Police Officer Trauma & PTSD: Officer James Jefferson | RDID; 202

Officer James Jefferson, an 18-year police service veteran and wellness coordinator in Canada, is done with the "blue wall of silence." He speaks openly, candidly, honestly, and earnestly about mental health issues in law enforcement, and the series of events that almost resulted in him killing himself with his service weapon. Why? To help other officers who are struggling, just like he did. 

On a wintry night, years ago, James and his partner responded to a homicide-in-progress call. The suspect advanced on the officers, refusing to drop his knife and James and his partner were forced to use lethal force. It was ruled a clean shoot, but that didn't help ease James's mind. He began to fell apart, he began to use drugs and alcohol. He threw caution to the wind, engaging in risky, dangerous behaviors, hoping he would be killed in the line-of-duty and be valorized a hero. He put his gun to is head, like so many other police officers do. Thankfully, James didn't pull the trigger. He got help. And now he's helping others.

In our candid conversation with James, we put police culture under the microscope and examine its many faults, how its archaic and stigmatizing attitudes towards mental health contribute to officers, and retired officers, taking their own lives. James knows this world all-too-well and, as a wellness officer, he is part of the change that is so desperately, and we're so grateful that he is. Listen to this engaging conversation, and share it with someone you love; whether they wear a badge or not.

Conversations like the ones on this podcast can sometimes be hard, but they’re always necessary. If you or someone you know is struggling, please consider visiting wannatalkaboutit.com.

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Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of Series

Gabriel Nathan 0:00

Hello. This is Recovery Diaries in Depth. I'm your host, Gabe Nathan. Thanks so much for joining us. We're very happy to have you here. We are so honored and lucky to have with us Police Officer James Jefferson. He is an 18-year police service veteran and the wellness coordinator officer with the Greater Sudbury Police Service in Canada. He specializes in mental health, peer-to-peer support, member outreach, along with physical fitness and nutrition. James was involved in a critical incident, and he writes about that in his essay that he published with us in 2020. Each week, we'll bring you a recovery diaries contributor, folks who have shared their mental health journey with us through essay or video format. We want to see where they are on their mental health journey since initially being published on our website. Our goal is to continue supporting our diverse community by having conversations here on our podcast to follow up and see what has shifted, what has changed, and what new things have emerged. We're so happy to have you along for this journey. We want to remind you to follow our show for new and back episodes at recoverydiaries.org. There, like the podcast, you'll find stories of mental health, empowerment, and change. You can also sign up for our mailing list there so you never miss a new podcast episode, essay, or film. And you can find this podcast pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts. We appreciate your comments and feedback about our show. It helps us improve, make changes, and grow. And of course, make sure to like, share, and subscribe. James Jefferson, thank you

Introducing Officer James Jefferson

Gabriel Nathan 1:47

so, so much for being here with me on Recovery Diaries in Depth. It's a a real honor to have you here.

James Jefferson 1:53

Thank you, Gabriel. It's a very, very much pleasure to be here with you today.

Gabriel Nathan 1:57

Can you remind me when you when did you submit your essay to us?

James Jefferson 2:04

I want to say it was roughly 2019, early 2020.

Gabriel Nathan 2:09

Yeah, that that sounds about right to me. Um so you were and still are active law enforcement, um working in a culture where, and you know, this is my personal opinion. You feel free to correct me or give your personal opinion as well. Um, but I feel that this is a culture that is kind of archaic and backwards in a lot of ways in terms of its attitudes and views about mental health, mental illness. Um uh it's a very male-dominated world. And I think men in general have a lot of issues um societally and culturally about mental health. And so I wonder if being in that environment actively made you gave you pause um before sending your essay to us or even before writing it.

James Jefferson 3:08

Uh I would say no, because you know, I had a long-winded journey even

Stigma And Culture In Policing

James Jefferson 3:12

prior to writing that essay. And I already went through all the stigma that forced me to suppress what I was going through because of that ego-driven Renaissance style profession. And when I got to the point of sharing my essay, I was at a very open point in my life in a very healed capacity where I saw the ripple effect of what these words can have and what a voice can have with someone who has found healing and recovery in their trauma to really give hope to others. And that was the basis of why I started to speak and why I started to write, because people need someone to be an advocate for them, to give them permission to really embrace healing and and not be, you know, almost a casualty to this stigma-driven culture that that causes us to hide who we are and hide what we're feeling.

Gabriel Nathan 4:04

Um, and I I I agree with you a hundred percent. And I'm reminded just yesterday, I was giving a talk to psychiatric nursing students in Winnipeg, actually. Um, so it's doing it by Zoom, and one of the students asked me, because I was talking about recovery diaries and mental health storytelling. That was the whole point of the talk. Um, these psych nursing students are doing a project where they're collaborating with patients to help them tell their story, either in an essay, in a poem, in a story, in a piece of artwork, right? So we're talking about mental health and storytelling. And one of the students asked me, she's like, Do you think that the work that you're doing or sharing mental health stories is helping to destigmatize mental illness, suicide. And I said, um I really do. I really do believe it. I really do believe that talking about things helps. Um, I believe that it doesn't just help the storyteller. I feel like for the storyteller, there's a certain amount of catharsis that comes with getting this whatever it is out there out of their, out of their body and their soul and their mind and putting it out in front of other people. But it also helps people who are struggling, who are not ready to share their own story and who may never be ready, um, and who want to just sit quietly behind a laptop and and read um and get helped um by people who are saying, you know what, I've gone through X, Y, and Z, and I do feel ready um to share and be public. I have to imagine that there are so many law enforcement officers in Canada, in the US, worldwide, who are shoving things down every single day. They're numbing themselves with alcohol and drugs or impulsive behavior or whatever it is. Um, they're scared they're gonna lose their gun and their badge and their career if they come forward. Um and by reading essays like yours, it at least says, here's somebody who, to paraphrase the Shawshank redemption, that line crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side, right? That you actually can get through this. Um, and I think it's it's incredibly powerful. I'm very grateful to you.

James Jefferson 6:35

Well, thank you. You know, I've always believed vulnerability creates vulnerability. And within that vulnerability, if there's you know a strength underlining it, it's infectious. And police officers and first responders and anyone going through hardship, we always just want to, you know, really ensure we're not alone in this journey. And we always feel like we're alone in our own mind and alone in our own life. But the moment we feel any kind of connection to a writing, to a voice, to a story, it shows that you know, this is all part of the human experience. And we heal out loud, we heal when we're heard, and we heal when we're connected.

Gabriel Nathan 7:14

That idea that I'm alone in this, I mean, I think it's universal. I I feel like it's one of the biggest lies that mental illness and and suicidality whispers to you. It's it's you're alone and nobody cares about you. You're the only one who feels like this, nobody understands you. But I feel like in law enforcement, and again, I I want your perspective on this, but I feel like it's amplified because you're in this closed culture where uh the ordinary uh civilian doesn't really understand what it's like to do the job that you do, to have that hyper arousal all the time, you know, the head swivel, who's behind me, who's next to me, um, what is this person? Why are their hands in their pocket? All that kind of stuff, right? Um, and I also feel like that feeling of isolation and I'm alone contributes to a couple things that are really unhealthy in law enforcement culture, which is that I can only have friends who are cops because we get each other, right?

Storytelling As Destigmatization

Gabriel Nathan 8:20

And if I'm married to a civilian, I come home, she doesn't understand. You know, she wants to talk to me about like the copier getting jammed and you know, or whatever. She has a student who's, you know, failing or not doing well. But, you know, I went through a door and I I, you know, was encountering somebody pointing a gun or knife at me. There's and so it it it has this feeling of uh insulating and isolating um that I think is is so contributory to that feeling of just what everybody else feels when they're struggling with mental illness is that I'm I'm alone. Can you speak to that a little bit?

James Jefferson 9:08

Well, I would say because I I I think we lose sight coming into these professions, especially policing, that we're simply flesh, blood, and bone and susceptible to breaking given that perfect storm. And a lot of it comes with internal wiring. We bring in a history of who we are, how we were raised, how we perceive the world. And we want to think that the same experience affects two people the exact same way, but the reality is it doesn't. It's who we are as human beings really, you know, sets the framework of how these traumatic experiences impact us. And then you add on the extra adage of you know the promotional uh pressure and you know, the credibility of what do my peers think of me? And that in itself is just it's it's an all-consuming, you know, pressure and weight that I see on police officers every single day. And we are the worst profession for eating our own kind. Misery loves company, and and you know, what you focus on, you create. And a lot of people can be very miserable in these types of roles. And we want nothing more than to just offset our own uh miserable disposition and project that somewhere else in a really judgment capacity. So I would I would say, you know, policing, which which I can definitely speak on, um that there's nothing more ego-driven and and no more pressure to to play this role or an avatar that you're supposed to have a certain kind of standard, you're supposed to be a certain kind of way. And if the job impacts you, there's this belief that it's weakness. And we we really lose that that human touch that you know, this is a human being that maybe have experienced a mental health injury and just needs healing.

Gabriel Nathan 10:57

It's so interesting what you were saying about um eating your own kind and projecting misery somewhere else. And it it it reminds me of something you wrote in your bio. Um he's transformed his trauma into purpose in educating and inspiring others to persevere and overcome the challenges that embody the responsibility, and that's the word I'm keying in on, and psychological hardships of wearing the badge. And I feel like I hear a lot of law enforcement officers talking about the the hardships part, but not so much about the responsibility. And I think it, you know, in the recovery movement, we talk all a lot about personal responsibility and taking ownership. And I feel like in law enforcement, there is not a lot of responsibility taking that it it is a desire to project outwards. Uh civilians make our job so hard. Oh, everyone wants to put a camera in our face. They're always watching us, they're always criticizing us. And, you know, there's validity into those, into those arguments, but I I I hear precious little about how law enforcement culture has a responsibility

Isolation, Hypervigilance, And Identity

Gabriel Nathan 12:20

for creating a really toxic environment. Um that police officers, I think the deck is really stacked against you in terms of the culture that you're going into, how slow it is to change, um, how, again, like we said in the beginning, how archaic the beliefs are about mental health. Um and I wonder what your thoughts are about that and if you see that changing at all.

James Jefferson 12:47

Well, it's a very thankless job in a lot of ways. And, you know, that you talk about that that hypervigilance piece and worry, you know, yes, you have to worry on the streets and and and be accountable for yourself, but we also have that same worry when we're we're internal in our own organizations. Um so it's it's never a feeling of of true safety. And, you know, even just through that, when you I just lost my train of thought here for a second. That's okay.

Gabriel Nathan 13:15

You're human, you're flesh, bone, and blood. Brain farts, galore. Don't worry about it. So, what what was the specific question? The specific question was do you see law enforcement culture as bearing some kind of responsibility for the the la emotional well-being or lack of emotional well-being on officers? And do you see that changing at all?

James Jefferson 13:39

You've been in the game for a while. 18 years. And and I don't see it changing anytime soon. That responsibility piece is key. Um, you know, when I was in my most unhealthy state, I projected all the responsibility outward. It was the fault of, you know, the man that forced me to take his life, my organization, my insurance carrier. And as long as I'm projecting outward, then I don't have to look inward and really find healing and take responsibility for my own well-being. And in terms of policing, it takes so much energy to work, you know, these 12-hour shifts over time in enduring all this trauma, that in order to take care of ourselves, that takes an extra adage of energy and responsibility. And a lot of us don't want to do it because we don't have that energy or that wherewithal to really understand what we're going through, because we don't have the skills in a lot of ways. Because we're we're taught, like I use the expression policing in in essence, is generational trauma. Because we hand down the trauma, we hand down how we're going to get screwed by the profession, how we're going to get screwed by the organization, how we're going to get screwed by the public. And we keep handing that down from generation to policing generation. And this is how we see the profession from here on out. It's that self-preservation for 30 years. And it's not a healthy way to go.

Gabriel Nathan 15:01

That's it's such a wild way to look at it. And I I one of the things I'm thinking about is you so often hear cops say when they're introducing themselves to you. It's like, yeah, I'm a cop. I've been a cop for 15 years, 18 years, whatever it is. And my dad was a cop, and my grandfather was a cop, and my great uncle was a cop. And I'm I'm thinking about the generational trauma that you're passing down to other police officers coming in, new new academy classes and things like that. But it's also such an in-the-family biz that it's also being passed along literally in families. And you hear this uh my dad was a cop, my this, and you think, wow, God, that's a lot of fucked up people in one family. Um and it's so many unhealthy attitudes and behaviors and and just wiring, yeah, getting getting passed down. Um I'm also thinking about the psychiatric hospital where I used to work, and we had very close relationships with with law enforcement, of course, because A, we did training for police about crisis intervention and um and mental health. Um, but also because law enforcement was constantly in the building, bringing people in involuntarily and and all of that. But our mentality in the hospital was, I think, very similar to law enforcement culture. Um, I would constantly hear things like, this is the way we've always done it. You know, when when confronting an old, an old guard, you know, someone who's been working there for 30 years about a problem that I saw or something unsafe or unhealthy, you know, Gabe, this isn't that this has never been a problem. This is how we've always done it. Well maybe this is how we've always done it is the problem. Um, and I I think about that in terms of policing, but there is such a resistance to change um in in any closed culture, whether it's prisons, the military, law enforcement, um, the locked in patient psych

Responsibility Versus Blame In Policing

Gabriel Nathan 17:12

facility. Like we we know our stuff. We don't want to hear from anyone else. Um and so I don't even know if there's a question here, but uh I think the fact that you are is your your exact title is wellness coordinator officer? Yeah. So I think the fact that law enforcement agencies, and not all of them do, but yours does, thankfully, and others do, have positions like that at least show that, okay, we know there are problems here. Uh, we we want help. We're gonna get it from the inside from our own people, um, and hopefully promote some kind of culture change there.

James Jefferson 17:56

It begins from the inside out and it begins from the voices of officers who have gone through things, but not to trauma bond, but to inspire. Right. And and really just promote that that voice of recovery and healing and and always have a start point. And that's what I've always been the biggest advocate for in working this role is it can be so overwhelming when you finally make that decision of okay, I need to do something. Life is not working, everything's kind of falling to pieces. What do I do? And it's overwhelming. Where do I start? Do I go to therapy? Do I it there's so many different options, but just to have one person who's been through it sitting there in an office or you know what, a text or an email away where it's like, I can just call James and that could just be my first step. And I don't have to figure it all out right now, but I have someone who's already walked this path. And and, you know, in life, if you want to achieve something, find someone who's done it. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. And if you can find an officer or someone who's been through trauma and said, you know what, these are some of the things that really worked for me. I'm not saying this is the clear formula. Things worked for me that didn't work for others, and vice versa. But let's start trying some things. Let's start trying, you know, certain therapeutic modalities. Let's start investing in our body and our mind and fitness, nutrition. Let's start investing on who we surround ourselves with, on what we're taking in, you know, technology and social media, how that's influencing our state, and really start developing our toolbox. When we feel these anxiety responses or the depression come on, like what are we going to do? We got to stop being just careless and passive when we have these experiences. You know, healing and recovery is the ability to know yourself. This is why I'm triggered. This is why my mind is going in this direction. So now I know I have to pivot and take a different path and change this alignment, change this state for a different line of thinking, or get into my body and get out of my mind. Because right now, my mind is not in a healthy place.

Gabriel Nathan 19:52

Well, right. And first you have to even recognize that that's happening, right? Before you can change, before you can do anything about it, you have to understand, oh shit, there's something going on with me. I think, you know, for you, you had this very traumatic incident, which we're going to get to very shortly when you when you read your essay. But I I think I think there's this idea that I don't have a right to be fucked up if I haven't been shot, if I haven't seen my partner get shot, if I haven't, even if I've shot someone else, it's like, well, if it was a clean shoot, hey, you know, it was a clean shoot. So I shouldn't be fucked up about that. Uh, or I can't be fucked up unless I've pulled a dead baby out of a pool and tried to do CPR. I feel like in a cop's mind, those are the only things that give you license to be fucked up. Right. Um when in actuality, simply living the life and having the job, you are dealing with trauma all the time. You are seeing things that the brain is not equipped to handle all the time, whether it's responding to a motor vehicle accident and you're seeing, you know, the results of that, a fire, uh, assault, all of that stuff. And I feel like so many officers believe that, oh, well, that's just that's just what it is, and I should be fine unless, you know, those four major things have happened to me. And so I feel like there's so much guilt and shame um for you know, for struggling unless you've gone through those traumatic events or not even understanding that something's happening to you. Um, you know, what do you do there?

James Jefferson 21:47

Well, I see it quite a bit where you know, people will literally gaslight themselves. And you went through this, what I went through is nowhere near what you went through. We we seem to, you know, have a ranking of hierarchy of I'm not allowed to feel this because it's not as you know critical as what you went through. And I tell them like everything we go through in this job, whether it's a cumulative, whether it's that that one big critical incident, it's a vessel and it brings us to the same destination. Like my trauma was no different from someone else's trauma that, you know, maybe was in a

Generational Trauma And Resistance To Change

James Jefferson 22:20

car accident and and and feels the same hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, nightmares. It's all the same darkness. And we have to stop having this idea that that, you know, just because I was in a police shooting does not make me any more special than anyone else going through trauma. We're all going through it. It's just to figure it's just to figure out how to navigate through it and get through it.

Gabriel Nathan 22:41

Yeah, there's so much unhealthy stuff to weed through and and so much change that has to happen. And you're, you know, you're such a big part of that change that needs to happen. Um, and by doing the work that you do within your department and also the public work that you do with speaking and and writing this essay, um, which again, I'm so grateful for um to have that on our site and to have you as part of our community of of storytellers. And I would love, uh I would love to hear you read the piece in your own words, uh, in your own voice. Um, it is called Connected Through Trauma, a police officer's story of PTSD, suicidality, and hope.

James Jefferson 23:20

My trauma journey began in 2008 when I set off on this path of being a police officer. I spent three years in uniform patrol and four years in a narcotics unit. Following that, I spent three and a half years off work as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. After years of simply surviving, I was forced to finally look inward and be honest with myself and say those words that we fear to utter in this heroic profession. I need help. By uttering these three powerful words, I eventually was brought to a crossroad where I had to make a decision: be defined by the diagnosis or defy the diagnosis. In the beginning, I was flourishing. Every aspect of this profession identified with who I was. I had a steady partner, and I believed there was nothing I could see, hear, or experience in this profession that could affect me. Little did I know that just after two years on the job, I would face a call that would forever alter the course of my life. It was in early morning hours on a cold winter night. My partner and I responded to a homicide in progress. A man called the police saying he had just killed his roommate. We broke down multiple doors to get into the unit, and once inside, we found that the homicide was valid and that a murder had just occurred. And the person responsible for this vile act made the decision to attack my partner and me with the knife that he had in hand. He ignored our instructions and continued towards us, and we were faced with a decision to use lethal force or gamble with our own lives. As a last resort, we were forced to open fire. The smell of the gunpowder filled the air, and spent shell casings bounced on the floor. I could hear the screams of agony as the bullets rang through his body. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Our backup arrived moments later after we were escorted outside. I do not remember the walk, but the moment the fresh air hit my face, I smiled. I'm not sure really why. I had not yet comprehended what had happened. I suppose in that moment I was just grateful to be alive and feel the air on my face. We both were separated and brought to the hospital with the instruction to not talk to anyone. My partner was brought to a back room away from prying eyes, while I was brought to a sitting area directly across from the operating room and instructed by a superior to sit and not move. As I sat there, still in denial of what had happened, I could hear a commotion to my right. I looked over to see the man that I had just shot being wheeled into the stretcher and placed in the operating room right in front of me. I sat there in dismay as the curtains were drawn and the medical staff began the process of trying to save this man's life. Minutes later, I heard the doctor utter the words, time of death. The ballistic report would later show that my partner fired four rounds while I fired two, and that my two rounds were deemed to be the fatal ones. We had taken a life in a line of duty in order to save our own. After the dust settled, I began to tell myself, I did as I was trained to do. This is all part of the job. I signed up for this. I am fine. But I wasn't fine. However, being young, prideful, and ambitious, I refused to be transparent and show the real human being underneath, having an emotional reaction to a real life human tragedy. I felt like if I allowed myself to be human, I would be perceived in as weak or as broken by my fellow officers. I believed emotion and vulnerability was a sign of weakness. This attitude was never directly stated, but you could feel the stigma in light of this renaissance mentality of suck it up and

First Steps And Building A Toolbox

James Jefferson 27:20

do your job. This is what you signed up for. So I traded my emotional turmoil for a smile, a dark sense of humor, and a competent work ethic. In the first year following the event, two monumental things happened in my life. I became a first-time parent and I was promoted into our narcotics unit. Although I was achieving both my family and career aspirations, I slowly began to unravel at the seams. I experienced powerful emotions and symptoms with complexities very foreign to me. Within me lived an incomprehensible level of sadness, fear, anger, and guilt. Symptoms like hypervigilance, flashbacks, recurring nightmares, and even suicidal ideations. If I was not fueled by the negative symptomology of PTSD, I was numb to all things. I was experiencing self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. My marriage was beginning to feel the repercussions of my inherent denial. I was present in body, but I was absent in mind and heart. I was unable to enjoy the beautiful experience of being a parent due to the fact that my mind was stuck in a single event and I was unable to find the present moment. My demeanor became self-centered and explosive with a rage that I had never experienced. I victimized myself and allowed self-pity to become my daily identity. I refused to let my wife in, and I began to put up walls to keep her out because I didn't want her to know how badly I was hurting out of ego and pride. I believed I was protecting her by shielding her from my true self and my experiences. But I later came to the realization that I was only protecting myself out of cowardice, and by doing so, I was making her life unbearable, causing new trauma to form. Being a part of the narcotics unit created a constant feeling of hypocrisy with me. I was using cannabis and alcohol daily to numb my pain. And I was taking away people's freedoms who were simply trying to do the same. As my trauma grew, it allowed me to experience and put into motion two core needs that were developing within me. The first was a need for adrenaline. I thrust myself in any dangerous situation I could find because that adrenaline rush was one of the only things that could offset this numbness and depression that I was experiencing. I took unnecessary risks and pursued undercover work. I searched for anything that gave me that emotional. And allowed me to forget, even just for a moment, what I was going through. The second was a death wish. I longed to die in the line of duty because I was at a point of accepting that this disorder was the be-all of end all of who I was, and I felt powerless to stop its progression. I felt weak, and to die in the line of duty, I would be perceived as strong. I would be immortalized as a hero. So I risked my life time and time again. I was never willing to risk another officer's life, but I carelessly played Russian roulette with my own. I was always first in the door or first on the scene, making arrests on my own or going into drug buys blind with minimal preparation or cover. I was leaving up to fate, but as time passed, death never came. My sheer competence won out. As the years went by, I continued to fool the world. I embodied a family man and a cop who had his ship together. All the while suicide was on my mind. Daily I thought about how I would do it, where I would do it, who would find me. Through all this brought me to one fateful night. The pain from trauma had won. I felt like I had lost the battle and had nothing left to give. The weight of PTSD was crushing, and I had no more fight within me. I was on surveillance detail when I made the decision to end my life. I could still feel the cold muzzle pressed against my temple as I unloaded my gun and I put it to my head and squeezed the trigger. I then loaded the gun and slowly held it to the side of my head. I had tears rolling down my face, praying to God for the strength to pull it. In that moment my prayer was answered. It was not the prayer that I had asked for. It was the prayer I needed. And in that very moment I saw my daughter. I saw my purpose.

Reading: Connected Through Trauma

James Jefferson 31:55

Something I saw as being larger than myself in this disorder. I began to think about her life. What effect this act would have on her. By taking my life, my trauma would inevitably trickle into her, and suicide would forever be a prevalent and painful topic of her story. She would be forced to always refer to her father in the past tense by clinging to a childhood memory and never being able to escape the question of why. I wouldn't wish this affliction on my worst enemy, let alone my child. In that moment, I holstered my firearm and made a vow to endure this pain so she didn't have to. I continued to live with this crippling symptomology of post-traumatic stress. I clung to my vices and I was angry and resentful towards life. But somehow this jaded behavior seemed normalized. I fit in. I knew how to work and live this police lifestyle far better than I knew how to ask for help. I would have continued on this path, and I truly don't think there would have been a happy ending. Fortunately for me, life had other plans. And in the midst of the chaos, I suffered a physical injury by ruptured my Achilles tendon. This was the first time I was off work, and life as I knew it stopped. I found all that was left was silence and stillness. For someone with unresolved trauma, that silence can be deafening, and that stillness can create mania in your mind. I no longer had the distraction of police work to keep my mind occupied. With no distraction, I was forced to deal with my subconscious. Everything that I tried to suppress was now at the forefront of my conscious mind like a flood. I learned the mind is like water, it can flow or it can crash, and mine crashed. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't leave my home. I alienated myself and lost touch with everyone close to me because I felt guilt and self-pity. I felt guilt for taking a life, guilt for not being at work while my brothers and sisters were putting their lives on the line. I felt powerless to help, and guilt for putting my wife and family through such chaos. I eventually hit rock bottom. I had been off work for years with an endless cycle of drugs and alcohol. I was losing my marriage and divorce was a constant topic during our heated exchanges. I had lost my friendships, my career, and myself. But on that rock bottom floor, I had an awakening. I saw that there's collateral beauty on that floor because it is transformative. It forces you to self-reflect and decide. It forces you to look deep inside yourself and find who you truly are meant to be. It allowed me to understand that someone with outward courage dares to die, but someone with inward courage dares to live. On that floor, I made a definitive decision that I was going to live and heal. I was willing to lose everything to endure the pain of growth in order to save myself. And when you make a definitive decision in life that nothing will stop you, it truly has a redemptive quality that can carry you through life's darkest moments back into the light. I began in search of the right mental mental health treatment. It took me a handful of doctors until I was blessed to find one that had the skill set to challenge me. I completed over a year of immersion therapy, completely submersing myself in my trauma. That was the key. The only way out is in. It was a painstaking process that tested my resolve and my sanity. But the more I invested, the more honest I became with not only my doctor, but myself. I began to feel the weight lift and I laid my first puzzle piece of healing. I met with a police chaplain. I have never been a religious person or affiliated to a particular religion, but I have always had an unwavering belief in God. We talked, we cried, and we prayed. We prayed for my strength and for my forgiveness, but not my forgiveness from God, but for my ability to forgive myself. I embraced the beauty of the moment and I was able to feel the love and the spirituality that was being bestowed upon me. I let someone in, and that pure human connection lifted me, and I felt the weight continue to lift, and the puzzle pieces of my healing were beginning to fit together. I made a conscious choice to take massive daily action, to commit to mastery of my own mind. I fully embraced fitness and nutrition. I knew the mind is hard, but the body was easy. I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I could not control my mind, but I could control my body and what I put in my body. I began to understand that the body is an extension of the subconscious mind. And if my body felt good, my mind would follow suit. Daily I would inflict the most possible amount of physical pain on myself that made the emotional pain bearable. And by doing so, I began to build a resilient mindset. I made it a point to listen to as much positive content as I could. I knew my mind was working against me, so I needed a new language to overthrow my negative mindset. So I listened to inspirational and motivational speakers every day. Their mindset had to become my mindset. Their words had to become my words. I made a conscious choice to distance myself from people who I perceived to be negative. My focus had to be inward. I wasn't on an uphill climb and I could not have people bringing me down. I understood who you surround yourself with, you reflect. I had to reflect positivity and growth. I began to seek out people who I believed embody these characteristics. I learned in this process that self-talk is the most powerful form of communication in life because it either empowers you or defeats you. I found by embracing positivity in my life, I forced a mental shift and I began to speak to myself with compassion, forgiveness, empathy, and strength. In completing my puzzle of healing, I began to be mindful. I learned that anxiety is the future, depression is the past, and we can't control either one. All we have is now. And there is nothing more important than what you are doing in this very moment. I began to simplify and just win the moment. I embraced the momentary, the momentum of healing and fully encompassed the magnitude and limitless beauty of post-traumatic growth. Today I am no longer in therapy. I no longer take any medication. I made it a point that where I was going, self-medicating could not be part of the equation. And I decided to stop immediately. I let go of my vices, and my trauma is merely a chapter from the book of my life and no longer the prelude. In my healing, all things around me healed and flourished once again. I was able to take my trauma and use it to transform myself into someone who is in the position to educate others. I developed a position as a wellness coordinator within my service that has allowed me to have a voice, to provide peer-to-peer support for those suffering. It has given me the chance to reach out and connect in order to give officers a perspective and a truth of the hardship of mental health and policing. I have been able to promote a message of strength and self-reliance and vulnerability. A message that says, I have failed time and time again, and that is why I succeeded. Because I never stopped trying to try, and I never stopped hoping for hope. When nothing is certain, anything can be possible.

Gabriel Nathan 39:33

Thank you so much for writing that and for reading that and again for sharing that with our community on the site and on this podcast.

James Jefferson 39:42

It is absolutely my pleasure.

Gabriel Nathan 39:46

So what what was it like to go back to this? You know, like you said, this is uh you sent this to us in 2020. It's been four or five years now. Um what was it like to to revisit it?

James Jefferson 40:03

It's always somewhat nostalgic, um, but it feels like I'm revisiting another life and another version of myself, almost a parallel universe, if you will. Um, I read about what I experienced, and I can remember quite vividly all the pain that that came with that trauma and being on the verge of suicide, suffering immensely every day, seeing my marriage crumble to the point where we were almost divorced, not knowing really how to live life and not knowing how to get through the day. And there was such an overcast of darkness in that time. And I look back on it, and anytime I speak of it, anytime I read about it, there is a pride that I have because I could have stayed there. I could have had a permanent disability, I could have been off work for the rest of my life. But I'm a fighter. And I reached the point that I hated my trauma so very much that I would no longer tolerate it in your life. And, you know, we tolerate a lot in our lives, but we don't tolerate the things we hate. And I had to get to that rock bottom point where I hated my trauma because it was taking away everything. And I look back on that healing journey and I see now what I've been able to give people. Hearing the words, you saved my life. I've I've heard it more times than I can count. And to think about where I went through to get to this point, I always knew I was going through it for a reason. And I always said to myself, I was experiencing post-traumatic stress. I'm going to use this somehow. I don't know. The message, the lesson will reveal itself when I'm ready. And finally coming into recovery, coming into strength and really stepping into a new version of myself, being able to give that to somebody else is means more to me than anything.

Gabriel Nathan 41:55

Yeah, I think I think that people who read your essay, whether they're civilian or law enforcement, um, I think they're getting something from it. But I feel like people who are in law enforcement are getting something very special because I, you know, we know uh that police officers have a suicide rate that's uh, you know, four or five, six times that of the general population. And there are myriad reasons. And we've gone over a bunch of them just in the conversation and in reading the essay. But, you know, of course, one of the contributing factors is access to lethal means, and you have it on your hip all the time. It is always there. And that's part of what makes this population so uh unique. Most of us don't walk well, America's a different different story, um, but not all of us are armed to the teeth uh all the time. Um but like that that presents a very particular uh challenge. Um and you know, you you talk about putting that to your temple, and um, you know, we have other officers who have shared stories on here uh who have had similar experiences. And I just uh want to hear from you what is it like as a a wellness officer knowing that you are speaking to someone who is struggling when they come to you and uh they have that lethal means at their disposal all the time.

James Jefferson 43:33

You know, I've come to realize, you know, especially through my own experience. In the end, it it's up to them if they want to be vulnerable, if they want to be honest. Um, I could tell you that I was fine, I could tell you that I wasn't suicidal when I had an active plan in the works. As long as I'm asking the right questions, as long as I'm giving them an out and and and not foreshadowing they're going to be in a hospital room surrounded by white coats, because that's the biggest fear. Because that is what we do for a living in some respect, is bringing people to the hospital, sitting with them on a mental health form, and getting them psychiatric help. And the moment we see ourselves in that same capacity, that's too much. I would have rather, you know, embrace suicide than been at a hospital room saying I need help. And, you know, with the firearm, it's it's that narrative that this is not your identity. You know, your identity is not in a piece of steel. Your identity is not in a in a job title. It's something you do, it's not something you are. And if you keep pushing that narrative, we keep bringing people back to the human being that they are, not the work that they do. And if you look at statistics, roughly 95% of police suicides are with their firearm. And I've seen it quite often because it is a spur of the moment decision. Yes, it is a lot of thought leading up to it, but it is that fuck it, I'm gonna do it. Now's the time. And and when you have probably one of the most unhealthy psychological professions, and then you put a gun to their hip, it can be a recipe for disaster. But I've learned that you know what, you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. All you can hope for is to continually get that messaging out. And if you see things, reach out, have that conversation. You know what? Take that risk if you offend them. But someone does not become more society.

Gabriel Nathan 45:32

That's better. That's better. Having someone pissed off at you, great. You can recover from that, you can repair that relationship, or maybe not. But if they kill themselves, that's it. You know, there's no repairing anything, there's no coming back from anything. I would rather have someone pissed off at me and never speak to me again, but still be alive.

James Jefferson 45:51

100%. And that's and we're so worried about asking those hard suicidal questions of is it going to trigger suicide? But asking if someone's suicidal does not make someone more suicidal. You are literally giving them a potential out. And maybe, just maybe they will take it.

Gabriel Nathan 46:09

Yeah. And we have to, we so much of the work in suicide prevention, civilian law enforcement, anywhere in between, is we have to become comfortable saying the word suicide. We have to become comfortable saying, are you thinking about killing yourself? Looking someone in the eye and asking them that and busting all those myths and all that bullshit about, oh, it's going to put the idea in their head and all that stuff. That's that's part of this education that's needed so desperately. And something else that you said, I think, is so important too, that reinforcing the idea for law enforcement that it's not about your gun and your badge and all that bullshit on your belt. It's you're a human being. You were a human being before when you were in middle school and high school and college or whatever. Um, you had all these interests and all that, and then you got in this profession where it was just like, I'm a cop and that's it. And all my friends are cops, and I date cops, and I fuck cops, and I hang out with cops, and I drink with cops. And then when you retire, if you make it that long, um all of that goes away. And that's a huge contributor to retired law enforcement officer suicide, because of course they still have the tons, right? Um, so helping them understand that you are a whole human being, a rich, complex, uh, interesting person, you're so much more than this is a job. This is not a life. Um because then when it's over, you have to have something meaningful to to go to. Um, and I think you're a shining example of that. That when you retire, um you do public speaking, you do mental health advocacy, you're involved in nutrition, you're you know, there's there's so many things that you uh can do and that you are after the the law enforcement show is over. Um that that's that's also part of that education. Remember who you were before. Um did you enjoy playing guitar? Did you enjoy playing soccer? Um, who did you hang out with before? Who can you reconnect with? What interests and hobbies weren't you involved in that you could possibly cultivate? Um, I think that's so, so important. It can't be everything.

James Jefferson 48:41

It can't. And and when you touched on retirees and suicides, I read a statistic that it's roughly 11% of police suicides are retirees, and it's one-third in their first year. And I tell people the career's 30 years, life lasts a lot longer. We're we're we're doing all this for life, not for just a job and a paycheck. And, you know, in my essay, when I and when I refer to the silence and the stillness of an of an unhealed mind, that's where retirees find themselves. They think they can endure 30 years of trauma. And statistics show officers attend roughly 180 to you know, 200 traumatic calls, like the worst possible things you can imagine in their career. And they think they can just finish that that that career and step into you know a new life, and their mind will stay in the career. No, they're bringing all that that baggage with them. That's why it's imperative for people to have the right perspective throughout this career, how to how to see it in a very healthy way, how to decompress, how to check in with themselves and ask, you know, am I doing okay? And be honest when they're not. To listen to your spouses is a huge one. The moment someone close to you, not just your spouse, but the moment they say, you know what, you've changed. I've noticed something, you're drinking a little more. And it's so easy to get defensive and kind of, you know what, offset it. And I was guilty of it myself. My wife saw it even before I did. But I thought I had it in check. I thought I was managed. But we need to understand that, you know what, this is going to impact us, but it doesn't have to. It's that expression, if it's predictable, it's preventable. And you know what? Hardship, potentially some mental health challenges are inevitability in policing and first responder services. So let's prepare.

Gabriel Nathan 50:29

Yeah. Let's not be blind to it. Let's open our eyes. Um, and thank you for opening eyes and for being in your in your career and your profession with open eyes and an open mind and open heart. I'm very grateful. And thank you for spending some time with us today.

James Jefferson 50:46

It's it was an absolute pleasure. And it was uh such an amazing experience writing that essay. Uh, very different than the spoken word. You know, when you put it on paper, it's it's more for the world. When you speak it, it's still yours. Um, so that was, you know, a great experience. I've had a lot of people reach out in reading that essay. And thank you for the platform for really sharing that vulnerability and hopefully that healing journey that can touch someone else.

Gabriel Nathan 51:14

Well, it's our pleasure. Um, we love doing what we do and sharing human beings like you. So thank you. Thank you, Gabriel. Thank you again for joining us in conversation today. It's beautiful to see the progression of our contributors. We are so grateful to James Jefferson for spending some time with us today. James is a police officer with 18 years of service with the Greater Sudbury Police Service in Canada, where he is a wellness coordinator officer, specializing in mental health, peer-to-peer support, and member outreach. Before we leave you, we want to remind you to check out our website, recoverydiaries.org. There, like this podcast, you'll find additional stories, videos, and content about mental health, empowerment, and change. We look forward to continuing to grow our community. Thank you so much for being a part of it. We wouldn't be here without you. Be sure to join our mailing list so you never miss a podcast episode, essay, or film. I'm Gabe Nathan. Until next time, take good care.