Category: PTSD Living

No, I am not about to go all New Age on you.  But, I am going to tell you something that has helped me, that I walked away from and have now returned to because it helped me.  That’s right meditation.

Early on in this journey, my psychologist suggested I consider looking at mindfulness training to help deal with all the little fun side effects of PTSD an d to help me ground myself in the moment.  She went so far as to suggest an App to use so that I could simply do it at home and not have to subject myself to going out to a meditation group.  Having nothing to lose, I decided to give it a try.

I did the 10 day program for beginners and I can honestly say that I noticed a difference in my outlook and how I dealt with things that came up.  It changed my perspective to a degree and helped to calm me.  Despite these positives, I stopped.  Looking back on it, I think that this was the first time that I really allowed PTSD to win and push something out of my routine that was put there to help.  It was a direct blow against me trying to regain myself and put a condition of PTSD.  It took a number of months to figure this out.

But, like everything else that happens on this journey, you learn something new about yourself, and others but that is a whole different post.  What I learned is that you have power over PTSD but you can easily lose that power, particularly if you are not staying focussed on what needs to be done.  So, I have decided it is time to take back that power, especially considering that I have been feeling that the PTSD and Depression has been taking too much control and power away from me lately.

I will simply say that sitting down for the session just felt right.  I quickly settled in and for the next 10 minutes, I just sat there in the moment.  It felt good.  I finished relaxed and focussed on the day.  I guess sometimes, yu need to stumble backwards to learn what is needed to keep moving forward.

 

Shameless plug here……. for anyone wanting to know, I use the Headspace App that is available on Android and apple products.  I paid for it myself (it was not a sponsored gift) and it was worth every penny. #Headspace

 

 

I mentioned the other day that along the way I picked up a Depression diagnosis and it threw me for a bit of a loop in some ways. I spoke with my psychologist about it and she said that st the time of her initial diagnosis, the depression I was experiencing was consistent with PTSD symptoms and the exclusive of a separate diagnosis. But…. apparently during my psychiatric consult, the Psychiatrist felt that I was definitely in a Major Depressive episode.

In some ways, I’m okay with it as I have had the feeling that it was kicking around. In fact, I began to think that it was becoming a bigger battle to take on and explained some of what has been going on. I don’t know if I would go so far as to say that I have all the classic symptoms of depression but I will say that I have a few. They are quite noticeable and in your face when they want to be.  But I am not sure if depression is accurate or not.

For me, the depression has become another layer of fog that surrounds me.  it is like a shroud that covers you and changes how you see the outside world.  It takes the joy out of things and is always lurking in the background, just waiting for the moment to let you know that it is still there and you are definitely ot over it yet.  It really is hard to describe and put your finger on one specific thing about it.  I guess the closest I can get to describing it would be to say that it is like the old amusement park “House of Mirrors” walk through. every mirror you look into gives you a different look with the difference being that each look with depression is dark and creepy.

But like PTSD, I’m trying not to let this dictate who I am or how I interat with others, as hard as it is.  To me, it is just another peice of the pzzle that will be dealt with and put in its appropriate spot to complete my picture.  Depression sucsk, plain and simply.  It is not fun and is down right scary but it is part of me now too.  I just have to conitnue to remind myself to let a little light in every once and awhile so that I can take a look around and just see all the good that is there.

No, this isn’t some off the cuff approach to announcing my retirement from policing.  Far from it (especially seeing how I know that I have a good number of years left in me) as there is more to do.  No, this is something completely different.

I was asked a few weeks ago by my psychologist to answer this question, “what have you learned from your journey so far?”  What I thought was going to be a nice and easy answer turned out to be something a lot more.  As the title to the post says, my answer was that the identity of my badge and me are two distinct and different things.  I realize that this goes against every bit of indoctrination that police forces throw at recruits but a) I am nowhere near a recruit anymore and b) it really is the truth.

In training, you are pushed to conform, to become one with your Troopmates and join the big old happy policing family as brother and sisters.  They go to great lengths, using tried and true actions and techniques to make sure that they break you down and build you back up to become the ideal police officer.  Now don’t get me wrong, it is required.  Aside from the military, what other job puts a gun in your hand and trains you to be ready to use it.  I remember the first time that I had my gun drawn and leveled at another human, knowing in that split second that if the individual did not comply with my directions, I would pull the trigger and “stop the threat”.  This is only possible through the indoctrination process.

This process also strips you of your identity in many ways, making a person another clog in the wheel.  Once again, a necessary evil required to ensure that you will comply with the orders of your bosses and get the job done.  It also protects a person to some degree as you can brush off what you did, experienced and lived through as being done for the job.  But that is also where the problems begin.

Instead of reacting to the experiences, which in most cases are negative, we just brush them off and move on, Mountie Up as I like to call it.  You become you badge and use your badge a shield to protect yourself (I wonder if that’s why they call badges shields?).  You end up building layer upon layer of traumatic experiences that never truly get dealt with.  Then one day, you say hello to your not so friendly friend, PTSD.

Well, six months of weekly psychological therapy completely smashed almost 18 years of indoctrination and Mountie Upping.  I cam to the realization that my badge isn’t me, Jay and Jay is not my badge.  I am a living breathing human that can be hurt and traumatized by the experiences that I deal with.  Jay is a police officer but first and foremost, I am Jay, the human.  Along the way, I got lost in the badge and forgot that I am me, someone who needs to be taken care of.

We, my psychologist and myself, have chronicled a shit tonne of situations / experiences that have damaged me.  Many would not have been to the extreme that they are at now had I treated myself like a human and not a badge.  Heck, I will go so far as to say that this is epidemic across the policing universe.  There is a need for indoctrination but there is also a bigger need to teach and show members how to remain human and not become the badge that they wear.  For me, this will be the battle that I must take up for myself.

Picking up the Phone?

NO, NO, NO, NO,NO AND NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whoever coined this phrase and/or thought it would be a good message to get across to those that need help obviously never had to “pick up the phone”.  It is far from easy to do.  From personal experience, picking up the phone and calling to get help was the hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life.  And, the second call to tell my wife that I called to get help was even harder than the first phone call I made.

There are probably a whole bunch of psychological terms or concepts that explain this but here is my simplistic reasoning.  For me, making the call to get help was the first step in acknowledging that there was something wrong.  All those little signs had finally come to a head and there was no choice left to make.  I had to call for help before things got to far away from me.  (I firmly believe that if I didn’t call when I did, I would have set myself up to go down a very dark and destructive path to get the help.)  There was no way around it, I was broken and needed to get fixed for myself and my family.  There was no other option for me.  Even though I knew making the call was the right thing to do, it also tore me up as I was admitting to the world that things were okay…….

Think of that for a second.  Making the call means that you know that things aren’t right.  Even more so, the next call was harder because I was telling my wife and family that I was broken.  So, I just admitted to myself that things weren’t ok and now I was doing it to the person that was closets to me.  Even in the best of situations it is hard for anyone to admit that they were wrong or that something isn’t right.  Picture doing it with you thoughts and mind firmly entrenched in the perfect storm known as PTSD.  It is not easy.  Nobody wants to be seen as broken.

When you add to it the fact that almost every first responder is a type A personality, it gets worse.  As a first responder, admitting that you need help is like a figurative death sentence.  We have all seen what happens to co-workers that go sick and don’t want to have the same thing happen.  We will push it down and carry on.  I have heard the famous words, “Mountie Up” being said to others more than once in my career.  It’s not easy to call for help as you don’t want to be “one of those members”.

But the bottom line is that even though making the call isn’t easy, you still have to make it.  It will probably be the hardest thing that you ever do but you will be glad you did, at some point.  Remember my equation: PTSD + Silence = Death.  You have to make the call for help in order to change the equation:

PTSD + Talking = LIVING.

That has a better ring to it.

If you are in a bad spot or heading down a dark path, stop what you are doing and tell someone, anyone.  Call a crisis line or talk to a friend, coworker or family.  Hell, email me if you want just CHANGE THE EQUATION.