Chapter Blue

Retired Officer Doug White: Embracing Vulnerability and Mental Health Awareness

• Tyra Valeriano • Episode 7

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Doug White shares his profound journey from law enforcement to retirement, discussing the struggles of identity and mental health that follow a career behind the badge. By confronting his past, he talks about the importance of vulnerability, honesty, and seeking help, ultimately encouraging others to embrace their healing journeys.

• Doug's introduction as a veteran officer with a rich career 
• The challenges faced during the transition to retirement 
• The exploration of identity post-uniform 
• Confronting psychological struggles deeply rooted in service 
• The role of honesty and vulnerability in the healing process 
• Insights from Doug's book, "Hiding in Plain Sight" 
• The power of storytelling in forging connections and healing 
• The importance of a supportive environment for first responders 
• Doug’s key recommendations for current officers seeking balance and wellbeing

It's an episode you don't want to miss!

Books Mentioned:

  1. "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Truth about Trauma, Service, and the way Forward" by Doug White

Podcast: 

  • Tell This Story

Contact:

  • DougWhiteOfficial.com
  • Instagram: @tell_this_story

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Tyra Valeriano:

Welcome to Chapter Blue, the podcast where we discuss the world of law enforcement through an honest conversation on tough or controversial topics, real stories, perspectives and experience from officers all around the world. Whether you're here for insights on mental health, self-care, work-life balance, getting into law enforcement, getting out of law enforcement, or just trying to learn about personal and professional challenges officers face every day, you've come to the right place. I'm your host, tyra Valeriano, and whether I'm going solo or speaking with a guest, each episode will discuss different aspects of life behind the badge. Let's turn the page and step into Chapter Blue. Welcome back to Chapter Blue and thank you to those tuning in for another episode.

Tyra Valeriano:

Today's guest is a veteran and a retired officer with over 30 years of experience. He comes with a joining mission to create a space where first responders, veterans and their families can have those hard conversations and reassure them that their voice matters. He's also published a book and started his own podcast. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Doug White and to let him tell us a little more about himself. So go ahead, doug.

Doug White:

Good morning. First, thank you very much for your time and for giving me access to your platform and your audience here. I'm very excited for Chapter Blue and what's Next for you. So, yeah, just happy to be here. Let's have a conversation about me. I'm in Tampa, florida. I was born and raised here. I spent time in the military, assigned not here. I was in Washington and finished my active duty time and came back here to Florida and worked for the sheriff's office for 25 years and retired in July of 23. So just doing the podcast and the book thing, but we can turn it into some speaking engagements.

Tyra Valeriano:

Very nice. What is your retired life like? It's been. What a year now.

Doug White:

Yeah, a little over a year. It's crazy, you know you don't. Everybody says, well, you know, retire it's fantastic, or you know I've got to find something to do. There's so much more to retirement than just not working, especially transitioning out of the first responder. You know cultures and all that stuff. I'm sure you know.

Doug White:

You know very well about all that stuff, but you know you're this thing or these things for so many years. You wake up the next morning and you're not that thing anymore. Um, you know you have to find new, new purpose, new mission, new meaning persona. Um, depending on how in depth you were involved in that persona, your organization may have to find all new friends. It's a very daunting thing, but there is a win. You can get through it. Finding a coach such as yourself, some others out there that are doing great work in this space, it has been a journey. I've learned so much about myself, but it took about. It took probably three or four months just for everything to quiet down and it was dark for a while. Then you start trying to figure out the things that you want to do, more or less by finding out what you don't want to do. And, yeah, once you have that breakthrough everything gets clear and it's nice, but it is certainly a transition.

Tyra Valeriano:

Were you prepared in any way for the transition? Did you have any hobbies or anything that you were doing outside of work that made that transition a little easier?

Doug White:

No, the problem for me and I wrote a book about it I was one of the people that were overinvested in the persona, overinvested in the profession of what I was doing. Yeah, I had the office and, of course, I had a family. I've been married four and a half years now to the same person and had two teen kids, but everything came before that. I was the very last primary. Everything was the job, it was the mission, it was the organization, the persona, you know, and pretty much in that order. So my hobbies were either work or tagging along with the family, doing the family things.

Doug White:

Um, I found triathlon uh, probably god, going on like a couple years ago now and, uh, I found that physical fitness and competing in triathlon was something that was able to stave off a lot of the issues I was having. Wasn't aware that I was having. Um, so the, the running and the fitness and triathlon, it was a. It was a very big part of helping in that transition. Other than hobbies and things that I enjoyed, nothing, nothing to move into. It's not like I was going to go fish or race motorcycles or build a classic or anything like that. It was just, uh, retire and find out what's next. You know what am I going to do when I grow up.

Tyra Valeriano:

I have a lot of questions just based on what you just shared. First, um, you said that you really just would you say that your identity revolved around work. Was that who you were? Were you the cop, is that what you would introduce yourself as or bring it into conversation that that's what you would do?

Doug White:

No, I didn't have to. People knew. When I walked into a room, I just had that swagger and the presence about me. It's not like I wore 5.11 pants and thin blue line t-shirts all over the place because I didn't. The hypervigilance was there. It's not like I was a walking billboard or anything, but it's who I was. All my decisions were based on which right, which wrong. Is this safe? Is this not safe? What would the organization think? How does this better serve the organization, the mission and the profession?

Tyra Valeriano:

Like I said everything else came last. You did mention that everything came last, including yourself. So when you retired, what do you think was the biggest struggle? Or when did you realize, hey, I didn't prioritize myself at all? Did you recognize that in the field or did you really just feel that more when you retired?

Doug White:

It was before I retired. Actually, I was experiencing all of the physiological and emotional issues that come along with complex PTSD. The sleep was awful and had been for years and years. There were unresolved military issues for my service. I was in from 93 to late 07. So I spent 14 and a half years of service, plus 25 years with the sheriff's office. I was active in active reserves and so in the agency I worked in, you know, we the last year I worked we were last year, the full year before I retired we were over a million CAD calls for service. You know we're the largest agency in the country and it was busy.

Doug White:

Having been a supervisor, I was a lieutenant at one point and there was no slowing me down. I was at every call. If there was a fight to be had, I was there. If there was a chase I was there, threw down foot chases, car chases. I used to track with K-9 as a lieutenant. I mean, I was fully involved and engaged in everything that I did and I tried to outrun all of those things. Like you know, it'll get better when I'm a captain. It'll get better when I get to day shift. It'll be better when I'm a captain, or to get better when I get to day shift. It'll be better when I become the bomb squad commander, it'll be better when this was always up that moving goalpost, that things will be better when I hit the next benchmark.

Doug White:

And I never took time to really stop and say hey, does everybody else have nightmares? If they can go to sleep? The nightmares is thin. Why am I tired at two o'clock in the afternoon? I've got blood work done. Why is my testosterone 168? It should be 7 to 8 or 900. All of these things. Why am I angry when one of my kids does this? When your body is in a constant state of 8 or 9 out of 10, any little thing that's stepped to ten is very quick.

Doug White:

And I got promoted in 2018 to lieutenant and went to midnight shift and, being more senior in my career and senior in age at the time, trying to adjust to midnight shifts is not an easy thing to do, especially when you're already having sleep issues. It happened again for years. I was sleeping an hour to maybe three hours a day on days off, and days off Sleep out near the old deal. Of course, you never go to the doctor and get checked out and just you know go for a longer run, you know drink more protein or eat more protein, and you know you don't pay attention to that stuff.

Doug White:

And it got to a point, about April to October of 2019, where things that you're able to manage when you're not sleeping you can't manage anymore. So those things physical issues, the actual physical pain, the emotional issues, the mental issues, the nightmares just became more and more increased. Couple that with having 24 deputies and four supervisors working for me and, uh, you know, one of the busiest sections county those things start to play on you and I was having panic attacks and anxiety attacks, sometimes one and two a day. Uh, basically average about four a week. Uh, full-on, like I couldn't get my armor, my shirt, my gun belt off quick enough, laying on the floor of my office with the door closed and locked, I had a full on panic attack. Nobody knew I was high performing, no one had any clue. The break came in October 2019. I'm sitting behind a school looking at this orange traffic cone. It's 3 o'clock in the morning and it just came to me.

Doug White:

We got a pistol in the hip and it scared me because you and any other first responder out there I'm sure have had their fair share of death notifications death scenes and that's by suicide they had to respond to. So we can understand the mechanics of it and the act of, but I never was able to reconcile that for me. I am having this thought and I realize I'm actually staring at my pistol right now. That was the breaking moment.

Doug White:

It was enough to scare me but not enough for me to get help. That came three hours later when I arrived home and my wife was awake being awake on a Sunday morning at 6 am is not something she normally did and I walked in. She asked me if I would consider going to marriage counseling with her. It's crazy because we had no idea, and wouldn't, for months later that three hours prior to that, I had a pistol in my hand thinking about taking my life, and we'd never had a conversation like that before marriage counseling or anything like that. But you know, of course I hit my knees. Literally I was on my knees, hands clasped, crying. My knees literally I was on my knees, hands clasped, crying Probably the first tears I had shed in the better part of 15 to 20 years, and the new tears they do burn quite a bit. And, yeah, I begged and pleaded and it was her request. That was actually her way of not being critical of me knowing that if she had asked me to do that with her, with us, that I would get help, and if she had come at me with you're broken, get help, that would not have landed at all the way that she did it.

Doug White:

Yeah, it was her strength that led me to get help and that started things. There were some career hiccups to my health issues and performance issues later on, but my off-road to retirement was about 39 months. I got a master's degree in that time, got therapy and started healing and all this other stuff and but I wasn't there. So when I did retire there was a half dozen things that I could have done that would fall in line with what people would have believed that I would do. I still didn't know and it wasn't really until April of May of this year that it finally I finally figured it out.

Tyra Valeriano:

That's a long answer to a very short question so no, no, that's thank you for sharing that, and that's actually as real and raw as you could possibly get. How was that conversation with your wife? I mean, you know, three hours later you have her coming to you. I'm sure there's emotion there for you, did you? Did you take that as yes, I'm going to do it, I'm willing, or was that? Did it feel like a hit to you, you know? Did you feel lower? How did you have that conversation with her?

Doug White:

It was. It was actually kind of weird Cause I went immediately into problem solving. Not like I'm going to get myself help in this way, absolutely Whatever I can do to make us better, what's going on? What have I done? What can I do, you know, turn into a perfect husband? Still not getting it. But it became very accommodating and we went to the first counseling session the following week and, you know, at the end of the session the counselor said there's nothing I can do for you.

Tyra Valeriano:

I literally threw my hands in the air. I was like, oh, that's it, and it was over.

Doug White:

My wife was confused, and so was the counselor. She said no, you don't understand. You're each other's best friends. I can give you a book to read on communication and boundaries, but other than that there's nothing for you to work on. I was very, very confused and Other than that, there's nothing for you to work on. I was very, very confused and then that's when the conversation turned to me. I said how are you sleeping? And my wife answered he doesn't sleep. And she elaborated and said no, for the better part of 15 years I've laid awake and watched him. He fights in his sleep, he stops breathing, he cries in his sleep. He doesn't dream. If he does, it's a nightmare.

Doug White:

She said it was the heartbreaking thing she's ever had to watch. It really shocked me, tyra, because I'm sitting there thinking and she didn't know this part. But for six months leading up to this moment, I thought I was just a huge bag of shit, I'm not capable of being loved and I'm not capable of being loved and I'm not deserving of love and I'm just all these horrible things. And you know, I'm a lost cause. And it turns out that, you know, I thought she hated my guts. She basically not basically. She literally paid attention to every waking and sleeping breath that I took. It was just surreal.

Doug White:

Months later, I was here with her, where I was, just hours prior to that, and it was just recently, probably. No, it was just after the book. I handed her the manuscript and I said before this thing goes to publish, is there anything that we need to take out? And she read it cover to cover and she said there's things in there that we've never spoken, there's things in here that I've never put words to. I didn't know. It bothered me until I started writing.

Doug White:

I asked her at that point. I said you know, when I came home, you were awake that night. What was your thought process? She says, I was awake all night praying for you one to come home safe just as I had always done at least one more time and asking for guidance, what I could do, what we could do to save us and to save you, to save us and to save you. And I told her.

Doug White:

I said you know, it's funny that you mentioned faith, because during that time I saw no greater power. I didn't see God. There was nothing in my life. It was darkness, hopelessness, completely vacant. And before I could finish my sentence, she said did it ever occur to you that you didn't have to, because someone had been praying for your safety for the last 15 years? You didn't see anything. You didn't have to see God. I was taking care of that. And to know that she was awake doing that Same time I was holding a pistol Just now. I'll never be and I'll never believe anything else in this world other than the fact that my wife was sent to me all those years ago to save me. Yeah, it wasn't an all at once thing. It took a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of introspection, a lot of journaling, writing, a lot of reading different books, trying to get to the point where I'm at now, and I am unrecognizable now than even when I was three months ago.

Tyra Valeriano:

That's great.

Doug White:

It's a journey.

Tyra Valeriano:

It is a journey. What would you say is something that helped you the most out of all of the things or techniques that you used to try to get to the bottom of where you needed to do your healing or you needed to work on yourself? What helped you the most out of all of those things that you did?

Doug White:

For me. I don't like to use the word vulnerability because that makes it sound like it's a weakness. Honesty, just taking a long, hard look and, um no, I don't want you to have to put the parental control, uh have on your podcast, but uh, I found that owning all of your shit, every bit of it, the stuff you don't want to talk about, the stuff that uh, uh, that you don't want to tell yourself you have to. The only way you're going to get through any of this is if you face it and do the work intentionally and walk through it. You have to. You've got to be still to figure it out. Once you figure it out, you have to be honest, Continue living the way you have been living or is there a better way? And if there's a better way, you have to do the work.

Doug White:

You know I had to own my shortfalls as a husband. I had to own my shortfalls as a dad. You know I gave everything to a profession and to an organization that was incapable of loving me back. These are inanimate objects. They're not capable of love or feeling. They're machines. I placed my trust and my worth and my value in what I got from that place. It was a lot of rented admiration. Quite frankly, the day you retire doesn't mean shit. You give them back all of their stuff, all of the things that made you that thing, you give back. So once you realize that and you own that, then you have to atone for it and have those conversations with the people you love and the people who loved you.

Doug White:

So I did that and that that came through in the book. So the book is it's an apology letter to anyone who's loved me for the last 30 years. It's a love letter to my wife. It's a love letter to myself. I've had people call me, from tier one operators to brand new first responders who said this know, this is, this is fantastic. Or, hey, man, how come you never told me? Or this is an owner's manual for for any spouse and how to deal with their their first responder and, um, you know there's so many things in this that I've learned, but it all started with owning a journey the real, every bit of it.

Tyra Valeriano:

Tell us a little more about your book. First, what's the name of your book and what prompted you to want to write a book?

Doug White:

It's actually a funny story. The second part the book is called Hiding in Plain Sight the Truth About Karma Service and the Way Forward. The book started off as me talking trash, like hey, what are you going to do when you retire? It was like almost, quite literally, the million dollar question what are you going to do? I'm going to go work for the government, go and support special operations, I'm going to go teach bonds and bad guys, like I did when I was a contractor, or I'll teach undergrad. I'll go teach college, because I used to teach in the academies and I really enjoyed it, but none of that stuff was setting me on fire. So I was like I'm going to write a book. I literally said that on the way out the door after my cake party at the district.

Doug White:

I'm going to write a book. I thought, what About all of this? A couple of people were like uh-oh.

Tyra Valeriano:

About all of this. That says enough.

Doug White:

It's like what's he going to say, what's he know?

Doug White:

First of all, I don't get into room work, conjecture any of that stuff. It's not my business and I don't care it's somebody else's business. But I business and I don't care it's somebody else's business. But you know, I didn't know what I was going to do and I just sat down a few weeks after I retired and I just started typing on the laptop and I found that I was very honest with the blank pages on the blank screen and just I mean, it's pouring out of me. I was typing away One day I knocked out about 10,000 words just sitting there not realizing where the time had gone, and it got really, really dark because I was just letting loose of things that I never thought bothered me, and one thing would lead into another and another and another Started talking about calls and events that I had gone to, found myself actually at one point pushing away from the whole project for about six weeks because I was just a little ramped up.

Doug White:

And after several months I read what I had written. It was probably January of this year, so probably six months of just journaling. I had about 77,000 words and a printed paperback that's just over 100 pages or something like that, and I saw that I had written myself in this hero's journey as a victim or a bystander. All of these things happened to me, and I think anybody who's ever met me personally or has ever worked with me would never use the word victim to describe me, and I didn't know why I'd ever thought that of myself. So I went back through it and I started working out every one of those issues. Why would I think this? Why would I say that? And I realized that it was the journal that I should have been keeping for 30 years, because, yes, journaling works. I'm here to tell you as a person who thought it was all garbage it works. Put that aside and started talking about the lessons I learned from that in my 30 years of military and law enforcement service.

Doug White:

And what this book is now Hiding in Plain Sight is the answers to all of those questions. Why would I think that? What do I see now? What is the way forward? Very, very little of what's in this book is what was in that journal. It's the answers to the journal, and that's really what it came out of Me, just figuratively, given the bird. As I walked out the door, the panic people turned out to be this great and powerful thing. That's really. I mean I've sold 600 copies. It's been out for less than a month now. That's great.

Doug White:

Yeah, I don't know 600 people who can read, so I'm I'm feeling pretty good about it. Um, but the feedback that I'm getting is just, it's incredible. It's making a difference what you're doing here with chapter blue and, and your next thing, this is making a difference. Um, it'll. You know. You asked me before we started about the podcast and the book and how everything's going it. Uh, it takes a minute get legs, but once it does, there's not going to be a day that goes by that you're not going to get a text or a message or some feedback of someone that what you're doing is helping. It really is. This is fantastic. We all came into being a first responder because we wanted to help people. I didn't realize it would be 31 years before I could really start to see the impact of me wanting to help people through this, so it's been a great experience.

Tyra Valeriano:

Thank you for that, and I kind of see a correlation between the title of your book and what you said earlier in the podcast. You said that when you were working as a lieutenant, you caught yourself having these panic attacks and nobody knew and you would just go into your office. I mean, it's kind of it's relevant to each other. And so it leads me to the question of do you think that you gave any signs or signals that people could have identified that you may have been struggling?

Doug White:

that you may have been struggling. No, no, and I know that because one of the guys that used to work for me back then. He just sat down with the book on I think it's Friday and he read it cover to cover. He's not a reader. He was very upset with me because he never knew any of that stuff. My closest friends read the book and were shocked. I mean, like I've got a buddy. He and I have known each other for 25 years. He said why didn't you say anything? No one knew. They were relieved. They were like, oh my God, you're human. Well, thank God for that. You know, for 20, 25 years I've been bringing my A game every time I was around you, just to find out you're a human being. Yeah, my career.

Doug White:

It didn't end the way that I wanted to. Some of the issues I was having led over to my administrative issues. I'll call it a book and set it on another podcast. Very, very short order. I wasn't paying attention to my administrative duties and I messed up everything the amount of time, the amount of money that I was overpaid. It was, I'll just say, over the course of the year, $2,000 was the cost of my career.

Doug White:

I was demoted from lieutenant to deputy. The four and a half month case IA case that they did no one knew but command staff. They kept me in charge of my platoon. I ran my platoon flawlessly. No one had any clue. I was demoted on a Friday night, showed up to the hood Monday morning working a day shift as a deputy, went back on a Tuesday night at a midnight shift to see my old platoon and explain to them what had been going on in my life for the last 15 years and trying to figure things out and what I had done wrong. I owned every bit of it from the very beginning.

Doug White:

Though I don't get to choose the punishment, I do get to choose and I respond to it. I want to do it with grace and you know the lesson here is take care of yourself, just like I've been telling them for almost a decade at that point. Take care of yourself. It's okay not to be okay. Being the biggest hypocrite in the room and one of the sergeants was angry, he started cussing. He actually kicked in the side of his front door. I didn't have to write the memo on that because I was no longer a boss, but everyone was astounded. They thought I'd been promoted to captain. So when I don't show up for work on a Monday and they were just waiting on the email, like what happened we thought you were promoted to captain.

Doug White:

So no, I was high-performing, high-functioning and I hit it very well, my wife didn't even know I was having panic attacks until she saw one in late December of 2008. Even though we had been going to counseling since late October of that same year, I didn't see any of that stuff. And it had been two months and I'd been going through counseling and I woke up one morning in a full panic attack and it scared her. She almost called the ambulance the full hour. I was inconsolable and finally it was that point that I told her that I'd been having them for now several months. At that point, what you've experienced.

Tyra Valeriano:

I mean, we know that there is a ton of people out there serving in first responder roles and military that are dealing with these same issues, and you actually set the stage for showing officers now that this is what can happen when you don't address the issues that you need to address or you choose to just soak yourself into the job and not recognize that there are things that you do have to work through, and it doesn't always mean that you have to go to a therapist or you know you have to do certain things. There is no have to do this, it just there is a way for everyone, and it's different for everyone. What do you think would be the most important message out of what you've experienced, to share with officers today?

Doug White:

First, this is not something they experience.

Doug White:

This is something you will experience. You know our experiences, the places that we work, are all very different, but we will all our bodies react the same way. These are the physiological and emotional impacts that we will have if we do not resolve trauma our own health, our own fitness. Whether it's therapy or exercise, whatever it is, I mean, it's different for every single person. One thing, and there's kind of so many things, personal to personal level own your shit. Have the conversation with yourself. If there's a better way to live, find it.

Doug White:

I'm doing all of this and telling my story and revealing the most embarrassing moments of my professional life and my personal life, so that no one else is sitting behind that school with a pistol in their hand. You know, not one more, and I know that's a hard thing to say and it's not reality, because it's going to happen. But if we could just stop it, it's all worth this. As far as the most important thing, I think this has got to be a top-down, bottom-up approach. I think that the—and I call them kids, but the people that are coming the first responder professions now. I think that they are emotionally intelligent enough to own this as a vulnerability and wear it as a badge of honor, knowing where their limitations are and addressing that as they move up. But for the leadership anybody who's still in the leadership positions just suck it up or go for a run or drink more water, whatever it is. Stop that. You need people that are respected in these disciplines to stand in front of a room of people and say here's my story. People who have stood in the arena, people who have the pedigree to say you know, I've done this, this is what I've experienced, this is what happened to me and this is what has happened because I didn't take care of myself. Like me, I tried to outrun it. I thought I was strong enough to be it myself and I did for the better part of two decades until I couldn't and it almost cost me everything, quite literally, you know.

Doug White:

Is the answer having someone standing there in a lab coat saying this is what PTS is? I don't think that's the answer. But having somebody that has been in a fistfight, somebody that's been in a foot chase, a car chase, who handcuffed a homicide suspect after a fight, somebody who has the pedigree to say look, you know, this can happen to anyone. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody Talking with spouses, talking with family members, letting them know look, this is what your first responder is going through. If you think that first responder spouses aren't feeling that because you're not talking to them about your day, guess again. We wear this stuff on us, it's our shirt. They know we've had a bit. They don't know what they're going to get. We come walking into the door so having them read my book, or dozens of books out there like this, listening to the podcast, listening to this podcast, having these conversations with them I deal with the responders. You know every bit of this is important.

Tyra Valeriano:

I don't think there's a most thing, but just being honest, I had a conversation with someone the other day and he brought up exactly that honesty and when it came to podcasts specifically, he mentioned, you know, a lot of police podcasts are out there and they're saying they want to help but there's no solution. And you really just hit the nail on the head, like it's not even about giving everyone a solution. It's showing Maybe you don't want to call it vulnerability, but we're showing the vulnerability of different areas of our life and in the career, in our personal life during the career and after, and showing everyone else that we are human and that if you're going through this, I'm here too and this is how I work through it and everybody, like I said, is going to deal with it differently. But it doesn't matter if I have and probably you feel this way about your podcast. It doesn't matter if I have one download or 150 downloads, because at the end of the day, there's going to be somebody who listens to our podcasts and it's not really that we're forcing a message. We're sharing stories so that people can be relatable in law enforcement or first responder roles and say, hey, I feel that way or I've been through that and I want to know what they did, because I think I'm struggling with that and I don't want to talk to someone. Or you know journaling, like you said.

Tyra Valeriano:

I offer that a lot to clients in coaching sessions and for most people it's you know why do I gotta do that? That sounds dumb and you tell them just try it. You know, just try it and see how it works for you and surprisingly, it works for about 95% of them. And just you sharing your experience. There's gonna be somebody out there that can say, hey, I am going through this and if this helped him, I'm going to try it. Maybe it'll help me. And I think that is such an important message. You released the book and you started a podcast. So what was your motivation behind the podcast?

Doug White:

I did the podcast to support the book and the book to support the podcast. Whatever I can do to get my voice out there so people can get a hold of this. I mean, if somebody called me now I guess the federal government's the only one with the big enough pockets but says, hey, you're not going to make a penny off of this, but we're going to buy 800,000 copies of your book, mission accomplished. Would you like me to go speak? I just, I can't pay for the airfare myself, but I'll take a train. You know, I just, I just want the. I want it out there.

Doug White:

Yeah, it's why I did it. I mean, it's vulnerability. Yes, I wanted to come back to that, but being unapologetic and unafraid, only this is, this is my journey, and if you have a better story, I'd love to hear you know. I just, I think there's so many of us that can do this, that aren't doing this. I just want to be a voice for people who aren't using their voices. There's so much power in storytelling, as you're finding out, and you know, one download or a thousand downloads, that's great, and there's so many things that I want to say. I don't want to go on a tirade or on any of this, but I have found that the podcast is getting a lot of traction and that's why I was so excited when I saw chapter one. I'm going to do this podcast, I've transitioned and you know your work. It's just like, oh my God, this is so great.

Doug White:

Somebody who knew this feeling? And you get it, you get it, you get it. So, yes, the answer is the same as yours. The feeling I get is the same one you get. It's just uh, it's magic when you get that one person and you're going to get trolls, by the way oh, I've gotten them, I've had them okay okay, I got one the other day, but why can't you just suck it up?

Doug White:

you know, I I did, I was, I was this for 12 years. I just suck it up. Well, it's this for 12 years. I just suck it up. Well, that's fantastic. Not that this is a competition or anything, but I'm glad this message is not for you. I'm glad you haven't been there. If you ever are there, I hope your heart's in a place where you can receive this message. You're not going to get a rise out of me. What I'm giving is me. There's no fight here. The message is for you, then the message is for you. If it's not, then I'm glad that's.

Tyra Valeriano:

That's good you know and and that also goes to show just still, the stigma. We talk about the stigma all the time and just what we've learned. I mean, obviously, I wasn't in law enforcement as long as you I didn't retire with the 20 years but I started in law enforcement where this topic and these things that we're talking about were non-existent, so we were not talking about these things, and I learned the same thing you did. You tough it out, you're fine, you know. You tough it out, you're fine, you're going to work through it. You know, if you need to talk to somebody, we're here. But that's not really what it was. It was more the dark humor. Let's joke about it and then move on with our day.

Tyra Valeriano:

And now here we are, you and I, among several other people that I've met in this position, where we see value in sharing a message that is going to help people who are still doing this job because, in reality, they deserve that. They deserve it with as much as they do. They deserve to have some sort of knowledge and somebody to tell them that you don't have to do that and that it's okay to not hold it in, it's okay to not feel okay and talk to someone or do something about it, and I think it's great. I don't know. I have gotten trolls. I've had trolls and I'm okay with it too. It doesn't bother me. It's the same feeling. You know, if the message isn't for you, it's not for you.

Doug White:

Yeah, you know it's funny For you, it's not for you. Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny. I've been hearing a lot of people say well, I didn't do this many years, or I only did this many years. There's 800,000 cops on the payroll in this country. Roughly there's 330 million people in this country, so you're one of 800,000. I wish my wife was here. She didn't account. She'd give me the immediate math and the percentage.

Doug White:

One of relatively a handful of people who have decided to do something to better their community, to serve someone other than themselves. Whether you did that for a week or whether you did it for 40 years, I've seen a difference. You serve, you put on a uniform, you know what it feels like to wear a gun, put on armor and put your life on the line for someone that you've never met. To me, I don't think there's anything more courageous or more honorable in that. You know, if somebody says I'm a veteran but I only did 40 years, why do we have a qualifier on any of these conversations? You tested, you passed the background checks, you suited up, you went into the general. If it was one call or a thousand calls, it doesn't matter. You made the choice to do it. And, yeah, there's no qualifier other than that Thank you for doing what you're doing and being a voice. I am elated anytime somebody jumps in on this mission. I'm just happy to be part of this mission too, so we're all doing the same thing.

Tyra Valeriano:

Well, thank you Back, right back at you. You're doing a lot of great things. I'm going to have to read your book. I'm going to probably have to get it.

Doug White:

Do you have it on Amazon, where you can read it digitally, or is it just paperback? It's paperback and ebook through Amazon. It's on like 40 different places that you can go get it and I've been trying to do the audible but I've been so busy with everything else. There will be an audible soon, but, yes, the book is on Amazon and, yeah, get it. It's an easy read, it's storytelling and it goes start to finish and it ends with a win and there will be another book. I've got another one in me, just from what I've learned about writing this book.

Tyra Valeriano:

Well, that's great to hear. We are running out of time, and there is a question that I like to ask all of my guests, and that is if there was one piece of advice you could give your rookie self, what would it be? I really just like to ask this question without preparation, because it gives you time.

Doug White:

No, because you get this.

Tyra Valeriano:

Yeah, and I want you to like as authentic as you can be, because you've done years and you have learned so much. But you could just give yourself one piece of advice out of all of those years that you experienced, what would you just tell yourself?

Doug White:

I would tell myself to relax. You're going to become the man you have to be to survive the next 30 years to serve your purpose. But there is a win. Basically, don't take yourself so serious, because nobody gets out of this alive.

Tyra Valeriano:

That's good.

Doug White:

That's really it. But yeah, you will have to become this thing. This thing is going to keep you alive and one day you will fulfill your purpose.

Tyra Valeriano:

That's great thank you so much for sharing your story, for sharing such insightful and impactful things with everyone today. I know that sometimes that may be hard to talk about. Maybe for others it might be hard to hear because they may have been in a similar situation. But that vulnerability is exactly what the message is. It's out there and your story just proves that it's okay to feel these things and to acknowledge that maybe you need to work on these things. There's help. You don't have to keep it in. That's not our job to keep it in. I do look forward to reading your book, and do you have any ways that our listeners can contact you if they want to reach out to you, whether it's about your book or your podcast? What is the best way to contact you?

Doug White:

I'm just about everywhere, but the one-stop shop for that is my website, dougwhiteofficialcom. Podcast the book speaking everything is all right there.

Tyra Valeriano:

Okay so DougWhiteOfficial. Okay so dougwhiteofficialcom. All right, doug. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today For the listeners. Thank you for tuning in. If you guys want to contact Doug, I will include that in the description and if you want to know more about his book, that'll also be included there. I appreciate you guys tuning in and I will see you on the next one. Thank you for joining me on Chapter Blue. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow and tag me on social media and share with your friends and fellow officers. If you're interested in joining an episode, I'd love for you to be a part of the conversation. Until next time, stay safe, take care of yourself and remember you're never alone in this journey.