WHY GOOD COPS QUIETLY BREAK | MELISSA FREITAS Ep. 13

Why do so many first responders struggle long after the critical incident is over?

In Episode 13 of Broken Perspective, licensed therapist Melissa Freitas, LMFT shares the hidden truth about trauma, PTSD, burnout, cumulative stress, and why unresolved trauma often appears as anger, isolation, anxiety, or emotional numbness.

Whether you're in law enforcement, fire service, EMS, the military, or simply trying to understand how trauma affects the mind, this conversation offers practical insight into healing, resilience, and building a life beyond the job.

Topics include:
• PTSD vs. cumulative trauma
• Why overtime can become a coping mechanism
• Childhood trauma and first responders
• Burnout, retirement, and identity loss
• Healthy ways to process trauma
• How family and friendships protect mental health

If this conversation helped you, subscribe for more honest conversations that challenge perspectives and help people grow.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Oh, today from Sacramento, we are drinking the hop stomper uh from made by Jackrabbit Brewing.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Awesome hop stomper. And where is uh say Jackrabbit Brewing? From Sacramento. Sacramento. Sacramento. Very cool. I learn something new every episode um in terms of all the breweries that we have around here, which is actually pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I think it's an Indian pale ale. Which I don't think we've done before. Here.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Okay. And just because we don't discriminate, uh Melissa, what are you drinking?

SPEAKER_03 0:33

I'm going with the Gatorade Zero Blue Flavor.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Can't go wrong with that. Can't go wrong with that at all. Cheers. Cheers. Melissa. Thanks for watching. Cheers, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Well cheers here. Cheers the Gatorade Gatorade. Electrolytes.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

She'll be the thing is, she will be feeling better tomorrow than we will.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Because we'll be all dehydrated from our I'll be waiting for my Gatorade sponsorship to be in my email tomorrow morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, we're still looking for sponsors and um we haven't asked for any yet, but we will soon. So our show's getting better and better. Um all right. Well, Melissa, again, thank you for coming on the show today and uh hanging out with us. Uh, I guess we could just jump straight in. And if you want to share a little bit about kind of your background, who you are, what your journey has looked like uh becoming a therapist.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Sure. Um, so my background is kind of interesting. I actually started off wanting to go into law enforcement. Um, I went to Sacramento State where I studied criminal justice. Um, and my whole entire goal was to go become a police officer. And so I graduated in 2008. Um, the economy was just trash at that time. And the only thing I could really get hired to go do was to work in a correctional facility. Um and I just was not thrilled. That was not really where I wanted to see my saw myself. Um, my husband was in law enforcement at the time, working undercover. And I was like, man, if I can't have that, you know, I'm gonna take something else in the meantime while I wait. And I ended up going to a juvenile sex offender program. So these are young kids um under the age of 18 that had sexually assaulted other children. Um, and the staff there was always really irritated with the kids. Some of the kids would say, fuck, or you know, throw a basketball at the wall, and the staff just flipped out. And I was always like, meh, whatever. Like they're doing what they need to do. What do you really care why they're they're cussing or if they're throwing something?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

They have bigger issues.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

They have bigger issues. What am I worried about? This like, so they had an extra box of cheez-its. Um, and so the psychologist came up to me and he was like, Have you ever thought about going into psychology? And I was like, No, never. And he was like, You have the disposition for it. Um, and that was all it took. I ended up applying for the University of San Francisco where I now am a professor at. Um, and that kind of started my career in psychology. And then I was finishing up my master's program when my husband, um, who was in law enforcement, ended up having a critical incident himself. And so he had been in law enforcement at that time about 18 years, and he ended up having a rollover vehicle accident coming down from state line. And after that, uh, he started having panic attacks, didn't want to go to work, had anxiety, and he made a poor decision to come home early on shift. Um, and they ended up uh doing an investigation, tagged his car, and saw that he was fraudulent on time cards. And so they said, like, here's the deal, we'll either let you retire medically or we're gonna actually go after you and brady you because you were fraudulent on time cards. They never questioned why the sudden change in behavior, why all of a sudden the law enforcement officer who's had a a great career now has anxiety, has panic attacks, is on meds, is now on a desk. Um, nobody ever asked any questions. And at the end of the day, he was bringing his patrol car home at 11 o'clock at night. The time of the accident was 11 o'clock at night. Um, and nobody ever stopped to think that maybe there was a correlation. And so I kind of had this thought of like, all right, if I can help one dude uh not lose his whole entire career because of something that happened on the job and I can save that family from going through what we went through, uh then maybe it was for not. So I tried to make sense of it, and then that really led my career where wanting to work with other families that were police and fire families.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah, we'll talk about a personal experience to like push you and kind of embolden your passion for what you do, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Yeah, it's not professional, it's personal.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And kudos to the person who uh recognized your ability earlier and said you should get into that because it's not a quick process to uh become a therapist, and especially and you've helped so many people, um, which is how you know we kind of got in touch. So um kudos to you and kudos to that person, whoever it was.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

So so real quick, what does the training to become a therapist look like?

SPEAKER_03 4:40

So step one's obviously you got to get a bachelor's, then you go into a master's program. The master's program is just a piece of paper. Um it's the ticket to open the door. And then once you graduate, you have to complete 3,000 hours under a licensed supervisor. Um and you do that at the chain training location of your choice. Um, and that's how you then get a specialty. Um but you have to do about 3,000 hours. They're all very, very poorly paid positions. They take a lot of advantage of our young therapist. Um and then once you complete your 3,000 hours, you then sit for the board, and then you have to pass um the board test to become a licensed therapist, and then you can practice freely.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Oh, okay. So it's uh it's a lot of training.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah, it takes about two to three years, and then if you want to specialize in something, it it's lifelong. Um, but you spend a lot of extra time and money specializing in things. You have to really invest your own um time, money, energy to going after a career and what you want. There is no free ride in therapy to be good.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, I was gonna say it's it's probably like like a lot of um I guess these kind of specialty professions where the real experience doesn't start until post-graduating, right? Getting hands-on, talking with people and learning about others is where you kind of really develop your your skill sets.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

So, based on all of your experience, how would you define trauma?

SPEAKER_03 5:57

I think that we have to stop looking at trauma as being one thing because trauma can be any experience. It's any experience that overwhelms us that we just do not have the resources to deal with psychologically, emotionally, mentally, uh, financially. Um, those all lead to having an experience that just does not get resolved, um, and that we just continue to relive it consciously or unconsciously.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So what you name doesn't necessarily have to only do with first responders. Like that's that's most people have some some type of trauma experience.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Um what led you to obviously your husband was a big part of it, but was there or when you started your career, were you initially wanting to focus on first responders in that sort of um no kind of industry?

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Or what was your initial passions when you my initial passion was actually working with kids in CPS.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Um so I have a therapy dog that has worked with me for a long time. Um, and me and my therapy dog did a lot of CPS cases with really traumatized kids. And I was really interested in working with those kids, um, primarily because there's a saying in therapy that says, We're all here to give what we didn't get. Um so I was really interested in working with the youth that came from really rough upbringings, dysfunctional families, um, parents that just kind of didn't have their shit together. And that's where it kind of started for me.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Okay. Did you spend some time doing that first, though?

SPEAKER_03 7:20

I did. I did a lot of that for Placer County.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Okay. And what was that like?

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Uh it's intense, right? I mean, it's really difficult, I imagine, just like in law enforcement, where you have to go see these people that, you know, the way that you want to create change is not really something that you're allowed to do. And so here you are looking at a situation that you're like, this just isn't right. This is just so messed up. Like, man, if we could just make one simple fix, this all could be okay. But you can't. You get an hour a day, um, or maybe an hour a week to try to make change with these families. And it's, you know, you go home at night thinking, what more could I have done? Am I good enough? Am I actually helping these people? Um, man, maybe another therapist could do this better than I could. Um, and you just, you know, really think about these families and then realize at some point, like, man, I'm just a small cog in this wheel.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah, yeah, it's frustrating. I think that was one of the big things over the course of my career working with kids. And, you know, I always say like the true victims. Because I mean, there's very few, like, I mean, there's a lot of victims out there, but I think kids, most people can agree, are like one of the main true victims in all scenarios. Right. They didn't get to choose who their parents were. No, and I just always felt like that was probably the most frustrating thing is you have such a small window that professionally you can impact, you know, a child or their family with what you do. And over time you realize like how much impact can I have and am I having? And it's really hard. And I can see why a lot of people kind of get um be like jaded and cynical and just kind of like it's a little negative, which I don't know, it can be kind of defeating to people in this profession, and I I would assume in therapy as well, when you really want it, you know, you go into it, really good intention, and like you know, feel like you could change the world if you can just connect with people, children, and but then you realize the you're there for you know, maybe an hour, a couple hours, but they're with this other this other influence for 24 hours, seven days a week, and how do you combat that? You know, so I guess my question there would be like, how do you maintain a level of optimism and drive to continue when you feel like you can only impact so much?

SPEAKER_03 9:31

I think one of the things that I try to teach baby therapists that I supervise is that sometimes our only job is to plant the seed of hope that you have no idea what a simple interaction is going to do six months, nine months, a year from now. And sometimes, you know, people sitting in therapy reference their therapists from when they were seven or eight, or, you know, have sat on the couch with people where they've referenced, you know, an interaction where law enforcement came in and actually arrested their dad and they thought, like, oh my gosh, wow, you know, somebody can bully him. And so sometimes those little moments, even though they seem like absolutely nothing to us, they show up later in somebody's story as something bigger, bigger and better. Um, so trying to remind myself that of like, okay, maybe I don't see the change right now, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah, yeah. Um, and because we're here to learn, obviously, about trauma, and we really want to learn from you and your experience in dealing with this and hopefully share with our audience some things that will be helpful by the end of this podcast. Um, are there any particular mistakes that stand out in your field that people make when dealing with trauma, you know, post-trauma, like the way people behave and address it? What are some of those mistakes?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

I I think that there's a few classic mistakes that people think, right? Is that if I don't talk about it, it goes away. Um, that everybody thinks that somehow by ignoring it, buying something cool and, you know, distracting myself or getting another position that if I just don't think about it, it's ultimately gonna go away. Um, and the truth is trauma doesn't go away. Some of the nastiest trauma that we hold on to is actually from when we're children. And when we're looking at law enforcement, you know, 90% of our first responders are coming in with childhood trauma. And so you're coming into a profession where, if you will, you already have kind of a sensitivity or a predisposition to be impacted. And then you go into this career where your goal is to just suppress it more and act like it's not there. Uh, that's really setting yourself up for failure. You know, how much are you gonna say that that's not there when it has been the whole time?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

You also think like, um, I think there's a culture, or at least there has been, where it's like you're involved in a critical incident. Let's say it's an officer-involved shooting and drinking. Um that becomes like a oh, I'm gonna drink my sorrows away, or they kind of isolate themselves. And um, those are some of the things that I've seen that I really tried to warn other people when they go through it. I try to front load it before and try to um impart the knowledge on officers like, hey, like this is gonna make it worse. These are the healthy things you're supposed to do, and these kind of are the unhealthy things that are common that people want to do. Um so what are some of the how what are um I guess is that a very common thing that uh that you experience when people uh that you try to forewarn people on, or how do you do it when you do like a like a stress debrief for I think the number one thing that I mean, I think there's a lot of education and conversation around alcohol, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:27

I don't think people would be surprised to hear like, oh, that's how cops and firefighters cope is by drinking. I think the thing that we're not talking about is how we use overtime to cope.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Overtime is absolutely the biggest use tool to cope with stress, right? Because when I go home and my nervous system is absolutely just blown out and shot and I'm, you know, reliving calls and images and sounds. And now my toddler wants to know if I'll play shoots and ladders or tie their shoes. Like that interaction doesn't match my nervous system. Um, but hey, you know, now I got a swap call out and all of a sudden, like, yeah, there's a bad guy I got to go get. Man, that matches my nervous system. And so, you know, your department thinks you're the hero when you're out there picking up overtime, your buddies are going, oh man, this guy's getting after it. You know, your second wife probably likes your extra paycheck. You know, you have these things that reinforce um that being the go-getter is really a great thing. And so for me, I'm actually more afraid when somebody walks in my office and they tell me how much overtime they're working.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Um, for me, that's when I'm like, oh man. Um, but yeah, drinking is a problem. You know, living outside of your normal paycheck and relying on overtime is absolutely a problem. Um, when we're living, you know, outside of our means and we need that overtime to be able to pay our bills, then when you do have a moment that you're tapped out and you need to, you can't because you're relying on overtime. Um, and so, you know, I see Amazon is kicking up these days. Like everybody has an Amazon Prime account and they're door-dashing themselves everything. And I think just that like now, now, now really keeps us from feeling anything.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Um well, I you know, from my own experience, I I I definitely can relate to the the overtime thing. Um, when I was dealing with some issues, it was definitely like uh I'm not comfortable sitting in silence by myself because that's when the bad thoughts come. So at least when I'm working, I can focus on the job, I can focus on specific things that keep my brain occupied because you know, in the isolation or when I'm home and it's quiet, that's when the wheels start turning. It was not always good things that came up.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah, that's a good point you made about the overtime and like kind of using work as an escape. We we actually talk about that a lot. Like we're very busy-minded, busybodies, and I do wonder though, like as we talk about it, like how much of that is because of our professions over the last 15-20 years. Like, what would I naturally be inclined to always be a busybody if I wasn't a cop for as long as I was, or is it a coping mechanism? I don't know, right? I just I'm kind of the same way. Like I always like to be doing things. I don't know if it's I don't feel like I have a tough time sitting in silence per se, except for my ringing ears. I got really bad tinnitus now, started a year ago. Fun stuff. Um, but I also don't feel like I have a hard time. I just want to be busy though. But I do wonder though, like, could that be you know, a subconscious coping mechanism for myself to not think about those things?

SPEAKER_03 15:31

We traditionally find that people that are hyper-vigilant when they are not busy, they shit talk themselves. You're lazy. You know, you could be doing stuff right now. There's a project outside. Uh the chatter is very negative versus versus the people that um, oh no, this is just how I'm wired. Well, then when they are common still, it's like you deserve this. This is a nice time. Um, it's a pleasant conversation.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, yeah. I hate going to bed feeling like I didn't do stuff because that's the conversation I have. I don't think I I don't use the words lazy or something like that, but I I feel not good. I I lay my head at night if I had a lazy day, which maybe deserved probably, but I lay down and I'm like, fuck, I didn't really get much accomplished, and that feels bad to me for whatever reason. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Well, in your in your first response, you talked about um like a singular event versus, but you kind of referenced more of like uh cumulative. Yeah. Kind of what's the different, what's worse between like a single horrific event versus cumulative uh trauma.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

So, you know, a single incident trauma is just a one-time experience. Um, sometimes they're just big T traumas. This is, you know, a major car accident, you're hit by a jet ski. Um, it's something that's just like, oh wow, everybody would nod their head and be like, yeah, that's that's a big one. Um, but then we have kind of cumulative trauma, which, you know, maybe from the outside it doesn't look like it's that big of a deal. Um, but it's this repeated little blow again and again and again. And ultimately those are actually more dangerous to the nervous system because your nervous system is built to take the occasional big up, big down. That's kind of what it's here for, you know. But with the repeated accumulative trauma, it's this slow chipping away at it. And what that really does is it really changes how your nervous system is wired over time. It doesn't respond the same way with a big critical incident. Your nervous system goes, oh my goodness, that was terrible. Let's go up, let's deal with it. And then it kind of crashes and come back down, and then you level off. The accumulative is just this constant chipping away at it. And your nervous system basically says over time, well, like kind of screw it. If we're always gonna be up there at that higher operating level, why don't we just stay there? And then your nervous system with cumulative trauma basically just lives to live in kind of a hypervigilant state.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

It's a lot of science words. Um, like so, like what would be an example of like like the chipping away?

SPEAKER_03 17:54

I think the chipping away is um, you know, the kid calls, right? It's not that the kid was decapitated or something gruesome, but you go in and the kid is living in filth. Um, and how many times can I go in and see these kids just, you know, being treated terribly by their parents? Or how many times do I have to go see Sally that's getting beat up on a DV call? Um, how many times do I have to go on the homeless guy that's foot is rotting off? You know, and it's just that repeated experience where you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this again. I can't believe I'm doing this again. And I heard something early in my career that I really liked. And it said, if on the way to work you're already thinking about what time you are gonna get off, you're probably burned out. I think that's an example of accumulative trauma. It's not that just one big thing burned you out, it's just this repeated amount of times that you had to get stressed out and little increments that your body over time just gets stuck being stressed out.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Now, if you don't get stressed out, because I think for most first responders, they don't feel stressed out on it's like it's just another thing. It's just another thing. And then I think there's a numbing um effect that that could occur.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Like a desensitate disease.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Yeah, it's like another thing. Like when you see a horrific thing, you're just like, yeah, so what? Like another day. Um what I guess clinically, what's kind of that?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Yeah. So I mean, all first responders have that belief, right? Which is like, ah, I really don't feel the stress. But the cool part is that if we actually know from science that we draw your blood that you have extremely high levels of cortisol. Um, but it's just like alcohol, right? If you drank one beer every once in a while, you would feel it. But when you just drink a beer every single day, yeah, there's gonna be a day where you wake up that it doesn't even make a difference. And that's exactly what the stress hormone is is that you guys, in my opinion, I used to call it tequila in my office, right? That right now, if we just slammed, you know, two shots of tequila, we might feel it, or at least I would. Um, but if we just kept sipping on tequila, at some point you're blasted. Um, but there's totally a difference of accumulative trauma is are you just taking one shot? Are you continuously sipping on tequila? Um, and for a lot of people, after continuously sipping on tequila, you have a really high tolerance.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah. I mean, we've I'm DUI is going into that reference. It's like sometimes you pull somebody over and they're a they're actually doing all right on their FSTs. I mean, the eyes don't lie, and they're like, they actually did pretty good. And then they're a point two, a point two, and you're like, dang, you're like, wow, didn't expect it to be that I it's like you've been doing this for a while. And that's your example of the first responder.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, he would say, I'm doing fine, I'm walkie-talkie, I can operate this vehicle. That's your average first responder.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

It's his baseline, yeah. That's their baseline. Baseline. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Their baseline at that cortisol.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Now, in your experience, is there a worse kind of trauma though? Like, do you tend to see the cumulative end up being worse down the road than just a one event? Or is there any uh, you know, research on that?

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Um, research does show that one big incident trauma is much easier to overcome um versus the continuous cumulative trauma. The cumulative trauma really sets in a kind of a certain kind of belief, right? And we see this in our first responders where it's like, you know, screw everybody, I hate people, I don't want to be around people, um, I can't do anything right, I'm not good enough. Like it just really sets in a belief that, you know, somebody who only experiences something one time, that belief may not get set as easily. Um, and so the cumulative is much more difficult to work on, you know, from a therapist point of view. I'd love to take a single incident one time, bad thing happened. Okay, let's do it. Um, but I got people walking in with 20, 30 years of the same repeated exposure to something, and that's way more difficult.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah. So what are some of the uh ways you see unresolved trauma play out?

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Well, we named one earlier. It's repeatedly choosing poor partners, right? Marriages are a great example. Um, I think the number one way that I actually see it played out, though, is anger. Um unresolved trauma does a really great job of hiding um behind anger. If you think about it, when you're angry, what other feeling can you feel? You can't feel anything else, you're just angry. Um, and so usually it plays out by hiding behind the shield of anger and kind of recreating the situation, but you're now the other person in the story. So, like an example might be you grew up with kind of an abusive dad that maybe yelled or screamed, um, and now you're the person that's yelling and screaming. You're getting to reenact it that way. Um, or you, you know, are the person that you know somebody lost control of on a scene, right? And now you constantly are losing control um or feeling like you are. And so it's just kind of this reenactment of whatever you experienced, but now you want to be the person doing it. So it gives you some assemblance of control.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Now, do you see a difference in men and women, how they process their traumas? Or is it the same?

SPEAKER_03 22:40

I do, I do see a difference with um men and women. I noticed that men um internalize a lot more, um, more likely to shove it down and blame themselves.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

I don't know if this was a question we had on there, but it leads me kind of to that thought was like talking about like suicides. And do you or maybe not do you think, but is the research suggest that that has a lot to do with why men are at greater risk for committing suicide than women? Do you think it's because they, you know what I mean, shut things down and they don't really process it and they don't get it out?

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Yeah. Uh men definitely are at greater risk, right? We know that from the research. Um, and men are less likely to say something to tell somebody, um, they will internalize it. They don't want to be weak. They don't want to ask for help. Uh, and so ultimately, men really like being in control by nature, by design. Um, and when you psychologically lose control, right? You're no longer in control of your thoughts, images that are playing around, how you're thinking about your whole entire day, you have constant anxiety. Suicide's a magical way to get control back, right? Um, suicide starts talking in your head about we could end this all, we could just stop this. Uh, and then it kind of becomes this comforting best friend who convinces you of man, this is the right way to do it. And so a lot of people mistake that suicide is ultimately a final grasp at trying to get control. And because men want to feel dominant, they want to feel in control, they like that sense of power, suicide seems like a good option.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

So, what are some I guess habits or routines or things that they could do to to prevent the trauma from becoming, you know, going to that dark place?

SPEAKER_03 24:29

I think, you know, and it may not be the answer that people want to hear, but therapy's a great start. Um, and if you're not willing to see a therapist because of whatever your reason is, stigma, finances, access, fine. Um, the next best predictor of who does better with trauma is people that have really close relationships. Um, so the more social connections you have and the deeper they are, um, the less risk you are. And so if you look at some of the best treatment of our first responders, we know it's being treated by other first responders and then maintaining that connection. And so if you want to say, like, all right, how am I gonna deal with this? You I hope you have some really good friends that you can just tell the really good, the bad, and the ugly to. Um, because at the end of the day, if you don't have people that you're gonna tell your secrets to, you're gonna live with those secrets.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Now, if you recognize someone who maybe maybe they're not your best friend, but you you uh you associate with them and it just seems like they're kind of becoming a recluse or they're isolating more. Do you have any suggestions on how to approach someone like that? Because thinking of like how most of us are, if someone approached you as a guy who wants to be in control and not get embarrassed about it, like you're probably gonna say you're good if someone checks on you, right? We're good, we're fine, we're fine, angry. We're fine or we're angry. Two modes. You know, I think we mentioned this on our first episode. That's like, well, what do you do for people who just tell you they're fine? Like, how do you kind of break open that shell and let them know you're there for them? Like, what are your what's your experience on that?

SPEAKER_03 26:00

And I don't think that there's any uh right answer there, right? Because I I hear both sides, right? I have guys that sit on my couch that tell me, like, I just don't need one more person to ask me how I'm doing. I don't need one more fake text message that goes thinking about you, bro. How are you doing? Um, for a lot of people, that comes off like they just want to know my secrets, they want to gossip about me, they're gonna tell other people. Um, so I think it does have to be done with a lot of care and compassion. And the only thing I would say is if you're genuinely asking that about somebody, it better really be because you care. Um and I think that if you're somebody in that person's small circle that they know that genuinely cares about them, I don't really think there is a wrong way. But I do think what's wrong is people that maybe don't have that connection overstepping and going into that realm. Um, but I do think that if that's somebody that you know that you're in that circle and you can do, I think it's really simple things. It's a you want to go shoot a bucket of balls, and you want to go do 18 this weekend. Um, hey, I got tickets to go to a beer fest. You want to go? It's really again just spending time with people and making sure that that connection is there. Um, and then if you have the connection, the questions are easy. I think why people get caught up is they don't have the connection and then they try to have the conversations.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

It's almost like a checkbox. I think that's what we run into a lot with peer support groups. Yep. And maybe you can share some light. I don't know. I'm sure you're connected with some different peer support groups at agencies and or you've probably had experience like talking with them and why guys don't really even because I feel like a lot of guys, if they really needed help, they wouldn't go to their own peer support groups. Maybe. If they do, it's probably because they have a particular friend on that group, right? Um, but a lot of part departments, I think when they reach out, you end up getting those text messages from. I experienced it a little bit when I had my injuries and stuff, right? Like you would get the messages from people who never talk to you. And like what you're saying, I think holds some weight. And if you don't have those connections, like it's gonna be not well received necessarily because I felt for some of the people that reached out, it was like that was a checkbox. You know, I could feel it in the text, or even if they called the the way their voice, you know, the tone, it was like this is a checkbox kind of thing, which almost makes it worse. Right. Because you're like, bro, who are you? Like, you don't ever talk to me. You've never even stood for two minutes in the hallway and like had a conversation with me. Yeah, but you're checking a box. Whereas, you know, when you do have good friends that reach out, they don't like I think it I think what you said was really good. It's really not the the answer there, the questions are easy because it's really just them. There's already that connection there. And I think, yeah, it could go a long way to build those friendships and have those connections with people around you. But uh, I I guess not everybody's as fortunate to have those connections though. And that's the challenge, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yeah, I think there's a couple things, right? I I have not ever seen it gone wrong when the connection is there. I've seen officers on duty show up at somebody's house in their patrol car and say, Open the door, I'm coming in. You know, and that sometimes is what does it. It like showed that officer, like, man, I really mattered enough that this person was gonna basically whoop my ass if I didn't come outside.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

Um, and I've seen it done other ways where people stayed their distance for three, six, nine months, and then they show up one day and they go, All right, long enough I'm here. So there's no wrong way if you have the connection. Um, but I think that people make that mistake of treating it like a checkbox.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Yeah, I think sometimes like, and I've been in the on the other side of things too, or sometimes like depending on the circumstance, it's like I don't know what to say. So you feel awkward, you're like, I there's been scenarios where I've things have happened to people in my in my circle, and I'm like, I feel like I really want to reach out. But then I also sometimes I I sit back and I pause because I'm like, fuck, they're probably already reached out by like a hundred people. I know I would start to get overwhelmed, like you mentioned earlier, if I get one more text from somebody saying, check in on you, or and that causes pause sometimes, and I'm like, what can I say? Depending on the incident, might be of a nature where I can't relate, I don't know what to say, and so I almost just don't want to message them at all. And then I've kind of battled my own brain, like, is that the right thing to do sometimes? Like, just don't say anything.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Because I've seen and I've been on it, it's like you can get animosity either way. You get the animosity is like, you know, you're in a critical incident and you have you know 10,000 text messages from people you don't know, like hey man, if you need anything, and you're like, whatever. Like, I don't want to be more boys. But then, like I said, probably on a previous one, it's like it goes silent and then it's it's quiet. And then at the same time, if nobody reaches out, you're like, Well, fuck, you didn't give a shit in the first place. So it just like either way, it's kind of you damned if you do. I think the connections are important, and I'd rather just err on the side of, hey man, like let's do something. Maybe sometimes it's a little bit outside of the box, but do something. Um, one of the incidents um that bothered me, and again, it's weird, it didn't really bother me, but it was the uh feeling like I couldn't help. So I came from an agency, and then after I left the agency, there was a uh pretty horrific event. Um and I was like, man, I should have been there to help out, but I wasn't there because you know I I went to a different agency. So one of my things that I thought I could do to help the most was to to prevent people from becoming recluses or the the the team that was involved in it, I was like, I kind of reached out to local businesses and tried to get things for them to do that they could take their family out and do. Um and I like it was just like kind of given to the union, but like, hey, can you get this to the people that might this might help, you know, whether it's you know, um time at like top golf or you know, movie tickets and different things to because one of my concerns was the natural tendency for so many is to to become a recluse and to hide and just and I don't want to say hide as like a negative, they just want to isolate themselves. Um but I think it's important for them to get out and see that humanity still is very positive in so many ways. And so giving them events and things that they could do with their family to kind of break the cycle of like, I just want to sit here in my uh my own agony, and sometimes they isolate their family. And um, you know, you've talked to a cajillion people, I've talked to a few, um where things that emerge are things that are worse than the incident. Like the reaction is tends to be worse than the the traumatic event that they have is how they responded to it, whether it's alcohol, infidelity issues, um substance and different things that they do, and you're like you start talking to them, you're like, you're not even it's not even the incident anymore. Like you're just mad that you didn't handle it as well as you thought you should have, and you're not proud of yourself. You're kind of shamed, you're ashamed of yourself, and then you're battling that.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

So yeah, I think there's a lot of betrayal that happens after critical incidents where whether it's department or you feel like your own brothers didn't do it or your own family um didn't step up. But yeah, I think betrayal is something that is usually secondary trauma that comes up out of a first, you know, incident as well. Um, but I think your ideas and creativity are great. I think if you're really struggling with like, man, should I or shouldn't I? I would just encourage you to reach out at the three, six or the nine-month mark. Like you said, a critical incident goes down, you got 10,000 text messages. And it's like when a woman has a baby for the first month, everybody cares, right? But month two, when you got a whole bunch of laundry uh and you're overwhelmed and haven't taken a shower, nobody's knocking on the door anymore. But that's really when you need the help, right? Um, and so I think it's more sometimes about not being there on the initial, um, but checking. And then first responders work by three rules. We don't talk, we don't trust, we don't feel. And so I think if you're gonna reach out, why are you reaching out? Talk. Hey man, I've been in the same situation as you, or maybe it's a little bit different, but I really felt like I didn't do enough. So do something to bridge the gap. Show that you've been in the same situation. Do something that puts you in the vulnerable position, because really you're asking the other person to step out in a really vulnerable place and say, here's how I'm going, but you're not gonna go first. And that's against your culture.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

You know, in your culture, if you want somebody stressed, you better go first. Um, and so I think even if they don't respond, but you go vulnerable first and say, like, hey, here's what I went through, here's what I did. Um, I don't really need you to tell me your story, but I'm willing to share mine if there's anything about it that could be helpful, um, can be beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Um I've kind of had that go both ways where it's like I don't I don't want to sabotage their story and make it about me. Like, hey, let's hang out so I can talk about me. I want them to tell theirs. So I can under, but I also it's when you make yourself a little bit vulnerable, it allows them to be like, yeah, I I can relate to that. That's kind of what I'm dealing with too. But I think it's for me, it's really important to just let feed their ability to kind of get it off the door.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

You just opening the door with your vulnerability, whether they step through it or not is their choice.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah. I think just sharing why you're like you mentioned sharing your own story, though. It's not to make it about you, but you're just kind of like opening the door of like, I don't really know exactly what you're going through, this is what I've been through, and this is why I'm concerned. You know? Which I think is good. It's helpful.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

So the what about um people that are officers or people? I mean, when they they become emotionally numb. Like is that is that more dangerous versus the person that you can see is clearly, you know, masking maybe some of this stuff with anger? What about the kind of the look where you're like it kind of appears dead inside from a commu uh a community of amounts of you know time on this career?

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Yeah, dead, lethargic, right? Somebody who's totally disengaged, numb. Uh we like to call it riding the magic chair, where you just come home and kind of zone out. Um, they're on their phone scrolling. Um, that's a way tougher person to interact with. I guess my analogy would be, right, if your car was having mechanical issues and it's making a noise, wouldn't you rather hear the noise to be able to kind of diagnose this? Um, versus if it's completely, it doesn't even turn on, it's like, oh man.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

Where do I start?

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Where do I start?

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Uh and and that's how it is with clients, right? They come in and they're totally dead and they've shut everything off. And if you will, now I almost have to turn it back on. I have to kind of figure out what do I gotta do to dig out all those feelings that made you turn off. And then once I find all those feelings, then I gotta fix those. So I almost have double the work to do. Um, I love an angry client. I love a client that's super anxious. Like that's easy diagnosing stuff right there, right? I can hear the problem. Versus when it's quiet, I'm like, oh, this is gonna take a little bit more nasty work.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

So, what are some of the tricks that you use to get people to open up a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Uh, I have one that I'm slightly known for. Um, I had a client that was pretty numb and checked out. Um, and he had dealt with an officer that was shot and killed. Um, and he ended up having him on his chest in the back of a car. Um, and when I met with him, he was like, nah, it doesn't bug me. I can talk about it. And he was totally flat and checked out. And so I had him pull up the image in his mind of that officer and the weight that it put on his chest. And while he was visualizing it, I took a real big leather bag that I always have all my stuff in and I chucked it at him and it hit him in the chest. And I said, Now do you remember what he felt like on you? Um and that was enough to pump him out of the being numb and back into that feeling. Um, and so sometimes it's just being a friendly little sadist um and finding kind of mean angles to get back in there and find the feeling and turn it on. Uh and then sometimes it's exactly the opposite. Sometimes it's turned off for a reason. Um, and you have to go really slow and gentle and make it safe enough for people to kind of start to pull those layers out. So it can really depend. Um, but that's why I I prefer the client that has the feelings.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, I can see that being a tough balance.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

There's a lot there. Um is is all I guess is there a certain trauma that's difficult or more difficult for somebody to come out of? Like versus shame versus um department betrayal or betrayal versus shame of they didn't do what they thought they were gonna do and maybe wanting to write that wrong that they can't, uh reputation smeared kind of thing. Like what what one have you found that um you know plagues people the most?

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Um it's somewhere between and it it kind of depends. Um it's I'm not good enough, um, like just a really deep shame based, uh, or I'm worthless. It's kind of in the same vein. Um, but what's really tricky about that is if you grew up in a childhood where you're already coming to this profession feeling like I'm not good enough, um, who I am at the core is really, really bad. I don't have any resources to use from childhood that say, I'm a really good person. This is just kind of a a one-off.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Um, and so those are really difficult clients to work with when it's not just based off of that situation, it's kind of this lifelong narrative of um, I'm just worthless. And this is just further proof that because I made this mistake that I'm worthless. And that's really difficult to find help somebody find their own self-worth.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

How does um unresolved trauma, how does that play out? Like if somebody's like I they battle and they get through their 30-year career, they get to retirement, they've had all these critical incidents, but they never see a therapist or they don't have great coping mis mechanisms, what does that look like? What could their potential like retirement look like?

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yeah, I think that's a growing industry, if you will. I tell all my um baby therapists, right? If you really want to have a successful business, go into working with first responders that are retired. Um, because we have this whole generation that kind of missed the boat on getting help early and now they're retired. Uh, and so we see a lot of guys go into major depressive episodes. Um, because as a client of mine said to me one time, he said, the one thing that's always gonna be there for me, I know that if I'm having a bad day, that it's there for me. I know that if I need to go out and feel good about myself, it's a shift. Right. And so when I retire, that loyalty, that person that's always there for me, if you will, she's gone now.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

And so retired guys go into retirement where the one place where they got value, worth, praise, money, um, they solved problems where they had a purpose, it's all gone. Um, and now you're sitting with yourself and all your unresolved trauma comes back up, all those questions, the not knowing, the replaying it, um, the wondering what I should have done different. It's all waiting for you at retirement. Um, and I think retirement's a really funny word, right? If your kids came home and said they graduated, you wouldn't be like, yes, we're done. It's just a word we use to say transition.

unknown 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Retirement simply means to transition. Um, but people act like it's kind of a stopping point. Um, and people who go into retirement with no plan do not do well, and then they end up really depressed. They end up suicidal. Um, they end up buying a house in Montana and being isolated and, you know, one away from a manifesto.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

I always thought that was funny. One away from a manifesto. You you hear you hear a lot of cops talk about when they retire, they want to go like just move out in the sick grid and be alone. And I always thought, like, I've never felt that way, maybe because I already grew up kind of like out in the county, so I enjoyed being in the suburbs now. Like I always thought it was funny. I'm like, do you really? Like, you how do you go from having a ton of action and like a busy career where you're solving problems every day to totally off the grid, no one to talk to? I don't know. How would you even like do that?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Uh I couldn't. Doesn't sound appealing to you. Yeah, I I had that thought because that's what's normally kicked around. And you're like, okay, we're gonna buy you know five to ten acres of land, we're gonna build a house on, it's gonna have a pond, it's gonna be great. And then I'm like, uh I won't know anybody out there, and I'm not great at making friends. Like, how would I do that? Like, yeah, that doesn't sound fun at all. So maybe I'll move into a retirement community. Nah, that doesn't sound cool either. It's like maybe I'll just stick where I'm at. But politics come into how far you can get your retirement going.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

And but yeah, I don't Yeah, I think having a pl like an actual plan is really important. Moving off the grid's not really a plan. That's not a plan, I don't think. Um yeah, I think I got lucky with my setup as we were talking off camera a little bit ago. Like just having hobbies, we talk about it a lot. It was the best advice, I think. I mentioned this a number of times. My father-in-law, who was in law enforcement, told me, keep your hobbies like when you become a cop, keep your hobbies, stay busy, keep your friends outside of law enforcement, just have that mix. And it's really paid off for me. I've never abandoned my outside activities. You know, I think it's really important because if I didn't have what I have now, like doing this media stuff and all that, if I didn't have that, I think my life would look very different over the last six months since I've retired. And a lot of cops nowadays don't make it a full 20, 30 year career. So I think we're seeing it more and more often. People who threw all their eggs into that career thinking that's like gonna do 20, 30 years, get my pension and go ride off into the sunset. It's not the case anymore.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Five, six years in, they get a hip injury or something, and then it's like, now what?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Right, all that is the cop injuries, like the legality aspects, people getting sued, like personally, like the pressure on law enforcement, I think, has changed tremendously over the last 15 20 years, you know, with body worn camera. And a lot of it's good, you know, body worn cameras and all that, but then at the same time, there's a lot more eyes and criticism and people who think they know how the job's supposed to be done. And the sad reality is legislation sometimes doesn't go in law enforcement favor, and you can find yourself in trouble, or you know, like like your husband, sometimes you face a traumatic incident in a career that maybe your department or your law enforcement agency wasn't prepared to help someone through, and it turns into a situation where you're losing your job because you were struggling and nobody was there to help you and you didn't know how to cope with it.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah. There's a lot of dropping the ball, I think, in this profession. It's like you try to be proactive. Probably agencies try to be proactive, but um, when they mess up, they mess up big.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Well, at the heart of all trauma is that you believe something negative about yourself. Right. So any critical incident, any bad experience at the heart of it, you have a negative thing about yourself. And when we look at society now, like you said, the criticism towards law enforcement is magnified. And so it's so much easier to find evidence, if you will, that your criticism about yourself is real or correct. Um and these guys that end up, you know, trying to think they're gonna do a 20, 30 year career, they really fail to come up with a plan for their retirement. I think the best plan is just like what you did with yours, is you actually start your plan before you exit. Um, do a little bit of the pre-work, start taking classes, um, get a little side business going, but have something set up so that when the transition takes place, it's not so abrupt. Um, and all of the clients that I work with that are gonna go towards a medical retirement, I ask them while they're in therapy to start that. Um, it can be just as simple as, you know, taking the fly fishing course or getting a certification in something. Um, but start that process before the day is finally done.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Yeah, advice.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Going back to the uh the public criticism that law enforcement faces today. Does that get mentioned a lot in your profession now? Like I would imagine we're seeing a lot more negative thoughts from law enforcement because of how much criticism there is out there. Where back in the day, like you were probably living in your law enforcement culture, doing your job, you really didn't get so much public scrutiny. Now we're surrounded by it. Like everything you do, you feel like you can't do right. Even when you feel like you've had the best profession, you work with the best team, the best department, the most positive people, you pick up your phone, which we're all on, unfortunately, and you're constantly seeing law enforcement bashed for everything. Like, how could that not be overwhelming or over the course of a career lead to like cumulative trauma just from the negative environment, right? Around you? Like, what does that look like? Are you guys talking about that at all? And you're in the city.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

Yeah, there's no shortage of criticism, right? I mean, everywhere you turn, like you said, whether it's social media, um, your own department, sometimes it's like, you know, your own brass that you have. Um, there's criticism coming from everywhere. And so, just like we talked about in the beginning, like what is trauma? It's lacking the resource to deal with that experience. And if you're in a career where you're just taking on criticism constantly, and like you also just mentioned, if you don't have outside things that combat that, that becomes the only narrative. And so Gil Martin's book calls this out. You know, most cops are familiar with emotional survival for law enforcement. And that's one of the principles is that you maintain outside friendships, right? You have other hobbies that in the book that's referred to as being a used-to-be. You know, I used to be into fishing, I used to be into quad writing. Um, those are the things that combat the the narrative. If you don't want to feel like, you know, I am the narrative and story about me, then we'll what's the alternative one? Uh and people fail to go create an alternative story about themselves outside of law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

I just want to touch real quick, if you're open to it, and because it's your husband's story, you brought it up. Looking back on the way he kind of handled his experience, is there anything that could be learned? Like, has he shared with you or others um maybe things he would have done differently? And I only ask that because you have a more intimate knowledge of that situation and you were around him a lot. So maybe you got a little bit more raw information there. Like, what are what is the takeaways that he has for anybody that he's discussed with you?

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Well, the takeaway is he lost me. We got divorced over it. Um, so I mean, you know, he he didn't get help. He did, you know, what he was taught, which, you know, for him was choir practice. Um, really drinking became the way that he coped afterwards. And so I think that um looking back at it many years now, he would probably have said um that the thing that he regretted most was bringing alcohol into the mix. It really prevented clarity, it really kept the narrative of taking responsibility for where he was at and making change, and then led to a divorce where kids were involved. You know, I I have said many of times, if alcohol was not involved, we would not have gotten divorced. We could have managed the trauma and the crisis. Um, but the alcohol adds an element that we just couldn't recover from. And now that he's clean and sober, I definitely think he would say he wished he didn't do that part of it.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

How does alcohol after a critical incident um affect the recovery?

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Um the way that alcohol works on the brain is it basically prevents your brain from doing things that it it needs to do to heal. And so when you sleep, most of us know what RAM sleep, your eyes bounce back and forth. And this is when your brain does memory consolidation, makes sense of what experience you had. Um, it gets rid of some of the details it feels like you don't need anymore. Uh, and it helps your brain wash itself. One beer stops that. And so I tell people all the time like, the last time your brain washed itself is the last time that you didn't drink. And for some guys, that's years ago. Uh, and so, you know, a good therapy session with really good EMGR, really good brain spotting can almost be equivalent to a really great night of sleep. If you have really good sleep habits and you're getting really good sleep and feeling like yourself, that really helps the brain. And I and I know that that's true and that most guys would agree with that because at some point when you've had an injury or you've gone on a long vacation and you slept really well and you weren't working weird hours, everybody goes like, damn, feeling really good, feeling like a new person. And just that sleep alone sort of starts to improve how they're feeling. Um, but a lot of people are preventing that by, you know, having, you know, their glass of whiskey at night or just that beer or a glass of wine. Um, it doesn't allow the brain's normal processing to take place to wash itself and clean itself.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Can you explain for people who um aren't knowledgeable about EMDR? What is that and or brain spotting? Like how why are those effective or why are those helpful?

SPEAKER_03 50:46

Well, a couple things, right, is the REM sleep that we talked about. We know that that science is what EMDR is based off of.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

What does it stand for?

SPEAKER_03 50:54

Um eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. So your eyes are bouncing back and forth. Um, and when your eyes are moving back and forth, it actually is signaling to the brain that the right side and the left side can share information. Um, if you will, the right side is very creative. It stores images and sounds and experiences and feelings that you have in the body. But the left side is a very logical fella. He has like facts and data, um, but they don't necessarily talk to each other. And when trauma is created, it's kind of created over here on the right side, right? The first thing that we usually have is a physical experience, an image, a sound. Um, and it gets stored over there. But then usually we have this other logical information that's sitting over on the left side that nobody really asks about. The brain doesn't go, psst, what do you know? It doesn't happen. Um, but when the eyes are being moved back and forth in EMDR, it's actually telling the brain, go ahead, talk to the other side. That's what happens when we're sleeping. And so for a lot of people, when they're doing EMDR, they go, Oh God, oh shit. They kind of have this like, oh my God, I totally forgot about this piece of information. And that's because the brain wasn't talking. And so with EMDR, it's kind of uh the ability for the brain to have a conversation and share knowledge and change the narrative it has around the critical incident.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

How is that go ahead?

SPEAKER_01 52:15

I was gonna say from my brief experience with it, it doesn't erase the incident. For some reason, just magically you just become more okay with it. Like it doesn't, it doesn't haunt you. It just you're just like okay. That's you, you're you're logically, you can kind of piece it together and you're like, okay, this is why I did what I did, and this is what happened, and and let's move on.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

So yeah, that's the D of the EMDR, is that's the desensitization. That's your brain watching it in a manner where it just kind of goes, huh, that doesn't seem to bother me anymore in the same way it did. And the reason that that happens is in um in any kind of good trauma work, we're actually in two places at one time. The client has a pretty solid foundation, like I'm in the office with you on the couch, I got a solid relationship with you, and I'm gonna step back into that moment. Um, and then what that does is when you step back into that trauma moment, you're slowly pulling pieces of the past back into the present. And so that part that got stuck back there with all the feelings, he's actually able to join you now in the present moment. And so there's, you know, right now is fine. We're sitting here on a couch drinking Gatorade and beer, it's not that bad. Um, but what is really bad is the guy that's stuck back there with the images or feelings.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

And so as soon as you can bring all of those details into the present moment, we call it dual awareness, the desensitization of that experience goes down.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

And that's impressive because I mean, I remember like the eye thing didn't necessarily work with me. So I think I got like paddles or like earmuffs, and it kind of just went, but it was just definitely a left, right, right, left kind of going back and forth, and I was like, this is weird. Um, but then when I kind of surrendered to it, it yeah, it was uh it was definitely advantageous. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

That's kind of what I'm gonna ask because I've never experienced this sort of uh training or therapy. So, like, what does the different modalities look like? How is it facilitated? What can someone expect if they were to go to one of these EMDR sessions? And and maybe the last thing to tack on to that is like how many times do you need to do this?

SPEAKER_03 54:21

Um, like you said, it really is different for each client. Um the traditional way is eyes that they're just moved back and forth. Some clients don't really respond to that. So we have tappers that go in your hand and they just kind of vibrate. You can keep your eyes open or closed, and then we have headphones that kind of just do alternating sounds. Some clients really like one, some clients don't really care. Um, we just find what works best for you that you can kind of let go of and just drop into it and kind of let the experience happen. And then you can kind of experience different things while it's happening. You can kind of feel like maybe like a little bit of a dream state or kind of really calm um just as the information is coming up. And usually it depends on the incident, all right? We'd like to say that we can resolve kind of a single incident trauma with about six sessions. Um, but if you have somebody that has had 30 years of cumulative trauma, yeah, you're gonna need more sessions per incident, especially when you're dealing with some of these um more detailed traumatic incidents where it was like, okay, sure, it was, you know, an officer-involved shooting, but then you have the agency betrayal that was part of it. You know, then you have that you were required to go and take pictures of the person uh or notify the family. Um, there's all these other things that kind of complicate it, they can make it longer. But really, I think if you just surrendered to six sessions, you would get immense relief. Right? I can't live my life with something being at a 10 that's in pain, but I can tolerate a four.

SPEAKER_04 55:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

And I think that, you know, maybe you don't get down to a zero of how distressing it is. But if you can just lower the decibels of how much something's bugging you with six sessions, what do you got to lose?

SPEAKER_01 55:55

It's huge, yeah. Could that be applied to cumulative with just like an abundance of things where you're like, I don't have a single incident. Most people don't. Um, but it's a bunch of stuff. So how would EMDR play out in in something like that? Like, what would you even talk about? You're like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

I was gonna ask, are you asking questions while this is going on?

SPEAKER_03 56:16

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It kind of depends. Um, so I mean, like, let's say you come in and you tell me, like, and I don't know, but here's what I can tell you, right? Is like I hate being around my family. I'm always irritated all the time. Um I have dreams all the time that I go to shoot my gun and the bullet falls, or I'm chasing the bad guy and I'm moving really slow. And I just kind of feel like I'm out of control and I can't really seem to make my life feel like, you know, that I know what I'm doing. What used to take me five minutes to do, shit. Now it takes me 15 minutes to do the same task. Well, I can hear a theme immediately, right? And so for you guys, you guys aren't necessarily trained to listen to a theme that starts to emerge. And it's like, oh, there's a clear theme here where all of these things really have to do with powerlessness. Um, and so I'm gonna ask you to just talk with me about this idea of being powerless. Um, and then as you're talking about it, I'm gonna watch just like you guys do when you're doing field sobriety tests for small little cues that something are off. Maybe you blink faster, you raise your eyebrows, um, you tip your foot a few times, right? I'm starting to pick up cues in the body that okay, the nervous system is starting to ramp up. Um, and then I just ask really simple questions like finish the sentence for me. My heart is, and you might say, I don't know, my heart's fine, it's just still. My lungs are, I don't know, they feel tight. That's enough information. I'm golden right there, right? So I know that this idea of being powerless makes you feel tight in your chest. And then I'm gonna say, let's just go with it. Just follow my fingers. Um, and then I'm just gonna kind of let the brain go where it wants to, and it's gonna lead me somewhere, you know? And so um, therapists, we don't really need a lot of information. We really just need your body to feel something. That's the sound of the car. Um, I need you to talk about it until I notice something going on, um, and then we can pull the information from there.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Diagnostic technicians.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

Yeah, it's just diagnostics.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

It's always tripped me out. Like it was like what I remember doing that, I was like, uh, yeah, that feels like a field sobriety test. I'm not following, like, I'm gonna move my head and no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

It's almost hard when you like have some knowledge of things because you almost try to like play against it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, versus if you are completely ignorant and clueless to all of this. I feel like that would be my problem, like going into something like this. I would be trying, like, not game it, but you know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

I have told clients, congratulations on fucking this up. We're gonna be here a lot longer.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

Um, and just told people, like, look, the more you want to game this and challenge this, like, that's fine with me. You're paying me.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 58:45

Um, but if you want to get out of here, submit, let's do this. Uh, but the same thing for you guys, it's really hard for you. It's also really hard for us when we get around other therapists, we play the same game. I'm like, I know the right question to ask. What are you gonna say? Right. So there is, you know, there is an element of like, okay, I gotta not be the expert in the room. And that's a hard position.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

It's not like you're really trying to be that way, it's just so natural for you, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:05

Being the expert in the room is what you guys do. You guys don't walk in the room and go, I don't I don't know what you should do. You guys always got an answer. And that's how it is sometimes in therapy, too.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Maybe this is off topic, but do therapists go to therapists a lot?

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Good therapists always go to therapists.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:21

So yeah, I feel like you would need therapy because you have to kind of I have never once in therapy talked to my therapist about anything that's ever been said to me in the in the office. Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

But that's but you maybe you're taking on a little like everybody's stuff. And I imagine that's gonna be so you don't talk about it, but you still that has to have an effect, a cumulative effect, just like seeing the things, like you hear people probably deal with horrific things. I imagine that that just wears on you. It's probably healthy too.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

I think that there's some of that, but I think about that, like like I'm telling you guys about like this idea of conceptualizing or hearing a theme, right? If I go to my therapist and I'm like, oh my gosh, I really just feel like I can't help the guys and girls that are coming in my office. I'm just not good enough, right? They should really go see another therapist, that Danielle Reali girl, she's really great. Go check her out. Shout out. Um, in that kind of a situation, the theme there is I'm not good enough. It doesn't have anything to do with my clients that are in the room with me, right? That theme probably started way before I became a therapist. Right. And so, same with guys that come in or girls that come in that say, like, I didn't do enough. I didn't help my department when something happened. I'm gonna take a leap of faith here and say, that's not the first time that you said, I didn't do enough. Uh, and so it usually it's like, where's the first time you had that thought? And so, just like myself going into therapy, it's not about my clients, it's about what they're triggering in me that's alive from the past that's riding in.

unknown 1:00:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:43

Um, and so a good therapist is addressing their own stuff so it doesn't impact you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Yeah, it's a proactive way just to check in with yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

Yeah. Good little tune up.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Yeah. All right. So obviously we've covered a lot of really good information. Um, one of the things I like to think about a lot is how things are portrayed in Hollywood because a lot of people tend to get their information right or wrong from what they see on TV or in movies. You know, PTSD is always like a big thing in movies, you get like Saving Private Ryan. And some of these movies were sometimes these episodes seem to be so big and over the top. What I think some people don't realize is PTSD can look very different, right? For a lot of people. I'm curious, is there any movies, books, documentaries, or anything like that that you found in, you know, that you that you found to depict trauma in a pretty accurate way? That if somebody wanted to see what something looks like, they could be like, that's a pretty good example.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

I think my favorite one that I've seen recently was on Netflix. There was a documentary called Waves in War. Um, and I thought that that was a phenomenal depiction of it. It ended up following um some military vets and kind of how it looks of like everything's fine, they're amazing, everything's going great. Um, and then the destruction in their family and their household, them getting treatment using psychedelics. Um, and then there's kind of a famous little part in the end of the Netflix series where the guy is saying, like, I know this is about work, this is absolutely about work. And then it cuts to him on psychedelics and he's like, My father. And it's like, yeah, this is not just a clear cut um about this. And so I think it really does a nice job of tying um career into our whole entire lifespan and how that shows up socially with our families, with our kids, and our career, um, and then really kind of gives the person like a little bit of hope at the end of like, you know, maybe we can think about what treatment looks like outside of this like cliche box.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

What was the name of it again?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

Waves and War.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Okay. And that's just came out, or is it how old is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:47

I want to say it was like maybe 18 months ago at Netflix, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

We have to check it out. If we post a scenario, scenario, so let's say Colby and I were working, uh working patrol and whatever, and we go to an incident, it's pretty horrific, officer involved shooting. Uh maybe one of us feels like we didn't do a good enough job on it, and one of us is like, okay, now I'm dealing with the trauma of of taking somebody's life. What would be some expectations um that we would start kind of feeling post that incident?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Well, it depends, right? Um, what resources do you have?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

Let's just say none. Well, then let's say we just go home and they're like, no, no stress debeef, no uh what do they call it, like uh diffusing or anything. There's like, hey, good job.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

You should probably contact our union rep.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

Get your attorney.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

Give us your gun, give us your belt.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Um, probably contact a lawyer and uh stand by.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Yeah, don't watch the news, probably get off the grid for a little bit. Um, what might start going through our heads?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:01

Again, it depends, right? Colby's gonna go home and his wife is there, his kids are there, his dog is there. Um, there's information that when he gets home, that even though he just shot somebody that tells him like he's a good person, right? His community is excited to see him. Maybe when he goes to church, um he's volunteering at his kids' school. Financially, he's doing all right. He's not really drinking. He goes home and there's other things at home that say he's all right. But you go home and you're alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

God, I'm not sure. I'm a good topic.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

I'm a jet joke.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

And you're gonna even have the dog, right? Maybe the dog died last week.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:32

He doesn't like dogs, that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. I think more screwed. So, you know, you got the toy hauler, and you know, your wife left you, and you know that she's taken some of your pension and your finances are messed up. And so it's like, man, not only do I suck at work, but now when I go home, there's no other narrative to create it. And so depending on what situation you go home to, sometimes can really depend. Um, now, obviously, a lot of people have great home lives and they still suffer with, you know, symptoms that are gonna pop up. But I mean, the first thing that's gonna happen for everybody is good luck sleeping, right? Um, because your brain is still saying, like, hey man, we should really stay on guard in case something else happens. Um, you're not gonna sleep. There's no way.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Um, so now is it possible to solve the thing that you messed up or maybe you didn't even that you can't solve the experience, but why does why does our brain always try to solve it like we could have done something different? Like even if we were like, I could have done something, it doesn't fix what happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:28

It control. At the end of the day, the brain wants to know if I know what I did wrong, I can prevent it from happening next time. And so it's like, oh, if I would have just got there five minutes earlier, if I would have just tased him instead, if your brain can figure out what went wrong, then it feels like it's in control and it won't happen next time. Um, but I think a really great question that we use in therapy all the time is like, so what does this mean about you? What does it mean that you shot him? What does it mean that you didn't you weren't able to savor? What does it mean that you went on the call five times? And what people fail to see is like you make meaning out of everything you do.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:03

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Whether you're going to trip on the carpet when you leave today or you're going to, you know, um not be able to find the macaroni and cheese at Safeway today. It's going to make you believe something. Um and so every call you go on ultimately reinforces a belief you have about yourself. And so you're going to be laying in bed after an incident like this, and those beliefs are going to start to come up. You're going to start to like really question things and those ideas about who am I are going to replay at night, whether it's like what could I have done different or what would have changed if this would have happened. You're kind of looking for a way to feel better about the situation by knowing how you could change it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

It's like almost like an internal self-fulfilling prophecy. We were like, if you thought poorly of yourself and then you think poorly, like it just kind of manifests it's like I think there's a a thing that um that we all can relate to, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:50

If I tell you that if you study hard and you go to school and you get really good grades and you do an amazing internship, what should you expect?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:58

Success and right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

And I tell you, hey, if you wear your seatbelt and you drive slowly and you um don't drive after 2 a.m. when the drunk's out, you know, what should you expect? To get home safe. Right? We all have this idea that if I do good, I'm gonna get good. But I think you guys know better than most people, that's not true.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:20

You can do really good and you can wear your seatbelt and you can drive safely and you can do all the right things. But here comes the drunk dude leaving the bar, and who's gonna survive?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Yeah. That person. And we and we 100% of the time and we really struggle with that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

Why, if I do good, do I not get good? And it's in the moments where we did good, but we got bad that we wrestle with. And so what we want to do is we want to figure out what did I do wrong so that I can change that, because then if I did that good thing, I would have got a good outcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

And so we're always wrestling with how do I change it to get back to good equals good and bad equals bad. We're fine when the bad guy gets something bad happens to him. We're like, hmm, you did the bad thing, a bad thing happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:02

Makes sense, right? Right? Bad equals bad. We we can tolerate that, but we can't tolerate the other way around. And so we'll lay at night replaying it, trying to figure out that piece.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

I feel like it really all of this really comes down to like having good relationships, communicating with yourself on the regular, right? Yeah. Um I would tell my guys collecting a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:27

Yeah, I would tell my guys all the time look, the healthier you are, the more you're talking to yourself. Um, you have to be your own internal coach and your own best friend. And if you're not a good parent to yourself, meh, we're not gonna really have any success here.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah. Well, that's why drinking, I think, obviously, like you mentioned, is so bad because like when you're drinking, you're not reflecting, you're not having those meaningful conversations, you're not washing your brain on a regular basis, you're not getting good sleep, you're not your healthiest. And so it it's tough in a in a culture, in a career where drinking is so so much a part of it. And fortunately, even though we drink on our show, we're very sociable drinkers. We don't uh, you know, but it's I can't say that's the same for everybody. Like, there is a good majority of cops that I I've worked with over my career where it's always like every event revolves around drinking, no matter what, you know, and I think I think the culture is getting better. I'm always an optimist, but I think the culture is getting better where more people are being aware of the detriments that it can cause in your your career. Um, so that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

But I just I think there's obviously more that can be done to, you know, make cops process things healthier. And at the academy level, I think we can do better. Do you speak at academies often or like people going into their career?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:50

I have.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

How to prep them?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:52

It's um it's what we talked about in the very beginning. It's planting a seed. I don't feel that people at the academy are in a place where they're willing to accept this information yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:02

Um, that they are just bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, everything is gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:06

They're ready to just go off on.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:07

Yeah, and so you just have to accept when we're giving the this information to people at the academy, you're just putting a seed in the dirt and we're hoping to water it over time and they hear it again and again. But I really don't think people are hearing a lot of this. Occasionally I get somebody that's like, hey, I was in the academy and they told me to start therapy early, even if I didn't have a problem. Uh so here I am. But that's that's one or two percent of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:27

Right. So, what is the ideal time for maybe like first responders, cops, firemen, even military? Like, is there a good time from the start of their career where they should start proactively, maybe talking to a therapist? Even if it's just to fine-tune some things, they're not having problems yet. Like, is there a time that would be best for that in their career?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:47

I truly think earliest in the career. Um, but I think what I see a lot of people make the mistake is that they wait until they're in crisis to try to find a therapist.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:56

So, like, I'm already feeling like I can't do things right. Um my drinking's out of control, my wife's angry at my life, my life is already a mess. And now I got to call these EAP phone numbers and I gotta call a therapist and hope she has availability. And then I'm gonna schedule with one and I really don't like her. Um, and now I got to start over. Like, that's a really awful time to start therapy. And so I think that one of the best things that people can do is go get a therapist that you like. Maybe you see them once every six months. I don't even care if it's once every year. Um, but you just have somebody that you can kind of go shoot the shit with. You know that you like them, they're a good person, um, that you have some respect for them, so that if something does happen in your career, you can already have a way in. Um, and I can tell you personally that there's been critical incidents that happen and I go check my voicemail and I have 12 people looking for a therapist. The first person I'm calling back is somebody I already know, somebody I've already met. Um, then the other people and be like, ah, sorry, I'm full. And so my loyalty is gonna go to my clients. And so I think that if people realize you don't want to be picking your person in the moment of crisis.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:59

No, that's true. What can what can agencies um or institutions do to provide better resources and outcomes for their officers?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:12

I don't think people are gonna like this answer. Um I think that a lot of agencies, while they still promote mental health as being like, yeah, we should do it and we have peer support. There's still a lot of talking bad about people who use mental health. Um, they're faking it. It's not a real injury. Um, oh, so-and-so's out again. You know, there's still just a lot of backdoor closed conversations that mental health is still kind of a taboo thing. And so I think departments have to be really careful about, you know, the higher ups and conversations that are having because they do kind of trickle down or little comments get made. And so I think just again, being cautious about comments and jokes and things that we say because people are very afraid to step forward. And I think that when departments fight work comp cases, um, when somebody legitimately has a problem, I don't think that that really encourages people to step forward. But I think the number one thing that agencies could do to support people, and they won't, is um start offering classes on how to do work comp cases for mental health. Um, it's a huge secret. People don't know how do I put in a comp claim, how do I get to a psychiatrist, who's my treating provider, how do I get my notes over to my apartment, how do I get on 4850 time? It's shrouded in secrecy. Um, and the only thing that really lives on is good luck, that process is impossible. If you want to do it, get an attorney, but you probably won't win. You'll be screwed and have to come back or they'll fire you.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:37

Yeah, I think I don't know if I was talking to you about it, but like for sure I I've spoken to people, even like one of the attorneys that have helped me through my journey. Um had a pretty okay case. Like it's pretty straightforward for the most part. Pain, you know, pain in the butt. But um pain in the butt, not pain in the pain in the butt, pain in the neck, pain in the neck, yeah. Pain in the neck. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. Um but like as supervisors at agencies, um you're not trained to handle workers' comp cases. You're not trained, like you don't become a corporal or a sergeant or a lieutenant. All of a sudden you're like, hey, if you have an injured officer, this is the process. Like, not to a high degree. You're you're pointing, like, here's the forms that you're gonna have them fill out. It's probably about it. Like, and maybe maybe you I have a different experience, but like I don't think many guys are like formally trained like how to walk an employee and really take care of their employees through these processes. How to tell your employee like this is extremely and unless you have your personal experience, you might be better at it. Like, I think now going if I were to go back and be a supervisor, um, the the knowledge and the way I would walk an employee through this process would be better only because I have personal experience, not because I was trained it though. Right. And I think departments can do a really big disservice to their frontline employees who find themselves hurt on the job, struggling with stress or mental health or whatever, trying to seek out help from a supervisor when they don't really have any good information to give them, sometimes maybe wrong information and maybe deter them.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:10

And sometimes the supervisor's part of the claim.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:13

Right. And so it's like the person that has the information I need, I don't even feel safe to go to. So now I'm gonna go talk to somebody else who probably has bad information or is gonna scare me. And I get that departments are really afraid, like, oh, if we teach people how to do it, you know, more people are gonna put in work comp claims. I I think that your people actually gonna go get help way before it's too detrimental because I think people right now literally wait until it's a life or death situation to ask for help because work comp is so, so difficult. Um, and they're not willing to suffer, you know, to go do that. And so they have to get to this really extreme place before they're willing to take that measure instead of knowing, oh, this process, you know, is okay. I just do X, Y, and Z. And then yeah, I can go out for six weeks and do those six sessions of EMDR and then kind of come back. Right. Um, but I think that that information is kind of, you know, gate kept from those.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:00

Yeah, but from a department standpoint, I think like, wouldn't you rather have an employee take those six weeks of those benefits to get the help they need versus losing an employee forever?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

Yeah. I think that the message is a lot better if we start just taking care of those employees and giving them the time off.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:15

Right. That's genuinely caring and saying, like, we're gonna be proactive about this, we're gonna know the process, we're gonna help our employees.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

And even couldn't you theoretically still probably get therapy, get things while still working. Absolutely. I mean, I I go to therapy and it doesn't affect my job.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:36

Yeah, Work Comp sometimes is just saying, I'm just paying for the therapy. Right. You don't have to necessarily go off. Um, you're just saying, hey, I just want to note that this injury happened. I just want to get help paying for it. Um EAP services only go for so long, and then a lot of good therapists aren't taking commercial insurance. It just doesn't pay well. Um, you know, versus using something like Work Comp pays a little bit better to therapists.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:59

Um maybe going to like a maybe it's not a work thing, maybe it's not a first responder thing, but um sometimes in in our experience um suicide, um somebody seems like they have their like a great life. Everything appears fantastic, and then lo and behold, like bam, like they kill themselves and suicide occurs. And you're like, what I guess how do you what signs or what things do you look can you see in somebody who or why what could people be going through that leads somebody who seemingly has a fantastic life to be feeling the way they feel?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:42

I think there's a couple of things there. I think there's this idea that there's always signs and symptoms. Um, and I think that that again is us trying to figure out if I could figure out that missing piece that I missed, then I could have stopped the suicide from happening. Sometimes there truly is no signs and symptoms. Um, and that's when you have somebody that's just an internalizer, right? Everything looks great on the outside, the kids are doing amazing in sports, the marriage is going well, you know, he has the dog and the boat. It's all great. Um, but that's somebody that truly, truly is an internalizer. They are just shoving it down, they're never gonna talk about it. Um, and there won't be a sign or a symptom. It's just gonna happen. And I think that that sometimes can be really difficult to live with is I really just didn't know that that person was struggling. Um, and so there may not be the sign or symptom. And we have to make peace with that. I think that there's classic signs and symptoms, though, that I think we all kind of know about, right? The number one that I warn people about is the isolation. Um, because social relationships are so important as a deterrent, that's where people are gonna say, hey, something's off. I see what's going on with you. That when somebody really starts to isolate and pull back, um, that does make me concerned when they're withdrawing in that way. Because there's a difference between isolation and solitude.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:55

And you guys alluded to that earlier. There's a difference sometimes when you're out in your shed and you're working on the car or tinkering with stuff, and man, you're just in solitude. It just feels good.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:03

And then there's isolation, right? Where it feels like a slow prison of death based off the quiet noises. And it's really when you're in that situation, sure around you is quiet, but in here it couldn't be any louder. Correct. Right. It's just complete chaos in there. Um, and so that's isolation, right? I'm isolating myself from everything around because I'm just focused on this. And so watching out for that type of isolation and things like that. Um, you know, the other thing that concerns me, I think, is what other therapists would see is you start seeing people do like riskier behavior um where they're just starting to demonstrate to you they really just kind of don't care anymore. Um, we kind of call it a case of the fuckets, um, where it's like, oh man, we really just we're just out here kind of self-sabotaging a little bit with I was gonna ask you, like, yeah, how often do you see the opposite of the isolation?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

This what you're describing now.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

Is it more common than, or is isolation more common though, than the just going the opposite?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:55

You know, I can't say that I would feel that way. And I don't know if that's just based off the clients I've worked with or the demographics where I'm at. I feel like I have a pretty solid mix of both. You know, I have some clients where um they just failed for far too long and couldn't get it together, and then it's just like, well, I'm just gonna kind of self-destruct. Um and then it's like, okay, this person's probably not gonna stop until something catastrophic happens. Um, and then I see other people that are just so deep in isolation um that they're the opposite way.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

So if you start seeing someone, or maybe not you, um, because obviously they're coming to you, they're looking for help. But for like spouses who may watch the show and they're watching maybe their husbands struggle and they they're just like, I don't know what to do. I don't want to reach out to the department because I don't want to compromise their job or let that cat out of the bag. Like, what I guess what recommendation do you have, like generically um to help impart, I guess, maybe some successful trait or some tools or something to when somebody's in that dark moment to help them maybe guide them through those critical moments.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

If I had a magic wand, it would be that wives and husbands have had this conversation before it happened. Um I don't know what's right for every husband out there. I don't think that there is a, hey, when your husband is struggling, do this, or when your wife is struggling, do this. That's a conversation that should happen way before, right? Just like my family knows that if I end up, you know, really severely injured in a car accident, they know what to do. Um, they're not left guessing, like, well, should we pull the plug? Do we give her some time? What does she want? They know what I want. Um, and I think that that's what needs to happen in law enforcement is they, you know, I know we're doing all right now, but if you ever start to see me really dark, I really like, you know, um these people, bring them to the house. Uh, get me on a vacation with this guy. Um, make sure that even when I say no, you set me up a golfing tea time.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:54

Um, that there's a plan because I feel really bad for the wives that are guessing. Um, and that they're not even part of their husband's kind of life at work. So they really don't even know who to call. They don't even know who their buddy is anymore. Um, and so, you know, making sure that that conversation is happening regularly where it's like you're talking about who do you want me to call? Or more importantly, who do you not want me to call?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:16

Right? Whatever happens, do not call that lieutenant. Um, and so I think that if you know you have a game plan that that's how you decide.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:24

Yeah, it goes back to the relationship thing we talked about earlier, how important it is. And I think looking at certain professions, certain professions, it's almost like you just have to know going into it, you better do a better job than the average person, maintaining good relationships, right? I think that could be something that people are taught more. Like, hey, part of this profession means if you want to stay healthy and do a good job and perform well and have a happy retirement, you better do a good job maintaining good relationships and talking and communicating so that when you have that traumatic incident, people aren't guessing how do I help Colby or Jeff or whoever, like they already know.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:03

If I asked both of you, like what's a warning sign that both of you would say happens when you start to kind of go towards a dark place? Do you know what your warning sign is? I I end up at Nordstrom's right, that's mine. I like to all of a sudden like I need something new. I'm looking for feel-good chemicals. What are you guys?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

Um I definitely get uh way more irritable, but I also uh not to get myself in trouble. I definitely have no patience for superficial. Um so I like uh interaction. So I think isolation would definitely be um a thing for me. Um I don't see that because I'm not d dealing with that currently. Um but I I definitely would say that if I isolated myself and I didn't want to hang out with people, um, and one of my rules, because uh I come from a long line of alcoholics, um, I don't drink at home. Like that's kind of my rule, is I I won't drink by myself at home because they all kind of were recluse and alcoholics. So that's kind of my thing. Like I'm gonna stay away from that. But I yeah, that would probably be off the top of my head, those would probably be my quote unquote warning signs.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

Yeah, I've been I think for me it it if I'm not laughing, I laugh really easy normally. If I'm not laughing, if I'm not wanting to go be busy and do something, it's not so much isolation, it's more so if I don't want to go do anything because I almost always want to do something. Um I feel like I've been really fortunate in my life and in my career that I've never um I don't know, I just I've been really lucky. I haven't been in a situation where I felt like I was in a really dark place. However, there was one, and Dagle knows this. It was really weird. I won't go into everything, but like, so like last was it, a year ago. Long story short, I woke up last year, like a little after Christmas, December 28th, screaming, ringing ears. The worst tinnitus you could ever imagine. And if anybody doesn't know what that is, it's just your ears are ringing really high pitched. Both sides like a gun just went off in your head. And to speed it up, it's still here right now. Like they can't figure out what caused it. It wasn't hearing damage necessarily. I have a little bit of high-frequency hearing loss, but this happened. I woke up at like two in the morning with screaming ears, and I thought it was weird. I was like, whatever, went to work, and about three days into this, I had slept like two hours in about three days. And the fourth day, I don't know what got into me, but I was just like ugly crying in the middle of the night. I never cried in my life, like other than like my mom dying and maybe a close friend. But I'm I'm talking, I was screaming, crying on the floor and looked ugly. And my wife, so here's some advice for the spouses just be there. It's as simple as that. Just be there. My wife didn't know what to say, she didn't know what to do. Um, but the one thing was she was right next to me watching me cry like a fucking lunatic. And it's the weirdest thing because like I don't know, it's the only time in my life I felt like I've ever felt like depression, and I've never really known what it maybe felt like or how to relate it, like on calls to people. But all I can say was like it was like a deep burning in my stomach that I didn't I couldn't explain. And the reason why I'm saying this is just for the advice aspect for spouses is like if my wife wasn't there, I don't want to know what that weird scenario of whatever was going on that caused this. Like, I don't know what I would have done, right? And so, like, just be there. That's the biggest thing I can say. If you're a spouse out there and your significant other is going through something, maybe you don't need to say anything. Just be there, just be there by their side.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:54

I think you both gave great answers though, right? Of like, yeah, if I'm not laughing and now I'm really short fused, that's part of like how do you want your spouse to support you? They have to kind of also know what the warning sign is, right? And sometimes people are very stoic. They're so good at their career that they have the best poker face and people really can't read them. And sometimes their spouses need a little bit of insight about like, hey, while I'm in a healthy place, let me tell you what you should actually watch for if this starts to change.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:20

And then I think that your advice is spot on, is that there's this belief that we're responsible to fix it. Um, and that's not true at all. Just being with somebody in their time of crisis is a lot of the time enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:32

Yeah. And my my example is obvious, right? Like Colby never acts like that and he's fucking delirious, hadn't slept in four days, and is crying on the floor. So it's very obvious. But like I think the I don't know, just my wife being there and being present, and then Daigle having a good friend, you know, to to show up. My wife called Daigle like a few days later and was like, Colby, I don't I don't know if she told you, but she was just like Dag needs help.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:57

Yeah, please come over.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:58

Yeah, and Daigle. Showed up and we didn't do anything but just went on a walk, right? We just went on a walk, we talked, and I was probably delirious with him. And I I swear I didn't sleep for like a week. Weirdest thing. And but um man, I'm so appreciative that I had good relationships, a good wife, a good friend that could pull me through that. Because like what I had was like a really weird thing, because you hear stories of like people that I know I don't know how much you know about tinnitus, but like it's a can be a really bad thing, and people commit suicide over it because it's drives you insane. Like when you can't sleep, you get delirious. Um, it's the closest thing I can relate because I again I've been fortunate in my career where I've never had any trauma like that. Experienced trip traumatic things, obviously, but I've always dealt with it pretty well, I think. Um, but yeah, just being there, being present.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

So is there any recommendations that you would have um for a quote unquote safety plan or something for spouses or um loved ones? Like what would be a part of that?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:02

It would be develop it together, right? Like I talked about who do you want to show up, who do you not want to show up, where are the places that you want to go? Um, I think sometimes even down to like what are the things that I want to eat? Um, because depression's really hard. Nothing feels good anymore. It takes a while for that to come back. And so when you're in that place, nothing's gonna sound enjoyable. You're not gonna be able to answer those questions. Um and so the important part is to develop that plan before, long before that happens and talk about it frequently. Um, check in on it, you know. Um, where are we at? You know, or is this still what we want to do if something happens? You know, I think um, you know, my perspectives of death have changed that I don't know that my answer before I had kids is the same that it is now. And I think that that's true in our relationships. We're constantly evolving and changing as people. And so our plan is needs to be updated. What do you want this to look like? Um, I think also having phone numbers, right? Um, obviously his wife had your phone number. Like as a spouse, do you know who to call? Do you have the phone numbers? Um, are you given that information? You know, you don't really want to be trying to dig through somebody's phone and find information in a time of crisis. Um any of those like little things that just seem so irrelevant and so silly right now, that's like, meh, I got time. I could do that later, not a big deal. Um, you know, tomorrow could be the the incident that causes that. Um, the other silly thing that I've heard that I've seen make a huge difference is sometimes even just having um like a bag in your car that you keep in the trunk or in the tailgate, right? That for women that you got a pair of sweats and underwear and a phone charger and a toothbrush, so that if your husband gets taken to the hospital, um, you just go. You know, I got a you know, I got a little bit of stuff in there to be okay. Um, because you don't know where you're gonna be when that phone call comes in. Um and just having the basic things to be able to get there and have all of their information and your information ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

How would you modify that if somebody has recently got divorced, they don't have a uh a partner?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:57

I think same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:58

Pick a friend, pick a buddy, um, have a person that's gonna be if something happens, right? Um this is the person that, you know, kind of have the conversation ahead of time, like, look, dude, if I turn into an asshole, um, you have the right to show up on my doorstep and beat it down and come, you know, drag me out. Um, but kind of picking who is your support person, right? And then that onus is on that person, right? Like you have to take accountability and responsibility um for your success or your failure in this career.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:27

One of the things, maybe this is a little off topic, but one of the things that I think um first responders don't do, and I talked about with our peer support team, is understanding that officers don't reach out to say, Hey, I need help. It it may that text may be like a hey, are you are you free to grab a beer? And I really kind of put on our team, it's like um answer that like quickly. And if you can't do it, because I mean we all have lives and we all have busy things, you better set it up for the following day or relay it to somebody else. But I think um I don't think they talk we talk enough about um what that call for help might look like because we're not good at reaching out. We reach out in a certain way, and it may not be obvious to all the people if you're not looking for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:23

Absolutely. I mean, I've heard story after story in my office, right? Where somebody was contemplating suicide and was maybe on the way to the location or to go do something about it and purchase the gun. Um, and somebody called and stopped them in the middle of the call, or they sent a text message and somebody returned it and said something, right? Of again, you don't know what seed you're planting when somebody reaches out. And it comes in all kinds of funky forms. Um, that people are, you know, we call it a bid for connection. Um, and when people bid for that connection to say, like, hey, is this relationship something I can count on in a time of distress? Yeah, first responders don't go, hey man, I'm feeling suicidal, want to come hang out.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:59

Yeah. I wish it was that easy.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:01

I know. No. We're we're uh direct, but not not in those straight shooting.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:09

Direct with everything else until it has to do with arm and cells.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:13

Like we're either fine or we're angry.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:15

Yeah, it's a good point though. I think uh yeah, it can be easy to miss those subtle signs, you know, and that could have been the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:21

Well, we talk about it with friendships. It's like we had a episode like the previous episode we talked about, you know, how important it is for people that's like if somebody reaches out to just return the text and say, hey, I can't today, but what about tomorrow, or what about the next day? And putting something on the books or putting something um shows people that you care and that you're interested versus can't and just leave it as no follow-up, it's like they could really make you feel shitty about it. And if you're in that that spot, and that's I don't know the right term for that, the critical moment, so to speak. Um, but I definitely think that that critical moment with like EAPs is like one of the things, again, through peer support, you're like, we want to introduce people to therapists that are available in our area so that they kind of meet them, they know a face, they know where their office is. Because if you're like trying to connect with your EAP at two in the morning when you're having a you know, you're in a difficult time, man, like that can be like that's one of my biggest fears for people like our agencies, like if they're in that spot and then it's too complicated, it's too convoluted, get hung up on you call and get an answering machine, and what answering machine, um old. Um, but it's like I don't want it to be so difficult, but there's there is red tape. There is, absolutely. And I'd like to be able to eliminate as much of the red tape ahead of time.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:56

So yeah, there's something called the the bird theory, and you see it more with couples. Um, but it's this idea that every interaction is kind of a bid for can we connect on it? Um, and in the bird theory, um the wife usually is the one in the video saying, like, oh hey, did you see the little bluebird outside? And if the husband is like, no, not a good sign, right? Or it's like, what does it matter? It's a stupid bluebird, they're everywhere, right? They're dismissing the connection.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:21

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:22

But it's the husband that's not good for me because I say that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:24

I'm like, and not a good sign.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:27

And so, but the the husband that goes, Oh, tell me about it. Where was it? What size was it? There's curiosity or a question. Yeah, it says like this this bid, this desire to connect with me, it doesn't matter if it's on a bird or hey, want to go get a a beer together. I'm interested in this connection.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:43

And so no matter what somebody is trying to bid for the connection with you on, it's equally as important if they did say, Hey, it's me, I'm suicidal, want to get a beer, as no different to, hey, did you been watching the soccer game lately? A connection's connection.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:57

Even more so as adults, I think, because it is more, it is, it takes a lot more intentionality and effort as an adult to reach out and ask to hang out or go do things, right? Because we're so busy, life kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:09

It's so awkward dating as an adult, right? Like I have to like date my kids' parents, friends, and stuff like that. I'm like, do I really like you? Do I want to hang out with you? Like, it's way harder to make friends now because you got to kind of date them and figure out who do you like and who has the same values. And then you mix that in with being in law enforcement career. Like, I already don't trust people, I already don't like people, right? I hate small talk. You don't understand what I do. You're bitching about your computer all day long, and I just pulled, you know, a dead five-year-old out of a swimming pool. Like you're set up not to be able to connect. They say that trauma wires people for protection, not connection. And so it's another layer to overcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:46

Yeah. Yeah, I think uh I'm fortunate that you are as well, that we met our partners early on before this profession, I think too, because like I don't want to know how much more difficult it would be to I don't know. Like, I look at single cops or when I was working with some of the single cops, and like I was just like, I would be afraid to even go date girls, like in this profession, like to not get in trouble and the wild stuff you see on calls and DVs and like the crazies. You're like, I don't know, it'd be tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:18

Well, yeah, it's uh it's important. I mean, one of the reasons why I left my previous agency is my wife approached me one time and she was like, You've changed, like you are um, you don't engage in social interactions, you look like you're you know, look like you're always ready to fight somebody, and I'm like, No, I'm fine. Um, but she was just like, It's it's hard to be around you, like you used to just laugh and you used to just have fun, but now everybody bores you. Nobody's stories are entertaining or interesting enough for you because you've experienced the most things. Like you chase somebody on a rooftop and two hours later you're talking to your beat partner, is like, why did anything fun happen? It's boring. It's like that's the most ex exciting thing that most people would ever experience in their own life, and you're bored. So, how do how where in you know, the really the thing was that prompted that is you know, you was responding to you know, a shots fired call. We get on scene, and you know, there's somebody shot, and then the car takes off, and so I'm chasing the car, and the you know, they dump a gun, and my heart rate probably didn't get above 80 the whole time. And she's like, What kind of a psychopath are you? Like, that's not entertaining for you. And I'm like, nah, no. And she's like, That's not healthy because how can life be joyous for you if things like that aren't even exciting? Like, you're gonna have a miserable and depressing life. So the thought was is do I leave the profession? Yeah, or do I try somebody somewhere different? And I love the profession. Um, didn't love where I worked at that time, so I was like, Let me let me give it another shot somewhere else and see if it um can straighten me out a little bit in terms of like being a normal person. Um, and it did. And so um kudos to her for uh not only recognizing it, but to have the courage to say something.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:20

Um and to you for listening. Right. I've worked with plenty of people who've gotten the same feedback, right? And they chose not to listen, right? That it's a it's a you problem, not a me problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:30

Right. Right. Yeah, I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:33

I'll deal with it. You deal with it. Yeah, there's yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:42

Rapid fire. I think we're at the uh is there anything before we get to there though, is there anything on your mind that you wanted to talk about coming in here today that maybe we didn't even ask you?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:55

When I reached out briefly, you talked about signs and you said something very um specific. Like signs are bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:05

Signs are bullshit. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:07

Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:09

Um around suicide. Um, I really just don't think that there is necessarily signs. I think that if we really stopped marketing to suicide prevention and we really moved it to isolation prevention, um, that we would be on better track. Um, that currently I think we overfixate on looking for like this whole idea of like suicide prevention when it's really about connection. Um, I usually tell a story to my guys, right? That if um I said, Hey, you by yourself, you're gonna have to go chase the bad guy out in the bushes alone, go for it. How are you gonna feel? And it's like, all right, whatever, let's go do it. But if I said, you gotta do the same task, but you get to bring your very best friend or your favorite person on your department, how do you feel now? And it's kind of like, all right, right. And so I think that what we fail to see is that when we start isolating from the people that we feel protected and safe around, we're actually moving closer and closer to suicide. Um so I don't I don't really buy into this whole idea of suicide prevention. It's more isolation prevention in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:08

How does that work with people that promote? Because I feel like even in simple promotions, you get more and more isolated. Your your network gets smaller and smaller of the people that you can uh get around. So people that maybe they started as officers, maybe suffered some trauma, they go to sergeant, a little bit more trauma, they go to lieutenant, they're not dealing with the same sort of things, but they're dealing it with a a bigger scope. But you really can't divulge that stuff down, and you're probably looking to become a captain. So you don't, you probably just keep it more to yourself. So for for admin purposes, like how do they deal with something like that? Because I feel like that position, one of the reasons I'm shown very little, I have very little ambition at this time to promote further, is because I feel like there'd be a lonely, lonely existence up there.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:00

Yeah, I think it's something like 83% of people when asked why they didn't want to go to their department and discuss what was going on for them, was um the impact it would have on their ability to promote. Um and then like right behind it, it was like how their coworkers will see them.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:16

Um, I just think that why is the only people that are your secret keepers those people at the department. Um, we have so many other opportunities for people to connect with, um, whether it's being of service and volunteering somewhere, whether it's going and being part of um somebody that gives back or another first responder program where you meet other people, that I think that you have to expand your circle to the your network of trust. And that if you're only looking for people in your department, you're really narrowing um who can be helpful to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:48

And so I think that when we're looking at this idea of like who do we trust, it's you know, concentric circles that we have to realize that we have a lot of people on the outside, but we really should only have like two people that are like our absolute truth keepers. Um, and maybe one's with the department, but having somebody else outside of that is really important as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:07

Is that on top of a spouse or the spouse could fill that role?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:11

The the spouse absolutely can feel that, fill that role. Um I think that for men, though, it is important to have another man that you can do that with, and maybe somebody that's at a different department. Um maybe it's a firefighter that you run calls with, or you know, somebody that you know from going to trainings or something like that, but somebody else that you build that relationship with, or maybe it's the church for you, you know, somewhere that you have that connection.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:34

We brought that up the other episode. It was like a lot of people have a much harder time divulging things to people they're maybe a little closer to than people they're not as close of friends with.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:46

Why is that we all want to portray ourselves in a better light, right? I like to jokingly say that when I go to the dentist and he's like, How many times a day do you floss? I'm like, three. Of course. And like I don't even own any floss at this point, you know? So, like, of course I'm trying to make myself look better. Um, so I think people are always trying to do that, right? Where it's like, I want to make myself look better than I am. So I don't want to trust those people. That does bring me to something though that I didn't talk about. If you don't want to go to therapy, you don't have anybody to talk to, and you're feeling like, man, I don't even have the resources, use AI. Chat GBT, Claude, Gemini. Um, you can be so honest with it. And you can say, look, I'm a cop, I'm 36, I think I'm drinking too much. I want, um, you know, tell it the type of therapist you want. Like be sarcastic with me. Don't be soft with me. Um, I like dark humor. Tell the AI exactly how you want to be interacted with. Tell it you want it from a trauma perspective. Tell it you want it to look at your distorted thinking, like really prompt it. Um, I think that we're underutilizing AI at this point for it to be a stepping stone to get somewhere, right? Like maybe the AI just creates curiosity or gives you a thought or something different to chew on. It's not the end-all be-all, but at least it gets the train off the track of the same type of repetitive thinking and introduces something new and it's totally free.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:07

Right. So and Daniel, uh Danielle talked a little bit about journaling and different things. And I think it's kind of like its own version of that, right? If you started, just talks back, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:16

Just really just comes down to getting it out, right? Like getting it out, acknowledging things that are bothering you, putting it on paper, voicing it, getting that weight off of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:28

Yeah, secrets keep you sick.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:30

But AI thought is an interesting one. I'm curious what people will think with that one because I just think also a lot of like paranoid cops not wanting to give any information out there, like, I'm not gonna tell it. I'm a 30-year-old cop and blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:43

Say you're a firefighter, ruin it for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:45

Right, yeah. You know, fireman, you could use that one. Yeah, no, I I think it's good. I think um, yeah, I mean, the AI prompting and stuff. That's a wild uh thing to think about how that's gonna look down the road. What's the movie with uh Walking? Is it was it uh one of the Phoenix guys that like he like had a relationship with uh the computer? You know the movie person you said earlier. Gosh dang it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:08

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:09

It's called like uh gosh, what was it? He's like in love with like this his computer or something. Damn it. Daigle, you're the guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:17

Reach out to Lauren, she'll do that. Oh man, I'll find it later.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:21

No, no, because I'm gonna call you out on your lack of ability to note this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:27

If Adam Sandler says it in a movie, I know it otherwise. It's gosh dang, what is it called?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:31

I'm not the movie guy, so whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:34

I'm gonna go with rapid fire.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:36

Okay, rapid fire. So these are just kind of random questions we're gonna ask you. Sure. They're um the intent is for you just to give an instant answer. You can't think too much about it. So you gotta go with whatever your gut says right away. Okay, okay. I may give you now, depending on the question, I might let you give some more context, but uh it's just a fun little answer first. Answer first, it's just a fun little thing we started doing because it can breed funny answers sometimes. So you ready? Ready. Okay, so pick one. Uh dogs or cats? Dogs, dogs, okay. Total silence or music?

SPEAKER_02 1:47:11

Total silence.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:12

Okay, that tells some tells me something about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:15

Just fast on those responses.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:17

Who is more heroic? Firefighters or law enforcement? Firefighters, firefighters. Hmm. I really think we need to get some people in the comments uh responding to that one. Saving cats from a tree is more heroic. Got it. Noted. Um, books or podcasts? Books. See, I was gonna say books or movies, but you don't watch movies, I guess. A few. Um forgive or forget?

SPEAKER_02 1:47:45

Forget.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:46

Forget? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:49

No elaboration on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:50

Yeah, let's elaborate on that one from a therapist perspective.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:54

Um I think that people think that forgiveness means forgetting. Um, and I think that sometimes I don't need to forgive you to forget about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:04

Can you really forget about things though?

SPEAKER_03 1:48:06

Like can you really just like No, like you said earlier with EMDR, right? We can't give you um, we can't erase your memories. I can't give you amnesia. But I can definitely choose, like, that does not get space in my brain anymore. Um, that I'm not allotting any time for that. And that means I don't even have to think about whether or not I forgive you. I'm just not doing that activity in my brain anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:27

Yeah. On that note, do you do you buy into the idea of like the best way to overcome something that's really bothering you is to like replace that energy with something else?

unknown 1:48:36

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:37

Have you heard that before?

SPEAKER_03 1:48:38

Yeah. I mean, I think that is that true for certain things if you're trying to stop chewing, if you're trying to s stop smoking, if you're trying to do habit reversal skin picking, hair picking, yes, then that is a correct answer. Um, that you would then replace it with a healthier activity. I don't believe that to be true when it comes to the brain. That's just distracting it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:58

Okay. Uh comfort or growth?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:05

Probably comfort.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:06

Really?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:09

What did you decide, Dagle? I decide growth.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:12

I need to be comfortable to grow.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:14

What?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:16

No, like if I if I nothing grows from comfort. I I need to have my like I need to feel comfortable and safe, and I am not gonna be able to grow if my environment is chaotic.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:29

I feel like I made the most growth in chaos. Yeah in hard things.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:33

It's the hard things, right? Yeah, it's a good perspective. It's different.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:36

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:37

Yeah, that's why we ask these. Okay. Um I think we what's harder, asking for help or accepting it?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:46

Oh, I think for most of us accepting it.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:50

Because I might ask for it in a really funky way, but then you offer it, and man, that's even harder. Yeah. All right. I might say, like, hey man, I'm really Struggling, you want to go get a beer, and then you go, Yeah, definitely. And then that moment where you actually go to schedule it with me. I'm like, Fuck, what do I do now?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:07

What do I sign up for?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:10

Well, what do officers say? It's like, I hate the way things are and I hate change. Yeah. Like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:16

Yeah. Okay. This last one, you can take your time on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:21

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:22

And you can it can be a little bit of a summary and a recap of some of the things we spoke about. Um and maybe even look into your camera when you give this one. Imagine every first responder in America is watching right now. You have 30 seconds, and they will remember every word that you say. What is your message to them?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:48

It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:56

Mic drop. Yeah. 26 seconds left.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:00

26 seconds left. Yeah, you have 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:03

Short and concise. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:04

I like short and concise. All right. Well, that's that's all the main stuff that we have. Um, really appreciate your time. Yeah. Um, one last opportunity if there's anything you want to talk about. I know sometimes we leave these episodes and we're like, dang it, why didn't we mention that or why didn't they ask me that? So I would just say one last opportunity if there's anything that you think we should cover is important to talk about before we wrap up.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:25

Uh I think I would just give a shout out to for Positive Freedom, um, that it's an organization that offers service dogs to any of our first responders. And that I think there is amazing work that takes place when maybe asking for help and accepting help or having a person to be your support person just doesn't exist. Um, and you can get that from a dog. And so they will train up any dog that you have. It doesn't have to come from a special list, it just has to be under four, and they'll train it for you to respond to your anxiety or depression or PTSD. Um, and so I would really encourage people that are maybe struggling or getting ready for retirement and worried they might struggle to consider getting an emotional support animal to help them in that transition.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:06

So you they provide their dog, like they have a dog and they're like, all right, well, I'll take it to this. What's the company's name again?

SPEAKER_03 1:52:14

Four paws to freedom.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:15

Four paws to freedom. And the people there will train the dog up, your dog already.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:20

That's right. And everybody is already somebody in service industry. So police, fire, military, um, they all usually have lived experience. Um, they all have their service dog there with them that's trained to specifically do what they need. Um, and then they'll teach your dog whatever it is, right? If you come home at night and you're paranoid somebody's in the house, they'll teach your dog to clear the house. You're somebody that um has nightmares, they'll teach, you know, teach the dog to turn on the lights in the middle of the night. Um, you do the real anxious y thing when you're starting to have bad thoughts, they'll train the dog to come alert on that. Um, so I think that you know, utilizing an animal, if you really feel like at the end of this podcast, like I just don't have that person. All they talked about was relationships. A relationship with an animal is a relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:59

Yeah. I agree. I love it. Awesome. Melissa, how can people find you if they want to work with you?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:05

Um, I'm not taking people. Um, I only take people off of referral. So you got to know somebody who knows me to get to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:12

Okay. Are there any people you um work with that you refer out or anybody you want to give a shout out to that they can work with?

SPEAKER_03 1:53:19

Um, I would definitely recommend Veronica Kennedy. Um, if you're in the Sacramento area, she services Elk Grove and SAC Sheriff's Department. Um, she's an embedded clinician with their uh law enforcement. She can go do a ride-along, show up at your debrief. It's a great way, like you guys said, to go uh meet your clinician that you already have access to. Um and I think she's probably one of the best therapists that I've ever worked with. And then uh shout out to Danielle Realli, who is on here. If you have couples issues, there's nobody better. I really think that she's an amazing clinician as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:50

Awesome. Good stuff. Well, for those of you who stuck around to the end, uh this was another episode of Broken Perspective Podcast, and we appreciate your time. And we will see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:59

Smash that subscribe button. See ya, you can't.