Читать книгу Mindfulness For Warriors - Kim Colegrove - Страница 10
Оглавление“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
My husband dedicated thirty years of his life to a profession that trains warriors for battle but has no context for healing the invisible wounds of warfare. Did the job kill my husband? No. Was it a contributor? Absolutely.
Our first responders are very well trained, but their training does not prepare them for the mental and emotional impacts of the job.
Invisible Wounds
A majority of first responders suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which is a condition that develops in some people who encounter trauma. Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that alters a person’s ability to cope.
The average citizen has no idea what first responders see, hear, and endure throughout their careers. They are constantly exposed to and affected by the trauma of others: accidents, disaster, violence, abuse, neglect, victimization, and death. This type of trauma is known as secondary trauma.
First responders regularly encounter scenes and circumstances that most of us could not stomach. The sights, sounds, and smells from these experiences leave imprints on their psyches. Memories and images can continue to harm them after the event is over, and very often these invisible wounds do not heal on their own.
Post-traumatic stress (PTS) and secondary trauma are not visible like a burn, a gunshot wound, or a laceration. They occur on the inside, unseen, but they cause just as much, if not more, pain.
Left untreated, PTS and secondary trauma can be stealthy killers. They quietly ruin health, relationships, families, and lives. They can cause people to withdraw and isolate, or rage and lash out. They create devastation and rob individuals of the most basic human rights: life, love, and joy. However, they are treatable. But in order for treatment to become normalized, the shame and disgrace attached to seeking help must be eliminated.
Stigma
There has long been a stigma attached to mental health issues in these often stoic emergency-responder professions. If a person is brave (or desperate) enough to speak up about mental and emotional difficulties, they face the possibility of being labeled “weak,” “unstable,” or “incompetent.” Instead of receiving help, they might be demoted—or fired. This ridiculous stigma causes first responders to suffer in silence, forced to pretend they’re okay when they’re not.
This is what my husband did, for years and years. In order to survive in the law enforcement culture, David felt he had to remain silent about anxiety, depression, and other symptoms he suffered over the years. He was terrified of being deemed incompetent or unsuitable for the job. He worried about being stripped of his badge and gun and being fired without the ability to support his family and collect the pension he had worked so hard to build.
I want to make a point here about mental health and first responders, and I want to address first responders directly.
Getting treatment for mental health does not mean you are mentally ill. I try to always include the word “emotional,” when speaking about first responders who need help, because mental and emotional distress go hand in hand when they are caused by a stressful, traumatic profession. I say mental and emotional difficulties, or mental and emotional problems or issues.
I think one of the main reasons you haven’t sought or won’t seek help is that you don’t want people to think you’re mentally ill or crazy. First of all, mental illness is not the same as being crazy, and everyone needs to knock it off with that kind of language and thinking. Secondly, mental illness is treatable, is not necessarily permanent, and should never be stigmatized.
So, listen up! You have been mentally and emotionally wounded. This should not cause shame any more than a physical wound would.
If you are struggling mentally and emotionally because of the work you do and the things you’ve seen, you have been wounded. You are not weak, you are human.
And let me be blunt. If you are resistant to help and treatment because of the stigma, you are sacrificing your life to your job, and that is unacceptable. Some day you will leave this job, one way or another, and when you do, what will your life look like?
How is your mental, emotional, and physical health? What about your personal life, your relationships, and your social life? Are you happy, healthy, and thriving? Or do you operate in some version of survival mode, putting one foot in front of the other in a joyless existence?
I’ve met a lot of veteran and retired first responders who have been divorced more than once, drink too much, suffer from chronic health problems, and have adult children who won’t speak to them. So, if your plan is to give everything to your job and then be happy when you retire, consider this. When you retire, assuming you live that long, all the garbage that you’ve stuffed down and held in will still be there. It doesn’t magically disappear. It rots and festers. And, the day after you retire, the job goes on as if you never existed. Which means the job is just fine, whether you’re there or not.
Are you willing to give everything to a job that will not miss a beat when you leave?
And now I want to address leaders and commanders.
It is imperative that you immediately initiate and execute policies to end this stigma. This is a top-down situation that can only be fixed by the people at the top showing real leadership and compassion. Old-fashioned, outdated thinking must be tossed out the window. It’s time for the old-guard, “suck it up” leaders to retire and step aside if they are unwilling to embrace empathy and understanding.
If I hear about one more boss saying they don’t believe in PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), I think I will likely explode. If this is your mindset, it is time for you to hang it up, madam or sir. The world has passed you by and, not only are you standing in the way of progress, but your misinformed and misguided rhetoric and decisions are killing people.
Ripple Effects
I would be remiss in speaking to first responders and commanders if I didn’t address the ripple effects that occur when someone does make the choice to end their own life.
I’ve heard from people who have considered suicide, and some who have even attempted it, that at the point of choice, they believed everyone in their lives would be better off without them. Somehow, in the midst of feeling like they’re drowning in pain, fear, anxiety, depression, and despair, people who are suicidal rationalize that death is the only answer—the only relief. I’m sure there are many different versions of this, but as I understand it, it goes something like this: I am a mess, I am so tired of feeling like this, nothing helps, I have become a burden to my friends and family, and everyone will be better off with me gone. They’ll all be fine eventually and my suffering will end. This is just for the best.
While this is hard for most of us to understand, I believe some people reach a point where they have lost all memory of what it’s like to feel okay, and they are so exhausted from suffering that they convince themselves death is their only path to peace and freedom.
If you have considered or are considering suicide, I’d like share with you some of the ripple effects that occurred and continue because of my husband’s choice to end his life. The truth is, every person who knew David was negatively impacted in some way. Nobody is better off without him. Not one of us.
David has parents and two sisters who miss him. He has children and stepchildren who miss him and will forever carry heaviness, regret, and pain regarding his choice. He has friends who were shocked, stunned, saddened, and confused by this tragedy.
He had a nephew named Nico, with whom he was especially close. David taught Nico how to fish and use tools. They bonded over “guy stuff,” bad jokes, dumb movies, and Just Dance on the Wii, which was the most hilarious thing you’ve ever seen.
Nico struggled with some emotional difficulties in adolescence, and Uncle David was someone he could always talk to. When he found out his uncle had killed himself, he was devastated. We worried about Nico a lot in the days, weeks, and months following David’s funeral. Nico made the trip from St. Louis to Kansas City several times in those days to spend time with us. I think being in his uncle’s home was comforting somehow. Nico and I were close, and he was close with my kids, especially my son.
On an early Sunday morning in June of 2015, after Nico had spent the night at my house, I talked to him over coffee. I told him I knew he missed his uncle, and that I understood he had been experiencing a rough patch in life. I assured him that I would always be there for him and that he was welcome at our house any time. And then I mustered the courage to say what I really wanted to say, which was, “I need to know you’re never going to consider killing yourself. I know life gets hard, but you have so many people who love you and this family cannot take another tragedy.”
Nico looked me right in the eye and said, “I’ve seen how much David’s death has hurt everyone and I would never consider doing that to my family.” I was so relieved.
On July 2, 2015, seven months after David ended his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Nicholas “Nico” Hundelt did the exact same thing. He was twenty years old.
Also on that day, David’s best friend in the whole world, his sister, Julie, had to face the devastating reality that she had lost her brother and closest friend, as well as her youngest child, in the span of less than a year.
The ripples continue.
Nico has a mom and a dad who miss him terribly and will never stop grieving. He has two brothers who loved him so much and have to face each day knowing their little brother is gone forever. He had a girlfriend when he died. He had more friends than you could count, and at least a couple of them have since experienced their own darkness, depression, and even suicidal ideation.
Did you know that suicide can be contagious? There is something called “suicide contagion.” It’s a phenomenon that occurs in families and peer groups. Basically, exposure to suicide has been shown to increase one’s potential to consider suicide.
After Nico’s death, the entire family went into a tailspin of emotional and mental anguish and paranoid vigilance. Some family members struggled more than others, and we found ourselves terrified that whoever was not doing well at any given time would be the next one to kill themselves. And I’d be lying if I told you we’ve stopped worrying about that.
Every one of us has indelible and unshakeable memories of how and when we found out about each of these deaths, and now many of us are triggered by the simplest things, like late-night phone calls, calls from a family member at an unusual time, or a knock at the door. We were each shocked, stunned, and devastated by the deaths of these men we loved so much.
So, if you are someone who is considering suicide, know this. If you choose suicide, and you have children, you have just modeled for them that suicide is an option when life gets hard. When those children encounter dark times in life, and they are searching for answers, help, and relief, they are much more likely to consider suicide. Is that the legacy you want to leave behind? And it’s not just your kids you might unwittingly be giving permission. Friends, family members, and colleagues might also be more likely to follow suit.
Suicide does not end suffering. It simply passes suffering on to others.
Silent Suffering
David was a police officer for eight years, from age twenty-one to twenty-nine, and then he joined a federal agency and worked as a Special Agent and a SAC (Special Agent in Charge) for twenty-two years. I believe most of his buried trauma occurred during the eight years he was on patrol. In my travels with the PauseFirst Project, I’ve met many people who worked with David over the years. They have all been generous in their praise of his police work and investigative skills.
My husband was good at his job, but he was not built for the job. Since his death, I have learned that nobody is, not really. Humans are not built to endure and withstand years and years of intense stress, trauma, death, and devastation. Yes, there are people who can do the work and do it well, but nobody goes unscathed. David was a sweet, sensitive, emotional man at his core. The dysfunction, death, and violence he witnessed as a police officer affected him deeply and subsequently impacted his entire life.
In a later segment in this book, titled “His Buried Trauma,” I will talk more about what David endured during his eight years as a patrolman. Those early years caused indelible pain and trauma that I believe changed the trajectory of my husband’s life.
In my opinion, had David been able to seek assistance for the mental and emotional fallout from the early days on the job, he would have been a more effective law enforcement officer and investigator—and he was pretty damn good as it was. He also could have enjoyed a more peaceful personal life, and he might still be here.
Instead, he struggled and suffered off and on for the entire thirty years, and his suffering caused pain for the people he loved. With knowledge of the stigma surrounding mental and emotional problems in law enforcement so deeply buried in his psyche, instead of seeking help, David became engulfed in a tsunami of trauma symptoms, and ultimately decided death was the only way to escape the pain.
It did not have to be this way, and it doesn’t have to end like this for one other first responder.
If any of this resonates with you, if you are a first responder who has suffered similarly, please know there is hope. There is help available. You can heal. You can learn skills and tools to build your resilience and survive, no matter how bad things are.
If you are someone who loves a first responder, and you suspect your loved one is struggling like David did, please know there are first-responder-specific programs and facilities that can help. That is the one piece we were missing near the end of David’s life. We did not know that type of help was available. We tried the normal psychiatric route, but that was never going to help my husband because there was no way he was letting his guard down in that environment.
Later in the book, I will offer stories of first responders from all backgrounds: military, law enforcement, fire service, EMS, and dispatch, who at some point in their career found themselves struggling or suffering with post-traumatic stress symptoms, trauma, anxiety, depression, nightmares, recurring memories and images, and even suicidal ideation. They will tell us where they’ve been, what they experienced, and how it affected them, their families and their lives. Then they will share how they found the courage to step onto a healing path, which tools worked for them, and what they are doing to maintain their well-being.
Maybe you will see yourself in one of these people. Perhaps their story is your story.
If so, my hope is that hearing from these brave and vulnerable souls will create a spark in you and inspire you to take that first step toward wellness and wholeness. Reach out, talk to someone, attend a peer support meeting, or make your first counseling appointment. Learn what helped these people, and maybe try something they tried. But please know that you are not alone. Others have struggled in the same way you are, but they’ve survived and are thriving, and you can too.
We must put an end to silent suffering. We are losing too many first responders to suicide and premature death due to health problems. First responders deserve a long, full, peaceful, happy, healthy life. They deserve to have connected relationships and a culture and community that supports them.
My Initiation
Becoming a widow was my initiation as a warrior. I am fighting for first responders and their families. There is a massive nationwide movement to bring healing to our first responders, and I have joined this cause. I’m standing shoulder-to-shoulder with an army of compassionate, caring people who will stop at nothing to help, save, and rescue the brave and important people who have dedicated their lives to helping, saving, and rescuing others. Each of us contributes something unique to the fight, but all of us are united in the commitment to bring sweeping change to this dire situation.
This is not a moment; it’s a movement. It’s not a wellness fad that will fade away like a trendy diet or the latest health guru. This is a new way of being for first responders and it will prevail and sustain.
My small part in this movement is to offer two powerful personal practices to first responders and their families and loved ones. The practices are meditation and mindfulness. These tools help turn one’s attention inward, to the self. They can help a person manage stress, regulate emotions, and improve overall health.
Beyond teaching meditation and mindfulness, I am encouraging first responders to seek professional help and step onto a healing path that can change the trajectory of their lives and the lives of everyone they love.
There are many, many other people, other warriors, involved in this movement who are offering myriad tools, therapies, retreats, modalities, education, facilities, books, counseling, peer groups, training, and other forms of support. Together, we will make a difference.
If you are a first responder, please join the movement to help and heal, starting with yourself. Up until now, you have been the help. Now, maybe you need a little help. Please don’t allow your stoicism, shame, embarrassment, or pride to keep you from seeking the help and support you need and deserve.
