. He would have called in the next day shift or maybe a shift that's completely off, or we've done this before um, when we went to funeral for our funeral for tops and things like that, because he didn't want to stop anybody from going is we'll have the neighboring cities come and cover the calls yeah, that's what he would have done that.
Speaker 3I've heard of that happening, but this day it just Wow. Nobody cared, nobody ever even asked to this day.
Speaker 1So, jess, when you were starting your career and going through it, did you early on, did you struggle with it right away? Did you struggle with your mental health or are you doing fine? Tell us a little bit about your journey through your career. What was it like?
Speaker 2Yeah, so where I saw the switch I think I said it before is when kids came along. I was, in my career, single. I mean, of course, my mom was always scared to death. Again, I'm an only child, so that was a lot.
Speaker 2Um, my parents were always my dad never voiced a whole lot, but, um, I took my mom on a ride along, um, scared her at one point, didn't mean to it, just it just happened. I don't know, things happen, um. And then my dad went with me when I did some overtime detail on us. It was like a click at her ticket thing and and my dad actually helped me catch one of my P's Like hey, look that kid's standing up in that car. So my dad secretly wanted to always be a cop.
Speaker 2So at the beginning I didn't have I don't think I noticed it, maybe because, again, it was ingrained in us not to show our feelings and not talk about things. And it wasn't really ingrained in us not to show our feelings and I'll talk about things and um, it wasn't really ingrained in that point. So I think I was just living day to day, um, and I'm trying to look back and think of anything really flagged and I think it mostly started flagging once I had kids yeah and I started seeing it's not just about me anymore If something is to happen to me, like now.
Speaker 2I've got two other human beings that are depending on me. So I think that's where it really started to kick in. It took a while before it really hit. I think it some people hits really early in their career, depending on what you go through. Some people it's later in their career.
Gender Differences in Processing Trauma
Speaker 2Most of the stuff that I've gone through was mostly later in my career, which in a way, I kind of thank God for that, because I had a little bit of a foundation. But I know there's people that have been in their first shooting, their first week on FTO, and I'm like I don't know how you, that's a really hard comeback. Yeah, there's someone who's just starting. You know, if you've been in this career 10 years and you get in a, that's a really hard comeback through someone who's just starting. Um, you know, if you've been in this career 10 years and you get in a shooting, that's usually you can handle a little bit better than someone who's been in one week. So I really do think it's how, when and how all these trauma events happen. I think now they're coming earlier in people's career than they used to, for sure.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I think that a lot of it has to do with untreated childhood trauma. I know it was for me, I know it was for Jake, you know it's just a lot of it is trauma that we're not aware of or we are aware of and we're running from and taking care of before we start our career. So we're carrying all that baggage right into our mess and we just try to keep coping and keep coping. Yeah.
Speaker 2And I think some people yes, some people come in with trauma already. Um, I learned this from teaching at the academy. I felt absolutely terrible. But, um, I also teach sexual assault, so I I kind of I have to have role players that are, that are cadets. I don't have the ability to have role players come in. I would love to change that. But sometimes I have to use the cadets and I felt terrible because I actually had picked a role player, realizing that that person had childhood trauma that involved what I was teaching. And after I figured that out now I immediately the first two seconds of class, I explained to them what we're going to be doing and I explained to them if you get this yellow sticky note on your desk and you do not feel comfortable, please tell me on the next break that you do not feel comfortable and I want to have any questions and I'll move on.
Speaker 2Learned Lesson learned Smart. Don't ever want to all move on.
Speaker 1Learned lesson learned Smart.
Speaker 2Ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1Yeah, you're not there to trigger them.
Speaker 2Right and so I learned very quickly. But I I'm not trying to boast, but I was very fortunate I had a great childhood, my parents are fantastic people. My mom and I are still very close. She's probably my best friend I you know my parents are very involved with my children. They probably see my kids twice, maybe three times a week. They live about a mile or two from me.
Speaker 1They don't live that far. That's awesome, that's great.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I didn't have that kind of trauma coming in, but I know that some of my coworkers did, so I do think that plays a factor.
Speaker 3Yep, Definitely a part of my story, and exactly what you were talking about was was a part of my childhood too. I and I, I came into law enforcement having never told a soul and I, I wish, I, I wish I had.
Speaker 1I have now it's.
Speaker 3I've let go of it for the most part now, but I could see how that would have been difficult for that cadet for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So we talked, we talked, we talked. Trust me, and I told her not to ever. Whenever she wants to tell her, he wants to tell their story. That is their decision.
Speaker 2They do not need to be ever be pressured to tell their story and they never have to. But I also think I told that cadet, I said this may give you the drive to go a specific direction in law enforcement. And they told me yes. So it sounds horrible to say, but I think with you guys, even though you had those traumas in childhood, it gave you a purpose when you came into law enforcement.
Speaker 1God didn't want us to go through those hard times. You know, god gives humans free will because he has to give us free will, or it wouldn't be love If we were forced to love him. That's when we programmed robots right. He gives us. He gives us that free will, but there's a cost that comes with that free will and people get very. People can be very ugly to each other, and that's why we need God, that's why we need Jesus, because we we fall short of that on our own. What were you going to say, jake?
Speaker 3Oh, for me, I, I quickly realized I needed to stay away from those types of cases when I was a cop, because I would get, I would get too, too angry at the suspect and not I mean, you can't be an effective cop if you're, if you're, if your own emotions are involved, you know, of any kind, but especially anger, you know it's I, I, I, I'm sure, had I had I gone into, you know, especially the investigative side of a child, child sex crimes, I would have, you know, been doing things like you know you're guilty, before I even really investigate it. And I'm going to try to charge you with every single thing I can, even if it doesn't. You know I could. I just knew that I shouldn't do that and I and I did. I didn't.
Speaker 2for that reason, no-transcript the child, but then somebody else talks to the suspect.
Department Support During Crisis
Speaker 3We did that all the time yeah, you're probably right, but that was my take is I just I'll focus on other things yeah, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1Self-control and self-knowledge. You they frown when you beat the piss out of them, so it's good that you're not.
Speaker 3You know your control and not saying I would have, but I wouldn't want to all right, we're going to close out this episode.
Speaker 1Um. Thank you guys for joining us. Um, we're going to have them back on if they will allow us to, although we kind of ran late today because we were having all sorts of issues with electronics. But if they can stick around, we'll do another short one because I want to hear some more from Jess. If they can't, we're going to have them back on multiple times. You'll hear them in the future. I want to thank you guys both for being on and hopefully we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker 3Thanks Dan.
Speaker 1Thank you the 1042 Project Shared Voices podcast. Thank you for tuning in and just a reminder, we are a 501c3. If you guys can support us, you can go to our website. Or if you know an organization or a company or your church may want to get involved in supporting 1042 Project's mission of equipping, restoring, repurposing. Our first responders, please reach out to us at 10-42projectorg. There is a giving page on there. We need your help. We need your support If you can't get financial.