Sheriff's Deputy Robin Hopkins - Part 2

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Robin Hopkins.

If you haven’t listened to Part 1, we recommend starting there to hear the moment that changed everything.

In this episode, we move beyond the incident and into what came after.

After being shot in the line of duty, Robin’s life shifted in ways no one prepares you for. The physical recovery was only part of the story.

What followed was a deeper fight—through chronic pain, PTSD, depression, and alcohol abuse—and the realization that some of the hardest battles weren’t new at all, but rooted in unresolved trauma from her past.

This is the part of the story we don’t often hear.

What it takes to rebuild.

What healing actually looks like.

And how strength can take a completely different form.

 Horses for Heroes (website) 

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She Fights is a podcast about resilience, recovery, and the strength it takes to rebuild after adversity. 

Jackson Wink Gym (website)

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Disclaimer:
This episode is shared for educational and storytelling purposes only and is not intended to replace professional therapy, counseling, or medical care. Heather Winkeljohn is not a licensed therapist or mental health professional. The views and experiences shared by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Heather Winkeljohn or She Fights or UnstoppableVoicesMedia.com. If you are struggling, we encourage you to seek support from a qualified professional.

If you are in crisis or thinking about self-harm, contact your local emergency services or, in the U.S., call/text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7, free and confidential.

New Life Ministries (website), a Christian counseling and support ministry providing faith-based care and resources to those in need.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Every scar has a story. Every woman a fight worth telling.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Fights with Hello Puton, the podcast where we bring you all powerful and inspiring stories of women who face the unimaginable and survive. Some conversations explore heavy emotional life experiences. Take care of women when it feels right for you. From battle for fillness, abuse, and injustice. To triumphs of resilience, courage, and hope. These are the voices that refuse to be silent. Real women, real stories, unbreakable spirit. This is Chief Fights.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Today I'm grateful to have back on Robin Hopkins. This is kind of our part two. For those of you that may have missed her first interview, a little background on Robin. She's a former Marine, a retired sheriff's deputy, current Air National Guard member, wife, and a mom. And Robin shared her impactful story of when she was shot and critically injured by an active shooter event here in Albuquerque. And during that time, we touched on things that she did within her life to kind of help her overcome things like PTSD, alcohol abuse, chronic pain. But what we didn't get to discuss, which I think is huge for people to hear, is some of the other things that Robin has been doing and has done that helped her healing. And I think it's important for anyone out there that's dealt with trauma to just have options and hear how different people have managed their trauma and the tools that are available to us. So thank you, Robin, for being here again and I'm honored to have you back.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Oh, Heather, thank you. Well, first I have to say I'm a big fan of yours. And I I think it's really important for us to collaborate and continue to tell our stories. Everybody has a story. I think we make the mistake of getting caught up on details and comparing. And I know my story is uh what's the word, dramatic or dynamic, and it's big, but everybody has a story, and that's really important. So I want to throw that out. And I also like to tell people don't minimize your story, because that's the other thing people do is they compare. So please don't compare your story, don't minimize your story. So I want to say that. Um one thing I want to touch on is uh when we talk about uh PTSD, the other side of it is post-traumatic growth. And that took me a while to find out about. So there's the other side of it. There's there is a bright side, there is always a bright side. So I have learned a lot from the experiences that happened to me. And I'm not an authority on post-traumatic growth, but there is an upside to trauma. I discovered later that I never would have joined law enforcement or the military had I not had and it started in childhood, which I didn't even know until I went into therapy and and whatnot, that that led me into a life of service. So that's where it started was some issues in childhood, right? So that was really interesting for me. But yeah, so there's always an upside, and and that's what I I want to share is post-traumatic growth. You can Google it and it's it was a real aha moment for me. I was like, what? There's an upside to all this crap? This is this is awesome. Yeah, I've never heard that. I've never heard of that.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

So really well, what exactly is it? Is it is it a uh strengthening resilience that comes from that trauma?

SPEAKER_03 4:14

You just said it. Absolutely. It's an upside. It's absolutely an upside. And once you look at it as the upside to what you're going through, it's it's a game changer, it's a superpower. So there's no one I can't sit in front of and go, yeah, hashtag me too, right? And again, it's not about saying me too in terms of I don't want to say me too. It's yeah, you you just said it, Heather. It's like the sword, the you get stronger from it. It's not gonna beat you down. And yeah, there's gonna be tears and days where you don't want to get up, but when you get up, you will get up stronger, just like lifting weights. Yeah, you can't build a muscle without the tough stuff, right? Without the that's huge. Yeah. There and there's research behind the growth, the post-traumatic growth, all sorts of research behind it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

You mentioned last time that you had worked with youth um as part of your your journey and all of this. And so what was it that you did and what was it about working with youth that was healing for you specifically?

SPEAKER_03 5:26

It's funny because it started around uh 2000, I want to say five, and I'm bad with time and dates, but a very long time ago, as a sheriff's deputy, one of the sergeants reached out and asked me to put in for a school resource officer position. And um, I immediately said no. I was like, oh, thanks a lot for, you know, I'm flattered, but absolutely not. I was a single parent at the time, and I was on patrol and I was like, nope, nope, nope, I'm not not interested at all. Hadn't volunteered with kids and didn't even particularly like them. I loved mine, you know. I loved mine, but no, not interested at all. And he was like, all right, well, it's weekends off, holidays off. And I was like, uh, maybe the youth do need my mentorship. Uh maybe, you know, so I said, well, let me think about it. And I and I said, Yeah, I'll give it a try. And I did put in for it, I got it, and I went to the training. The training was outstanding. And I was a school resource officer, and it absolutely changed my perception, my life, because I I was around the kids and they were amazing. And you know, working with them, they're they're just phenomenal. And it changed my perception, not only of kids, but of law enforcement, because that's where it all begins, right? And I never saw it that way because my world was just my own. And dealing with adults, really, I didn't deal with kids much. And so that's where it began. And I saw them differently, and they just melted my heart. I mean, you just see them and you know them personally, their stories. They'd come to my office, or I'd see them, you know, at I was at uh Polk Middle School in the in the South Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they'd come to me and and it just it changed everything. And so that's where it started. And then over the years, then I became a DAIRE officer, if you remember that. Oh, yes. Yeah, I was a DAIRE officer. And that's where it started. And then over the years, I got involved in leadership programs, ROTC, and then I just got hooked. And off and on from there on, uh, that that's where it all began. And and I tell, especially cops, I'm like, if you haven't been involved in something with youth, you've got to because they'll never forget you. I mean, I've been retired so long, it doesn't happen now, but I would have kids come up to me and say, they called me Miss. Yeah. Um they go, Miss, you don't remember me. And I knew what was coming next. And I'll never forget a face. I wouldn't remember their name. And they'll say, you know, who they were. And it just, oh, it just hit my heart. And they don't, they'll never forget you. And you don't know who you're changing and who you're influencing. And then they changed me, you know, and influenced me. And it just changes your life. So that's where it started. And and to this day, I just here and there I'll I'll volunteer. The latest one I just got involved in, and it starts in a couple weeks, is it's called the Navy Sea Cadets. It's an RTC program. I'm starting that. And you know what people don't realize is a lot of kids don't join the military, but it's in schools. This one is outside of school, but they they don't necessarily join the military, but it's character, it's leadership. Um in APS, they have these programs. They're just gems, they're hidden gems inside the schools. They're archery programs. I don't know if parents know about them, but I've done a lot of volunteering with those programs, and they're awesome. I just love them.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Yeah, no, I um I taught in the public schools for about five years and at Wilson and Hayes. And yeah, I was much younger at the time. Yeah. But I remember a student in particular coming to me. I was always on his case because he was smart. He was so smart. But he, you know, first thing you do after school is go to the park and fight. And it was like, come on. And he frustrated me. And then he came back in high school and he enjoyed ROTC. Came in with his uniform and you know, and it was making good grades. And I was like, Yes, yes, this is it, you know. Yeah, it's we just we need so much of that in Albuquerque in in the community because there's so many hurting kids and so many kids without guidance, without role models, without resources, you know. So that's amazing that people like you are in demand.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

So I yeah, I don't know if it's me, but it and you know, and as soon as you think, oh my god, I don't have time for this, you do it and it doesn't take that much time. It's an hour out of your day, and you get way more than you know, you really put in. And you're not just touching one life, you know. There's that saying, if you touch one person, you never are, because you're always that life is influencing someone else, and you always get more than you put in. You just do.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

That is so true, right there. You just hit the nail on the head. We started the Incredible Adaptive Program, was our nonprofit, because at my backstory, my daughter had a stroke at birth, special needs, one side of her body affected. She grew up in the gym, and we saw that MMA of all things was helping her. And so we started that program, the nonprofit, where they would get free lessons with some of our athletes at Jackson Week in MMA and earn their belts. And we had 45 youth and teens in that program at one time, and it not only changed their lives, it changed their families' lives, and it changed the coaches' lives because some of these coaches came from some pretty rough backgrounds. And one particular grew up in the Chicago foster care system, yeah, had his own struggles, and I saw a huge transformation in him, yeah, you know, and and our other fighters that have these backstories. And so you're absolutely right. It really does kind of have a far-reaching effect on people.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Is it still going? It's not.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

We we ended it in December. We had it for about eight years, but nonprofits are a lot of work. Oh, tell me about it. A lot of fundraising, a lot of begging for money and grants. And you know, we paid our coaches and we bought gear and tried to keep it free for students and families, but it just got to be so much after a while.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

It is, it's a misnomer. Yeah, the whole nonprofit thing. I did it for a little while and it's it's exhausting. Good on you. You did it for a while, you touched a lot of lives, and maybe somebody else will pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Do you have a moment where you influenced a student or a child and you thought, okay, this is why I'm here. This is why I like doing it. I'm sure there's many, but can you think of one in particular that just jumps out?

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Absolutely. It brings tears to my eyes, and it's been over 20 years. He was a student, tough kid, and they're, you know, I we say tough, but they're in middle school. And I knew his background. He didn't know that I knew. That's what people don't know about these kids is they think, oh, they're in middle school and they don't take them serious. They're in gangs, and oh, how much can they be in a gang? But I took them serious and I always treated them with respect. And I had to take him to jail one day for assault on school personnel. And I loved this kid. I loved him because I knew his backstory and I knew what happened to him. So I took him to JDC and something told me to do this, and I don't know why, but I opened up the car door before we went into JDC and I knelt down and I said to him, because he was always tough, always put up this tough exterior. And I knelt down and I said, Whatever happened to you, I said, let it go. I said, because they're always gonna win if you keep this fight up. And I said, go in there. And I said, say yes, sir, yes, ma'am, no, sir. You know, and I said, let it go. I said, because they're always gonna win. And that's that's all basically I said. And I knelt down. He was sitting in the car with handcuffs, you know, and I knelt down and I talked to him, and he wouldn't look at me. And then I stood up and then I let him in there, and I walked into JDC, and and I said to, I said, the booking officer, I said, This is a good one. And and that's all I said. And then I I let him in the next day. He walked up to me and he said, That's the nicest anyone has ever been to me. And he wouldn't look at me. And then he walked away, and I was like, That's as nicest anyone's ever been to me. And it was kind of astray, he was a loving talking to, but it was a stern talking to, and I was like, I didn't know what to make of it. And then I never saw him again. And I talked to the the principal and I said, What happened to Aesus? And they said, His mom pulled him out because he was always school to school to school, and I never saw him again. And then I read in the paper that he was involved in a shooting and he was shot and he was he's dead. And I saw his face in the paper. It was like 10 years later, and I was like, Oh, you hear about these kids, but that particular one just really hit me. And I think about him because there's so many Jesus over the years, you know, and that was his outcome. And it just stuck with me that there's just so many of him, but that line, that's the nicest anyone's ever been to me. Wow, you know, and I'm like, that's the nicest anyone's ever been, you know, but that's the influence that we have on these kids is just go in there and just let that guard down. And I I think what got to him is I said, whatever happened to you, don't let them win. Yeah. There was some pretty bad stuff that had happened to him. And I said, Don't let them win, just let your guard down. And and I don't know if this is making any sense, but no, it is.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

It's it it yeah, it sounds like it had a big impact on you. And you realize it sounds like kindness, really kindness, respect, being willing to take time, you know. Uh yeah, even though his outcome was was bad, it it sounded like it still impacted him. And um for you to be the nicest person, you know, that's that's huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

I hope so. I don't think I volunteer that much. My husband and son might think differently much. I love volunteering, so I I I just share that because I I hope we do a little bit more as a society.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

It sounds like, you know, at least from what I've experienced too with my own daughter and and the adaptive program we had, it having that responsibility towards others, it's really a powerful tool for healing. It really helped me and it helped my daughter immensely. So it's overwhelming sometimes because there is such a huge need. Like you said, I have a friend who's a teacher in the public schools right now, and the stories, the stories she comes back with about what some of these kids are dealing with. Yeah, we really have to do better. Yeah, we do as a society, as a community.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Yeah, I think our schools, APS, gets a bad rap. There are plenty of good teachers doing plenty of good things. I think people jump on the bandwagon. Yeah, there's a lot of crap, but there's a plenty of good things going on. I read, it was fourth grade. I read to what they were kids that English was their second language.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah, that's what I taught in middle school. Yeah, DSO. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Yeah, yeah. And I can read, so that was my skill less. So I read to these kids and I they were adorable. So that's what I did. And uh, you know, stuff like that. It's like I remember, you know, my second grade teacher, my third grade teacher, you know, being loved by them. You know, childhood was not a good time for me, but I, you know, that saying, I'll, you know, you may not remember what they said, but you always remember how they made you feel. Yes, you know. So I remember feeling loved by my second and third grade teacher. And I think we need more volunteers, just a little bit. I only did it for a school year because my son was at the same elementary school. So it was one day a week. He was in school, so I would just, you know, jump in there and do the reading. And, you know, hopefully those two kids they were from Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

And it was nothing for me. I'd show up at the door and you know, their little faces, they'd see me and they'd, you know, run to the door and I'd read to maybe it made a difference. I don't know. Um back to healing. You and I were talking about healing. I think I did it for me. And I know my mom was severely abused as a child. Maybe I did it for her. You know, I think we all do it for selfish reasons. Why not? You know, it helped me. I think it helped me and my mom. Yeah, you know, she's she's gone now, and so and I miss her. So maybe it's a little grieving for her, you know. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah. No, you're right. I remember my dad died tragically and suddenly when I was eight. And in those days, we didn't do counseling, you know, it was like you just went on. And uh and I remember not much was really talked about for a few months. I was numb. And I remember though, to this day, my second, maybe third grade teacher, yeah, taking me for a walk on the playground and just saying, How are you doing? You know, are you doing okay? And it's like, you know, the trauma's still there, the grief's still there, you take it into adulthood, like you said. But I still remember that moment, that moment of her just expressing that kindness and the time, like you say. You know, it is, it's it's huge, and we need more of it. Absolutely. Yeah. So is there anything else you that you did that we didn't talk about in the last interview or even today that you can think of that was pivotal? Or even any advice you would offer to someone who's dealing with trauma and trying to overcome difficulty? That's a loaded question, I know.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

I think between last time we talked and now I was talking to a couple friends and fellow coaches. Grieving has been a topic that's come up, and you just reminded me because we don't grieve, and uh, whatever that means to you. So I was talking to a friend and grieving meaning the loss of a job or the loss of an identity or the loss of she was telling me she had moved and she had lost a nonprofit, and there's anticipatory grief. Her dog is dying. And so, as a society or as a culture, grieving is it's it's an interesting topic in general. So, and it changes. So, you mentioned your dad, the loss at eight, and grieving is a lifelong process. It's like I didn't grieve my mom the first probably three years because I was the one that made all the arrangements, and I'm the baby of the family, and I didn't cry, like do the really ugly, deep tears till years later, and it was, you know, it's but there's no timeline, you know, like you're supposed to cry right. So I think grieving is a very interesting topic. It is, you know, and then our devices, you know, our phone devices, it's just we're not off them, and so we're overstimulated. We don't take time to just get quiet and yeah, be in the present, be in the moment. Yeah, mindfulness is thrown around, you know. Yeah, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Everybody's gotta kind of explore that grief, grieving on on their own terms and in their own on their own timeline. It's funny because I remember when I was going through nursing school, they were talking about how important it is to meditate. Well, I don't do well with meditation. I think it's so admirable people that can do it. I like to hit stuff, and I like to punch the bag in the midst. And that's my way of getting that tension and that energy out. And everybody's got their own way of dealing with it. But yeah, it's it's an individual thing. It really is. When you grieve, how you grieve, what you do to deal with stress, what you do to make yourself more resilient. All those things are gonna be so variable.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Well, so well, some might say that is your meditation or your flow. Because if you're if you're completely in the moment with your hitting and in with your focus, then that is your meditation. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because meditating, I think people, it's like like yoga, they they think, oh, and yoga pants, and you know, that's why when I don't say yoga, because you know, it conjures up images where you know, for me, yoga is breathing and it's different things. But yeah, if you're in in the zone, then I think you're meditating when you're hitting things. Okay, all right, I'll take that. Yeah, that's that's your meditation. Yeah, it's good to actually it's all perspective, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:22

It's all perspective, right? Well, I um I love this conversation. I love talking to you about this stuff. I think it's super helpful for people to hear and important for people to hear. I appreciate you so much. Um thank you. I'm honored, and yeah, I'm sure I'll be talking to you again. I know I will.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Thank you so much. Thanks, Robin.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

You know, she fights.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Thanks for joining us on She Fights, where women's voices rise and strength takes center stage. If today's story moved you, share it. Someone out there might need to hear it. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and follow us on social media at Smart Girl Self-Defense. And if you're interested in powerful stories of women in sport, not only the pioneers who shaped history, but the women competing, coaching, and changing the game today, we invite you to listen to Unstoppable Podcast. Unstoppable blends immersive storytelling and thoughtful interviews, exploring the moments, movements, and people who continue to redefine what's possible for women in sport. You can find Unstoppable Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time, keep fighting, keep rising, and never forget the power of your voice.