theshadowofme

[theshadowofme]

Through The Looking Glass

Greetings all,

Today I want to talk a bit about the symptoms and side effects of the wonderful condition I have been blessed with. Yes, that was sarcasm. In order to do this, I want to switch things up a bit and start this one with a video, and then describe what is going on in the video through the lens of my own experiences. Don’t worry, I will still end with a song, but this song and video you are about to watch is probably one of the most realistic portrayals of PTSD that I have seen, to the point that when I watched it, it was like looking in a mirror and not liking what I was seeing.

Also, this will be a bit longer one as the video is about 8 minutes long, so please allow yourself plenty of time. Without further ado, I present to you Morgan Wallen - Cover Me Up. Please watch for the video and not so much about the song that is playing. Even though the song is a good one.

The video starts out with a saying. “It’s not the person refusing to let go of the past, but the past refusing to let go of the person.” This is very true. I would give anything to have some of my memories removed and have them not have as much of a hold over me as they do. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and gasping for breath, but I do. I don’t want to be that person that flinches at fireworks, but I am. I don’t live in the past, the past floods over me like a tidal wave at inconvenient times.

The video begins with our protagonist returning home. The protagonist is named Patrick, but for the sake of writing, lets call him Pat. Pat is a veteran returning home for the first time. I don’t know where he was, or what he was doing, but throughout the video, you learn that he is coping with PTSD, even though it is never named. In talking to veterans, I have had them tell me that they couldn’t do my job, and I look at them and say I couldn’t do theirs, yet we both end up with PTSD from seeing what people shouldn’t have to see.

Pat is met at the door by his spouse and greeted with a hug. The video moves on to day to day life where you can see that Pat is struggling with finding his place in being back in a “normal” life. This happens all the time with first responders, but instead of every once in awhile, it is on a daily basis. It is incredibly hard to turn off the policing mindset and just be “normal” on your days off or on holiday. Pat’s spouse asks him if he is okay, and after a pause, Pat answers, “Yeah.” You can see on his face that he isn’t, but he doesn’t want to burden his wife with the truth, or share the images that are going through his head.

The next scene is Pat sitting in front of the TV, and the announcer mentions something about Afghanistan. Pat’s heartbeat gets really loud and you can see him go into the thousand yard stare. The thousand yard stare is usually a sign of someone in the depths of a completely immersive flashback. Having lived through those, it isn’t a fun experience. You are literally stuck in a loop of one of the worst experiences of your life, and it is hard to break out of.

The scene switches to empty alcohol bottles and Pat’s wife calling out for him. I would assume that she had only gone to work for the day, but she finds Pat drinking and drunk in the hammock on the porch. She slowly starts to clean up and Pat just sits there and drinks. Why drinking? Drinking is what is known as an unhealthy coping mechanism. We drink to block the memories, to help us sleep, or to numb the pain. I have been know to do this on certain dates to just be able to pass out and get some sleep, to not have a night of terror and flashbacks. The secret is though, that in reality, it only makes you hate yourself more. It is a short term solution that leads to a bigger problem.

The next scene is a house party of some form. In this scene there are two things to look for. The first is Pat having a conversation with a service buddy where they are talking about going back. Going back to being on the front lines. This is an interesting cunnundrum for policing and military. They basically program us to believe that we need to be there for our fellow soldiers or police officers. That our organizations are our families. Our identities become so enmeshed with our jobs, that when we finally leave or retire, we are left adrift without that anchor to hold us. Some of us are able to find our new path easily, but others stay adrift, reliving the past because it was the only time they felt that they belonged.

The other part of the scene is when Pat freaks out over a baby crying. One of the side effects that is quite common with PTSD is tinnitus. A constant ringing in the ears. It provides an annoying soundtrack to your life, to the point that people have to use white noise to drown it out and sleep. What does this have to do with the baby? One of the the things that comes with tinnitus is a sensitivity to loud noises, to the point that your ears hurt when exposed to them. I suffer from this when my kids are around and I know that it annoys them to no end when I ask them to be quiet.

The other part of the scene with the baby is the fact that Pat went from zero to full on angry and yelling in no time. Unfortunately, PTSD takes out our ability for emotional control. It takes away our ability to feel happiness and leaves us with a heighten sense of sadness, anger, depression, and all the other unfun emotions. This leads us to explode at the drop of a hat over something that really shouldn’t bother most people. I dont write this part to make excuses, but as an explanation.

The next scene is Pat and his wife on a porch, where Pat once again says he is fine. Pat’s wife asks him if he wants to talk to someone, an Pat accuses her of wanting to change him. She then says she wants to talk to Pat, but not this version of him. Pat gets upset and says she is talking to him. Where I am going with this is that it is hard for friends and family to accept that the person that they knew has changed, and not for the better. As I once stated to someone, “That person is dead and gone. I can’t unsee what I’ve seen, or undo what I’ve done.” Those things will forever be a part of me and have changed who I am. I can try to control it, but I shouldn’t have to become a nervous wreck because of people wanting to do what I could in the past. A perfect example for this and thousands of others is fireworks. I use to love fireworks, still do, but the explosions that go with them set me into full on fight or flight to the point I am vibrating. Should I have to sacrifice my health to meet an expectation from the past?

The next scene to pay attention to is when they are playing hide and seek in the woods. Pat’s wife goes and hides while Pat is it. He manages to search for about 30 seconds and then starts to freak out because he can’t find her. To me this shows two things that I experience. One is short term memory loss. Simple things are not processed into your memory, which leads you to stress out when you can’t remember what is going on or what is happening. The other one is the loss of problem solving ability. Since I finished work, as soon as my stress level elevates, my ability to problemsolve is gone. Something as simple as you need to put this pin into that hole can’t be figured out unless there are very specific detailed instructions. If something isn’t working right in the shop, I have to walk away, because I can’t solve it anymore.

The final scene in the video is when Pat attempts suicide after hearing that his friend died. Luckily, Pat survives after his wife finds him. But for hundreds of first responders and military personnel each year, this isn’t reality. When life and the past gets to overwhelming, they see only one way out, and that is suicide. Especially when they are unable to access help or don’t have support at home. I have been to that point, but was able to get the help that I needed. After that I vowed never to get there again, and to tell my story to help prevent others from being there.

There are lots of other symptoms, but I wanted to cover the ones listed in the video as it showed them in the most realistic view I have seen. I know it was a bit longer, but thank you for reading. My closing song is one that came up on my white noise generator. When I go to sleep, I put in earbuds and listen to YouTube music videos. It is not one that would normally be in my play list, but the message behind it struck me and seemed to suit todays writing. So here it goes, Enemy by Jelly Roll and Struggle Jennings.

Have a great day and remember to get outside and enjoy the sun.

Cheers everyone.

[theshadowofme]

Motorcycles and Flashbacks

Howdy everyone, figured it was time to write again, but I couldn’t come up with a fun title for today’s topic, so it is what it is. I realize that the topic is kind of opposites to each other, but I will bring it together.

I want to start by talking about flashbacks and intrusive memories. A flashback is defined as a past incident recurring vividly in the mind. I have experienced these on multiple occasions. Flashbacks can come from any trigger, whether it is a sight, smell, sound, date, or vehicle. It could come from a TV show or a phrase stated by someone. Frequently, the person that experiences the flashback has no idea what will trigger it until it happens. For me, they come in two forms that I will describe as the full immersion and the second as the overlay. What are the differences between the two?

The full immersion is what I would describe as what most people know as a flashback. When you are sitting in a chair and you just go away, back to the trauma in your head. You become completely unaware of what is going on around you and are fully back in the scene. You re-live the incident in real time, all sounds, smells, sights. For someone watching from the outside, you might see the person go completely still, or start twitching and having rapid eye movement. You might see the thousand yard stare and relize that they haven’t heard a word that you have said in the last 10 minutes. To people that associate with you that are unaware of what is going on it may seem that the person is ignoring you or not being attentive, when in actual fact, they have no control of what is happening to them.

The second type of flashback that I have is what I call the overlay. This is when the flashback starts to come on, but I am able to stop it from going full immersion, and the image comes across a a quick snapshot across my vision, almost like a quick glimpse of an old school slide show. When I can feel the flashback coming on, I usually blink rapidly and get the image to clear, reducing it to a short interruption in my life.

So how does all of this relate to motorcycle riding you are probably asking. Well, one of the things that I do to clear my mind and reduce stress is that I go riding. Put the tunes on, focus on the road, and just ride. As I have stated to people before, I do it to clear my mind and free my soul. All you care about is the next corner and the ride. It is also the ultimate mindfulness exercise as you focus on the sound of the wind, the pressure of it on your body, the feel of the bike in the corner, or the smells in the air.

The last one is what brings us to the correlation between the two of riding and flashbacks. I love riding in the spring as you get the smell of all the greenery starting back to life. The smell of wild roses, cherry blossoms. Riding past an orchard and all the different odors that come from all the fruit trees in bloom. However, this took a bit of a turn for the worse the other day as I was riding past Midway and detected a smell that is unmistakable once you have smelled it once. Something that anyone in policing knows all too well, even the office staff that has never gone in the field, as they have smelled it on the members coming back into the office. This is the smell of decomposition of flesh. Now this wonderful smell(sarcasm) is completely different than anything else rotting. When you smell it, you will never forget, can’t forget. It unfortunately doesn’t happen with something that is relatively new, but only with something that has been around for awhile.

Back to the story and how it all relates to each other. So I’m riding along and I detect the wonderful odor floating on the breeze through my helmet. First thought through my head, “something died.” This then proceeded a rapid series of overlays across my vision as I’m blinking rapidly to try to clear them, all while riding my bike at highway speed. I’ll do my best to describe the overlays without too much gory details, but I apologize if I slip.

Blink

I’m doing a perimeter sweep around a house on a check welfare call as the neighbor hadn’t been seen for a couple days. I’m looking for an open window or door to gain entry. As I check a basement window I detect an unmistakeable smell...

Blink

I’m walking across a cutblock approaching a tarp buried under a pile of branches, you can smell the overpowering odor from over 100 meters away. As I approach I am photographing my way in to document if it is a body dump. As I get closer, I am dry heaving from the strength of the smell..... (wasn’t actually a body, just someone cleaning off some skulls)

Blink

I’m the supervisor on shift helping a member with a sudden death call. As I walk down the hallway of the apartment, I can detect the odor from two apartments away.

Blink

It’s my first sudden death on my own 15 years ago as I crack the door to the condo....

Blink

......

Blink

.....

Each blink is the changing of the slide to another scene, another town, another life gone.

This is rather disconcerting while riding but I was able to make it stop after a couple of seconds. But this is a problem with some of the flashbacks, even the overlays, they go on and on. But every day they happen, we get through them and push on. To all that have them, please remember to take that big breath at the end and remind yourself that it was that past and this is the now. To those that support people with PTSD and trauma, please remember that when they get flashbacks, it isn’t a personal slight to you if they ignore you or didn’t hear what you said. They are lost in a different time and place, but they will come back from it.

Today’s song is by Linkin Park - Crawling. Not a favorite of mine, but the lyrics do describe flashbacks somewhat. Plus I’m trying to expand my music horizons.

Cheers all, and may the sunny weather that we are experiencing in BC find its way to your part of the world.

[theshadowofme]

Sorry, I Gave At The Office

Well, it has been awhile since I wrote, but I’m back for an anniversary date and a discussion. I think like a lot of people, as a year approached of having to wear masks, lockdowns, and “14 days to flatten the curve” approached, I fell into a bit of a funk and basically shut down for awhile on a lot of things. It got harder and harder to focus on the fun things and stay away from the bad. With the changing of the weather, that seems to have dissipated, thankfully.

So the anniversary that I want to talk about today is the passing of my mother, Kathy. She passed away on March 28, 2018, after battling primary peritoneal cancer for around 20 months. For those 20 months, I was back and forth from my current town to her place every 2-4 weeks to help out with medical appointments, yard work, and all the other things that she needed help with. I had the fun task of having to phone family members and tell them that she was diagnosed with cancer and answer the follow up questions. The constant travel and dealing with doctors appointments and bad news took a toll, but I would not change it nor do I begrudge having to do it. It was what it was and life rolls on.

The diagnosis came shortly after changing posts, new detachment commander, and a detachment that changed from mostly senior members to mostly new members, which as a supervisor, brought its own headaches. Our detachment was running constantly short and I was in charge of finding members to fill shifts, make sure they had what they needed when they got there, and that the accommodations that the detachment had procured were suitable and cleaned for them. No, I did not have to do the cleaning myself. All of this was on top of my regular duties as a member and a supervisor. Again, just stating facts, not complaining, but setting up the punchline.

Where I am going with this is that fact that I was burning the candle from both ends and the middle. I was constantly switching back and forth from having all of my emotional strength being used at the office, then switching to having to use all of my mental and emotional energy while assisting my mom at her place. This really left me with nothing in the tank for being at home or dealing with the million other little things that life throws at you. I found myself getting sick all the time as my body had nothing left to fight the colds and flu’s I was exposed to.

My medical team, both GP and psychologist were both actively encouraging me to go off work throughout this time. My answer was always, “I’m surviving,” or “I’ll get through it.” These worked until they didn’t and by that point, I had dropped off the edge of the cliff. I had got to the point that going to work was making me physically ill. Looking back, I never should have gone back to work after the flooding in May 2018.

My employer preaches about work life balance and making sure that you spend time at home, doing things that you like, etc, etc. What I have come to realize is that in reality, it should also apply to your mental and emotional health. I know that if you give your all at the office, you don’t have the reserve left to deal with all the other things of life that happen.

I’m not the only one this happened to. Just under a year later, a friend of mine had a parent suddenly become ill and end up in the ICU. From the time he entered to the time he passed was just 19 days. He passed away from complications from suddenly malignant melanoma that had got into his bone marrow. My friend was able to say good bye at least, but was unable to have a two way conversation at that point. They had this absolutely shut them down for 3 months as it was completely devistating. It still has lasting after effects to this day.

I have since had two other people that I know diagnosed with cancer, and each one send you for a bit of a tailspin when you hear about it. This is partially because your mind automatically goes to the worse case scenario and all the other things that happens with it. But luckily, both at this point are deemed to be survivable.

So out of these sad tales that I have spun today comes a few lessons:

1) Make sure you have enough left in the tank after dealing with work and family life to deal with the curves that life throws at you.

2) Cancer sucks and Fuck Cancer.

3) It’s okay to say that you aren’t okay.

4) Listen to the medical professionals, they know what they are talking about and can see the things that you can’t.

5) This gets easier to see and do every day and that is to realize that life rolls on.

With that, a song. Today’s pick is “Life Rolls On” by Florida Georgia Line. There are some lines in it that seem appropriate to todays topic. One of the ones is that he drove past his old house but it had been torn down. While the house that I grew up in hasn’t been torn down, I can never go in it again to relive all the old memories. Instead I drive up to the gate of the property and pay my respects at that point.

Cheers all, hope that Easter is a good one for you, whatever your beliefs are.

Oh, and fuck cancer.

[theshadowofme]

Well, it’s Bell’s Let’sTalk day, the day where we are suppose to talk about mental health and encourage people to come forward and seek help if needed. It is also a time to share our own stories about our battles with mental health. Today, I will share some more of my journey.

Well, I started my journey into policing back in 2004. Graduated from Depot, and was posted to Northeastern BC. This is where I learned policing, an oilfield town where the government employees were on the low end of the pay scale. When people asked me what policing an oil town was like, I always would say, “it was a great place to learn.” And it truly was. As a new officer, you got exposed to everything. Which was also a negative, as you got exposed to EVERYTHING.

My final year there was my first exposure to an in custody death in the summer of 2007. We received a complaint of a person acting erratically and attempting to smash windows. The long and the short of it, upon arrest, involving five officers, the person went into medical distress, ultimately passing away at the local hospital. From this, I got to be the subject of an investigation, and experience a Coroners Inquest. The outcome of the inquest was that the person passed away from excited delirium, something at that point in time, officers were not trained how to deal with people suspected of suffering from excited delirium.

Shortly after these events, I transferred to my next post, a three person post in the interior of BC. Two weeks after trasferring to this post, the organization changed their policy on on call and what was suppose to be only on call between shifts every once in awhile changed to being on call for probably 5 out of every 7 days of a week. Ultimately I was on call for three months straight at one point. I know that there are members that have gone longer, but this was my reality at the time. Unable to leave town, even when I wasn’t scheduled to be on shift as I was on call for the member that was working that day. Between dealing with no down time and having not processed having a person dying in custody, I started a downward spiral to the lowest point I have ever been in my life. At this point there was no talking about trauma in the organization or PTSD. I still remember the part of training where the mental health discussion was “you’ll have bad days, but you will get over them.”

At my lowest point I seriously contemplated suicide to the point that I had my pistol out one night at work wondering what it would be like. My life was so out of my control at that point that I felt that the only thing that I could control was whether I lived or died. Ultimately I did not do it, but at that point, I saw no other way out and just didn’t care anymore. A week later, I was off work as I couldn’t deal with the stress anymore. It is very disheartening as an officer when your supervisor takes away your service weapon and sends you home.

I started the process of recovery and was diagnosed with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder. This started the journey of medications and treatments. Medications always seem to have interesting side effects for me. One I didn’t sleep, one my symptoms got worse, and one had other umm... side effects. Sleeping pills either didn’t work or made me into a drooling mess at their lowest dose. After six months I was deemed fit to return to work, which I did. After another year in that office, I transferred to Northwestern BC.

With my transfer to Northwestern BC, I made the vow to myself that I would talk about my experiences to the people I worked with to hopefully prevent anyone from going through what I did. Ultimately, by helping to remove the stigma within the office I worked, it helped others trust me to come to me with their problems and ask for help. I continued this through the rest of my career.

As I have written about in my previous posts, this lead to the week of hell. This time I was better able to read what my head and my body was telling me and deemed that once I was done two commitments I was going off again. Ultimately I was off for two months before I returned to work as I actually enjoyed my job there. Once back from being off, I transferred in the fall of that year to Southeastern BC, my current home. This also involved having a new family doctor.

After two years here, my doctor started to ask me if I wanted to be put off work due to all the things that were going on in my life. She just kept saying to me, “I don’t know how you keep going.” My psychiatrist was also saying the same thing to me as well. At this point, reading my own body and mental state, I was confident that I could continue on. I was able to continue this until another trauma event happened, followed shortly after by becoming the person in charge of the office that was short staffed. I fought through this until I wasn’t able to anymore. I decided that when I was driving to work in the morning and feeling like puking on the way that I shouldn’t be there as I was a liability to the public, my co-workers, and ultimately myself. As the person in charge, I didn’t have anyone to report to locally, so this time around, I locked up my own service weapon, turned the keys over to the exhibit clerk and called the district officer and advised them that they needed to have someone come and run the detachment. I have not returned to work since.

Approximately 5 years ago, I got really sick of being told I had a mental illness and started telling people I had an injury. Most people that I tell this to agree with me and it helps remove the stigma of the source of our problems. As it is Let’s Talk day, I will advise all three of my readers to talk about it. Whether you are suffering, or you see someone else suffering, talk, but remember, sometimes the best way to help someone isn’t by talking, but by listening. Or it could be as simple as giving a recommendation of a psychiatrist. Providing a ride to someone to their appointment because they aren’t able to at that point. So lets remove the stigma and tell our stories. Let the world know that we need the help and let our coworkers know that we are there for them. If you need to talk, PM me. If you already have my number, call me or text me. I would rather talk to you than talk about you at your funeral.

My song selection today is very appropriate as sung by JT and CS. Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton. I fell in love with it when I first heard it as it is very true, the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all. This has so many meanings today. It could mean that when I was at my lowest, by not saying something, I was saying a lot. But coming out the other side, I decided to put myself in the middle as the song says. So without further ado, it is “Say Something.”

Cheers all, and remember, Let’s Talk About it.

[theshadowofme]

Crisis and Coping: A Tale From Behind the Mask

Greetings on this Christmas Eve day. I hope that everyone with PTSD and all the wonderful related diagnosis are coping well throughout this stressful time of year. I wanted to write today about what happens when I go out and try to deal with things in public and the after effects of that. Why I am I choosing to write about this? I finally started working with an occupational therapist to help address some of the issues I have when going out in public, and this led to a bad couple of days for me.

One of the things that PTSD has left me with is a real bad case of hyper-vigilance. For those of you that are not aware of what that is, in layman terms, it means my brain is constantly trying to categorize people as friend or foe. Also means that when I’m in public, I also have to know and have escape routes identified, barriers labeled, and weapons of opportunity figured out. The unfortunate thing is that this is all done at the subconscious level, so when I go into a store, my brain is going a million miles an hour. Once I am finally done being in public, I go home and I am emotionally drained for an hour or more. If I go to a bigger centre, like Kelowna, I am usually wiped out for a day or two. Of course, the busier a store is, the more draining it is for me.

I came to a realization shortly before I left on the grand adventure of one of the things that really triggers my anxiety while out in public. I was in a Subway store and there was the two girls behind the counter, one other client, and myself in the store. My anxiety started going through the roof to the point that I almost left the store without ordering. I did manage to make it though, but once I got back to my vehicle I began to ponder what it was that drove my anxiety so high. After a bit, I came to the realization that it was the masks that were doing it.

As a police officer, you watch peoples faces and hands to figure out what they are doing, if what they are saying is true, and if they pose a threat to you. Once you have done the job long enough, you do it at a subconscious level. You watch the set of the jaw, the corner of the mouth, or how the lips are set. You watch if the nostrils flare as they take a couple of big breaths in to prepare to fight. You look for the colour of the skin, is it pale, is it flush. However, with masks on, all of this is hidden and a large portion of the visual cues that I have come to depend on throughout my career are gone. The result of this is that it puts me into a place of crisis every time I am out in public as my hyper vigilance is unable to determine if the random people I meet are threats or not, so it figures that they are all threats and ramps up the four “F’s.” (Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn).

The damned masks cover most of the face and leaving only the eyes exposed. With winter, most people are wearing toques or some other form of headdress as it is starting to get cold. While this works great for hiding the receding hairline as I get older, it doesn’t help with the anxiety of dealing with the public. But it is the new world, so this just means that I shop less often and hide at home to avoid the tiggers. Plus wearing a mask with a beard makes you look like the start of a 70’s porn movie, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

How does coping fit into all of this? When we have a bad day, we all have that mechanism that we use to cope. For some it is alcohol, others drugs. Some of us binge eat, or we don’t eat at all. Some get hyperactive, or others, like me, don’t have any energy at all. All of these are coping strategies that work for us. It doesn’t mean that they are healthy or even remotely good at all. Sure, there are other things we could do instead, but this is what works. A lot of active duty officers come home from a day of work and their coping strategy is to sit in a chair in front of the tv until they pass out. They essentially become catatonic as they have used their days supply of energy at work. Again, not healthy, but it is very difficult to do much else.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to find the motivation to continue on and work through the crisis. A lot of the time, this comes with outside motivators such as children, pets, friends, or partners. Other times we completely shut them out until we are ready and able to move forward. While it isn’t a great way to live, as long as you are moving forward, you are living.

In closing, find that mechanism that works for you and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hopefully the pandemic will be over and we can ditch the masks at some point. My song choice for today is a blast from the late 90’s, My Own Worse Enemy by Lit.

Cheers all, and have a great holiday.

[theshadowofme]

The Sound of Music

Good morning from day 2985 of quarantine. The joys of having travelled and no way to test to get out of the mandatory 14 day stay at home order. Luckily I will be done tomorrow. In the meantime, home I stay and contemplate my navel. But hey, the adventure was worth it. Today I want to talk about music and why I place songs at the end of my posts.

A playwrite once wrote, “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” This is a quote from the play, The Mourning Bride, by William Congreve. It is often misquoted as “Music tames the savage beast.” While I have never watched or read the play, it is an often quoted line about the soothing effects of music. I think everyone knows the thereputic effects of going for a drive alone and cranking the music. Then having an absolute killer car concert for one. Trying to sing all the lines to Bohemien Rhapsody, or whatever your song of choice is.

For me, music helps block out the unwanted thoughts and images. It helps me stay focused on my task at hand and block out the intrusions of the outside world. When I’m working in the shop, I have my music going through Bluetooth hearing protectors. When I’m riding, I have speakers in the helmet with the tunes going, just have to be careful as Metallica or other heavy metal may make the the throttle hand twitch a little. Throttle creep is a bad thing on a bike. If I’m in the kitchen baking or cooking, the music is going. It is a great way to distract from life.

Songs also act as a memory queue for me. Some remind me of the good times, some of major events, and some of concerts that I attended in the past. I once heard someone say, “Some days I listen for the beat, some days I listen for the lyrics.” A lot of the songs I listen to and the ones that I post are ones were I relate to some or all of the lyrics. Take for example “A Little Bit Off” by Five Finger Death Punch that I posted a few back. I can relate to that song most days, as I am sure can some of my friends. Another one that has deep meaning for me is “Drink a Beer” by Luke Bryan. I first heard this song as I was driving down to Merritt after my Grandpa died. The song is about sitting on a dock and drinking a beer in memory of someone that passed. This immediately took me back to all the summers sitting on the dock at Deer Lake. Now I wasn’t old enough to drink, but it was still a good memory.

Along with the music, sometimes the music video changes the entire context of what a song means. I point to two examples of this. One I have posted, “Someone I Use to Know”, by the Zac Brown Band. The song itself seems like it is talking about losing a friend after they changed, and they could see the changes happening. It isn’t until you watch the video that you realize that the person the singer is talking about is themselves. That the person that they use to know was them in the past, and that no matter how hard you run and try, finding that person from the past is hard. Another song that I find that the video changes the entire context is “Fire Away” by Chris Stapleton. I think this is the big one for me where I really started relating to music as an outlet. When you listen to the song, it seems that it is about a person being bullied and saying that they can take it. When you watch the video, it completely changes the context as the song is actually about mental health. I’m not going to post the video, but if you choose to go and find it, please be careful as it is very powerful and graphic, so capital letters, TRIGGER WARNING.

When I was at in-patient treatment at Ravensview, one of the things that we would do on break is sit around in the tv room and play different music through YouTube. It was a way to expand everyone’s music taste and expose each other to different music. It definitely expanded mine. That is where I started listening to Five Finger Death Punch, which is so far beyond my normal realm of music. I enjoyed this, and since adding music to the bottom of the blog, I have had several people say that they have added songs to their playlists because of me listing them on here.

Overall, I think that music has a very important part to play in our lives. It can help us heal, express ourselves, understand what we are going through, or even just distract ourselves for a moment from the endless negative thoughts. It also helps interrupt the continuous playback loop of flashbacks and horrible images that we have stored in our subconscious. So go blare that music and have that car concert. Close the curtains and dance like no one is watching. Life is better with a soundtrack.

My close for today was going to be a choice between two songs, but I decided that only one had the most appropriate title for todays purposes. That song has to be “Songs About Me” by Mr. Trace Atkins.

[theshadowofme]

Remembrance Day And Family History

Greetings all, I was planning on getting this out for Remembrance Day but was unable to as the internet is currently pooched in Antigua. It may have something to do with the 9 inches of rain that fell in the past 24 hours that was accompanied by some fantastic thunder and lightening. I decided however to delay till today until posting it.

Almost every year that I was in service, I marched in the Remembrance Day parades. I missed a few due to family and personal reasons, but it was important to me to pay homage to those that helped create our country and protect its freedom. I try to honour veterans all the time, but it seems in Canada, it is a losing battle to try and have the public recognize those that keep them safe and allow them to have the right to protest and do the things that they want.

Enough of the soapbox for now. What I really want to talk about today is the realization that PTSD has a bit of family history for me on both sides of the family. My grandfather on my dad’s side, Theodore “Ted” Crack, served in the New Zealand Second Expeditionary Force in World War 2. He was one of a very few Canadians to have fought in Africa.

The other family member that I can think of is Montague Moore, my great grandfather on my Mom’s side. Unfortunately I do not know much about him, as he was never really spoken of by my Grandpa other than to say, “The Major was a real bastard.” This was always somewhat shocking to me as I never really knew my Grandpa to carry that level of anger for anyone. From some of the stories that I heard from others, the Major was a real bastard and ran his house as if it was a military unit.

Where am I going with all of this. Well, I will start with Ted first. Ted at the age of 18 had the grand idea that he was going to run away from the family farm and go and see the world. He boarded a train and went to Vancouver, where he hopped on a ship and eventually ended up in New Zealand. At this point, WW II broke out and he was no longer able to continue on his journey as private citizens were not allowed to travel on ships anymore.

Ted worked a couple of jobs in New Zealand and eventually joined up with the military. Ted was shipped out to Africa and was captured in battle there. The Germans flew the POW’s to Italy and placed them in a camp in Northern Italy. At some point, the guards did not show up for shift change, and Ted made his escape, joining up with the Italian resistance. After Italy was repatriated, Ted made his way back to Canada and lived out his days in Chilliwack.

In stories from my father, Ted threw away all of his guns when he got home. Ted never hunted and my father had to teach himself all about hunting. The Ted that I remember was a very quiet and reserved man. When my brother and I were visiting, Ted would always go for a nap in the afternoon and us boys were always told that we had to be quiet around him as he didn’t like loud noises. Also, our favourite toys were not really allowed in the house. Of course, being boys, what were our favourite toys? GI Joe figures and all the wonderful accessories of guns, tanks, and other paraphernalia of war.

As a kid, being told to be quiet and to keep your favourite toys in a room and out of sight of Grandfather was a very weird and hard to understand thing. As an adult with PTSD, I can finally and horrifically understand why those were the rules in the house. On a lot of days with my own kids, when they are too loud or rambunctious, it sets me on edge and brings out hyper vigilance and cranks up the fight or flight responses.

As a parent with PTSD, it is hard to relate in a socially acceptable manner with your own kids. Some days, it is difficult or even impossible to muster the appropriate emotional responses to their successes and failures. To cheer them on when all you feel is numbness. To give them the attention they deserve when you are in the absolute pit of depression and anxiety.

As a child watching a parent go through this, I can not imagine what that is like. I can understand the confusion and unhappiness that child feels as I felt it with my Grandfather. The not being able to understand what is happening with your dad and why he has to be left alone today, when all the child wants is praise and a hug.

As for the Major, I don’t know if he ever went to war, but with him being a Major around the time of WW I, I can only assume that he did. This could have contributed to his ways of dealing with his kids, but I can only assume.

So in closing, I’ll state that with age and experience, I feel that I have a bit of an understanding as to why my grandfather was the way that he was. I can only hope that my own children will never have to experience this and can at some point gain their own understanding of why they were only ever able to experience the shadow of me and not who I was.

As always, a song. This is always a tough one for me to choose between as I have two favourite Remembrance Day songs if that was such a thing. My first has always been a good Canadian band, The Trews, with “Highway of Heros”, a song about Canadian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. However, that one has become very mainstream these days. So instead, I think I will go with “A Pittance of Time” by Terry Kelly. Terry decided to pen this song after watching a customer in a store insist that a cashier ring him through as the cashier was observing a minute of silence on Remembrance Day.

In respect of those who lost their lives fighting battles overseas, those that lost their lives fighting the battles at home, and last but not least, those that have lost themselves in the battle of their own mind, Lest We Forget.

[theshadowofme]

Sailing and PTSD - An Analogy, Part Deux

This blog has been pre-written for your enjoyment. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, guilty, and those that were involved that claim to be neither. Coming to you from a point in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 100 miles north of Antigua, it’s the Shadow of Me....

First off, thank god it is only 100 miles, roughly one day left. The passage has been interesting to say the least. It was roughly 3094 km straight line, but our overall trip was 3354 km. That’s the joys of sailing, its never a straight line. Throughout the adventure, we’ve caught fish 640 km from the nearest land, with almost six kilometres of water under the boat, so for those of you that say they have been deep sea fishing, I think I’ve got you beat.

I’ve watched the sun rise and the sun set over open water. Seen freighters alter course to avoid us.(Sailing vessels under sail have the right of way). Some of the nights and days were very little sleep as you raised and lowered sails to meet the needed wind conditions. I sailed through part of the Bermuda Triangle. Ironically enough, there has been a plague of electrical issues on the boat since then, who knew? All in all, the trip has been a good one and an adventure of a lifetime. Thank you to the Captain and his first mate for inviting me along.

So back to how sailing and PTSD are a lot alike. One of the first things that I was told upon coming aboard the boat was that when you are outside of the main cabin area, you will always wear a life jacket. Attached to the life jacket was a “life line”, that was a tether, approximately 6 feet long. This was attached to life straps that ran along the outside of the boat. Anytime we had to walk on the outer deck or were on wheel watch, we were strapped in. As I was told, if you fall over board, you are dead. By the time the sails were dropped, the boat turned around, they would be several miles away and unlikely to find you, even if they did manage to get turned around. So needless to say, I made sure I was tied in at all times.

How does this relate to PTSD you ask? Well, if you stop and think about it, the people that have the greatest chance of success of living a life with PTSD are the ones with the lifelines that they can call when they need someone to listen. People they can go and have coffee with, without having to talk. People that will go and grocery shop for them when the depression and society just overwhelms them. I am lucky to have those lifelines in my life. I also am lucky enough to be the lifeline for others.

As part of this sailing journey, I was asked every day by the captain, “What did you learn today?” On this day in question, my answer was, “Half-assing a job will kill or hurt you.” I won’t go into detail about what had happened, but needless to say, a job wasn’t done properly before, which lead to one of the crew almost being thrown overboard by a sail. Luckily that person was wearing their lifeline. It was an oversight on all our part, where we all thought that it was good enough for the next time, but quickly learned that wasn’t the case.

Unfortunately for me and the organization that I work for, their approach to mental health has been half assed at best, to the point that there is a class action lawsuit going against them due to their handling of the mental health of their employees. This has lead to numerous members being off work for mental health issues. It has also lead to a large number of members losing their battle to PTSD and taking their own life.

Approximately 5 years ago, the organization rolled out their strategy for mental health. While this was a step in the right direction, it was a bandaid over a hemorrhage. It did nothing to address the chronic understaffing, high work load, and the fact that members were unable to access mental health treatment in a timely matter due to the fact that they could be three or more hours away from the nearest mental health professional and unable to make the appointments as they are the only one of two working in the area for the next month. I do know that the advent of video conferencing has made this a little better, but video conferencing limits the types of treatment available.

What is next on the sailing analogies. One that was pointed out to me by the captain was that I should write about squalls. So on the ocean, you can be sailing along, and all of a sudden, the little cloud on the horizon turns into this big, black, and ugly storm cloud. Usually with these comes high erratic winds, rough seas, and torrential downpour. When sailing, you do your best to avoid them. Usually after 20-30 minutes they have moved on and the ocean goes back to calm. We are skimming the edge of one as I type this and we are getting thrown side to side a bit.

PTSD is a lot like this. Sometimes you are walking along and you notice the little white cloud starting to follow you. You look at it with the side eye and hope that this isn’t the one that will turn you into the dark ugly place that you spend most of your time trying to avoid. Some days you are successful at trying to avoid it, but others, you have no choice but to go right through the middle. This inevitably ends up with you being out of commission for a day or more until the squall that memory or queue triggered passes. For some it is non-stop and for others it moves on. But guess what, lifelines helps with that.

My last sailing analogy for now. Sailing always appears quiet when viewed from a distance. A lot of people think that it is peaceful and quiet as the boat moves past under wind power. Sailing up close is actually quite noisy and chaotic. The wind makes noise, the waves make noise, the turbulence of the boat moving through the water makes noise. It gets to the point that you can tell how fast you’re going by how much noise the turbulence is making.

To tie this one into PTSD, when you look at someone with the injury, they can look calm and peaceful on the outside. They will have a smile, be willing to help and appear outwardly as a normal, functioning human being. However on the inside, there is noise from intrusive memories, unwanted thoughts, watching what is said so you don’t horrify others, remembering basic social protocols, and just fighting to be that person that appears calm on the outside. It is quite draining, and after a day of doing that, most of us get home and just withdraw into that comfortable numbness.

Thanks for reading this week. Next week may be the ramblings of a drunken beach bum, but who knows.

Last but not least, as always a song. I think with the talk of the lifeline and what not, the best choice today will be “Lean on Me.”

[theshadowofme]

Sailing, Motion Sickness, and Trauma: An Analogy

Back when I use to work in Logan Lake, the only good late night radio that you use to be able to get that wasn’t religious was Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He use to start out every episode with “Coming to you from a bunker deep in the mountains of America....”. I’m going to do my best to channel that today.

Coming to you from a catamaran under sail somewhere south of Bermuda and West of Africa, this is The Shadow of Me... I think George did it better. But in all seriousness, I am writing this on a catamaran under sail in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Why am I here? Because I was presented with the opportunity to help my brother crew his boat as he moved it from Halifax down to Antigua. I figured I may never get an opportunity like this again, so I took it. If you are interested in following his journeys, please follow him at his blog, www.knotsafety.com

What do you do on a sail boat for two or so weeks you may ask? Well, you sleep, eat, read, take your time at the helm, and you think. There really isn’t much else to do. In a way it is quite relaxing as there isn’t any stress and for the most part you are completely disconnected from the world. I feel that it is like motorcycle riding in a way. All you are doing is living in the moment.

As I have learned about sailing over the past couple weeks, I have managed to draw an analogy between being on the ocean and trauma exposure. How? The two are nothing alike. It’s not possible. But wait for the story and learn.

While sailing on the ocean, miles from land, you learn that waves play a big part in sailing and movement. I’ve learned that the type of waves play a huge part in any type of movement on the water. There are the big swells that are far apart and basically cause the boat to lift up and down. They don’t really cause much damage to the boat, but they can be annoying. The more of them that there are, the more they affect the direction of the boat. By themselves, they are quite manageable and with time you get through them and continue on your way.

There are also the waves that are close together, steep sided, and though they may not move the boat up and down as much, as more and more of them come, they toss the boat around and send things flying inside. They may not be as big as the swells, but they slow the boat more and cause more damage in the short term.

A boat can be exposed to either type of wave over the course of its life. Over time, they both cause their own type of damage to the boat, but with proper and timely maintenance, the boat can lead a long and happy life and take its passengers on many adventures.

The passengers on the boat are also affected by the waves. Some are afraid of them, some enjoy them, and for some, it makes them nauseated. I have been on boats with people where they swells make them sick, but the choppy, violent waves don’t. I’ve seen others the complete opposite as well. Then there are the outliers where neither make them sick or both make them sick.

How does this all relate to PTSD and trauma? If you look at it from a policing world, you can break our trauma exposure into the two types of waves. In this case lets look at the swells first. I will use the analogy of the swells as the constant low grade trauma that we are exposed though throughout the career. The minor fender benders, assaults, robberies, sex assaults, thefts, and others like that. They are constant and ongoing, and each little one causes its own minor damage on our psyche. We ride with them and think that we make it through, but like water over stone, it slowly wears on us, grinding through our armour.

The steep, close together waves are like our acute traumas. They hit us hard and fast, send our equilibrium flying, and cause major damage from just one hit. They are hard to recover from and takes time to clean up afterwards. I have seen these acute traumas take people out in two days to the point where they were unable to work for months because of the mental injury that they sustained. Rather than a gradual wearing away at the armour, it is an arrow shot straight through and nothing stops it. There is no time for coping strategies to work, all we can do is grin and bear the pain, hoping we make it through.

But dear writer, what about motion sickness? How does that relate to trauma? This one is simple. Three first responders can attend the exact same scene. One may be acutely traumatized due to something that they relate to at the scene, one may only be mildly nauseated, but can move past, and the final one can walk away with no damage. This is much the same as people with motion sickness on the ocean. We as people have the tendency to try and encourage people with motion sickness by telling them it isn’t that bad, or I’m fine, what is your issue.

Much like motion sickness, one of the worst things that first responders do is they compare traumas and then judge others on their responses without recognizing that everyone is different. “Well I went to the same scene as them and I’m fine.” “I’ve seen just as bad if not worse...” All that this does is make it harder for a first responder to admit that they need help. It also makes them feel guilty for having those feelings. It makes them feel weak as it isn’t bothering others. Rather than comparing, we should be asking, “Are you okay?” “Do you need to talk about it?” Or if you aren’t capable of it, “Hey, I know someone you can talk to, do you want their number?”

All in all, if we all were open about our mental injuries and stopped judging people for theirs, I think we could go a long way towards improving the mental health in all of our workplaces.

As always, a song. Today’s choice is “Sail” by AWOL Nation. I first heard this song after watching a video called “Grinding the crack.” For all my perverted friends, get your mind out of the gutter. It’s a video of a guy by the name of Jeb Corliss. Jeb is a daredevil who likes to fly in wing suits. In the video, he pushes it a bit too close and comes within about 10 feet of the ground. When he lands and takes off his helmet, he says with a big shit eating grin, “Well, that was a little close.” If you want to see a good video about mental health, watch his documentary if you can find it.

Signing off miles from land and waiting for my next shift at the wheel.

[theshadowofme]

A Career Nowhere Near Ordinary

Hello, and happy turkey day to everyone. As police officers, we have the tendancy to miss most holidays due to work commitments and being on call. This leads us to have a negative view on holidays as they tend to be a lot busier, which means more work for us. This does make us enjoy them that much more when we have them off. This leads me to ponder the fact that we end up looking at things more negatively than most people. So today I want to focus on some of the wonders of policing.

Through my career I have seen many things that most people don’t have the opportunity to see. If anyone has ever watched the movie “Bladerunner,” the original, not the updated one, there is a good quote from the protagonist, Roy Batty, a replicant who has a limited lifespan. The replicants were created to do the dirty and dangerous jobs that everyday people didn’t want to do. Through this, they saw things that humans never did. Batty, with a thousand yard stare says the following:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die”

The replicants are a really good commentary on policing in general. We do the jobs and the things that no one else wants to do, or admit even exist. Due to what we see and do, most of us have a limited span in the job, continue to do it, while fighting to survive ourselves. But through the job, we see amazing and beautiful things. There have been several times in my career where I have stopped and stated to myself, “I get paid to do this?” Here are a few of my most memorable moments:

Being paid to drive to Stewart, BC and seeing the glaciers and mountains on a regular basis. This never got old. Also on that route, when it rained, there were waterfalls coming down almost every mountain. You could see salmon spawning in the ditches along the side of the road, bright red, sweeping the gravel to lay their eggs.

Between New Aiyansh and Greenville, I was lucky enough to watch two bears have a boxing match as they crossed the road. Up on their hind legs, batting away at each other. This continued for about a minute.

Flying in a float plane over the Skeena Estuary and seeing all the life in it. Seal lions and seals, eagles, and all sorts of other types of life. Also driving along the Skeena when the oolican were in the river. The volume of noise from the birds is astounding.

Patrolling on Haida Gwaii in the fall. Watching the storm waves roll in one day and the next day being in full sun. If it wasn’t so isolated, it would be the perfect place to live.

Sitting in my car at four in the morning, waiting for ident to show up to finger print a car. This let me watch the northern lights roll all over the sky in greens and purples. Listening to the hum and crackle of them.

Watching a momma raccoon and her babies play in a park. The only time I have ever seen baby raccoons. Only reason I saw them was due to work.

There is also the moments of unexpected gratitude that happens at work. Here are a few for me:

Receiving a Christmas card every year from a lady thanking me for pulling her over and charging her for impaired. This lady had been sober for 15 years and fell off the wagon on a long weekend. I stopped her and charged her, but this got her back on the wagon again.

Receiving a gift basket from the wife of a man that we saved after he overdosed. Wasn’t asked for, but was definitely appreciated.

Receiving coasters and a thank you card from parents that lived in New Zealand. All I did was offer their daughter a place to stay after she crashed her car.

So those are a few of my memorable moments on the job. It is very easy to solely focus on the negative, but there were a lot of things that I saw or did that most people will never have an opportunity to do or see. So when the RCMP brought out the recruiting slogan a few years ago of “A career nowhere near ordinary,” it was very appropriate. What I have to do now is remember the positive experiences and friends made along the way.

My sign off song today has to be Louis Armstrong. I first remember hearing this song after watching Good Morning Vietnam, starring a great comedian that we lost to depression, Robin Williams. The song is about how great life is, but it is overlaid over images of the Vietnam war. The song itself is amazing and is a good reminder to focus on the good things in life and not the negative.

[theshadowofme]

Things That Shouldn’t Be

So today I decided to write about things that I had to do and learn because of my job that are so far from the normal everyday experience of the rest of society that it is hard to comprehend. I equate it to being like a parent. Until someone becomes a parent, they would never have believed that they would need to say things like, “No, you can’t pee on the cat.” “What do you mean your brothers arm is stuck in the vacuum?” As parents, those sorts of words come out of your mouth a little too often, but if you are a non-parent, you wouldn’t believe those sorts of things need to be said.

I will warn you that some of the things I will be discussing today will be disturbing. Other than the back story that I am going to tell, I will try to make it not quite as graphic as it was, but some things by themselves are disturbing. I am telling the backstory as the anniversary of it was two days ago.

Now for the back story. On October 4 approximately 8 years ago, I was just finishing off a 10 hour night shift. My shift ended at 0300 hrs, but we were back in the office at 0240 hrs completing the paperwork from the night. For those that don’t know, at this point I was working Highway Patrol. At approximately 0245 hrs, the back line into the office rings and I jokingly say to the member that was closest to the phone, “oh its a fatal.” As I listen to the member begin to ask the questions, I soon realized that my joke was no longer a joke, but had in actual fact become a reality.

As the details are passed along, we find out that the collision occurred approximately 160 km north and that a young girl had been trapped in the car, which had subsequently caught on fire and burned. So after a 10 hour shift, we were facing a 2 hour drive north at night in moose territory and several hours on scene. Then a two hour drive back and several hours of paperwork at that point. So instead of saying “no, we can’t go,” off we went to the hinterlands.

Upon arrival at the scene, we found a car in the middle of the road, still burning slightly in the engine compartment area, but the rest of the car was burnt. Fire was on scene as well as the members from the closest detachment. We did our traffic thing at scene and started our investigation. As we were doing that, one of the firefighters came up and asked me if they were allowed to put out the rest of the fire. This is one of the many times I look back at my career and ask myself, “I never thought I would have to say that.” I turned to the firefighter and said, “Let me get some pictures of the remains before they get disturbed.” So off to the car I went and got my photos.

The return trip from up there was quite a bit slower than trip up. Having to stop to wipe sand out of my eyes and hope the fresh air woke me up enough to get back home. This ended up being one of the longest days in my career at 27.5 hrs of total on duty time. I will touch on this a bit later.

Two days later I was having another conversation, this time with the coroner. Having to ask the coroner to ensure that they sift the ash in the footwell to make sure they get all the bone fragments out. Weird conversation number two on one file. Weird conversation number three was with my boss and discussing whether or not we needed to have someone attend the autopsy in Vancouver to determine if the deceased was alive at the time of the fire or if they were dead before as this would directly affect what charges could be laid.

So in this one file, three conversations that while most people will understand the necessity of the conversation, they probably could never imagine that these types of conversations actually do happen.

So now onto other things that I have learned or seen due to the job:

-Grown men fall to the ground and cry when they get horrible news. This is a good thing as men should be able to show emotions and not be judged on it, but as the bearer of the bad news, it is one of the worse parts of the job.

-When animals get hungry enough, they will eat anything. I have a healthy dislike of cats courtesy of this one.

-Enough maggots together will make quite a bit of noise. Didn’t want to know that, still can’t believe that I do.

-People treat their own flesh and blood worse that they treat the rest of society and will do unspeakable things to them. Society sucks because of this.

-If you hit the sloped end of a no-post divider at the right angle and speed, you can launch a car over 80 feet, even after hitting a power pole. Physics is amazing.

-If they tell you that they don’t have warrants or conditions, they probably do. This is just common sense in the policing world.

-For some reason when people plan on committing suicide with a firearm, they always put more than one bullet in it. Still don’t get this one, don’t think I ever will.

-That there are certain smells that take forever to come off of clothing and require several showers to get rid of. And that when you come back from those scenes, you are shunned by your coworkers until you go home and shower and change.

-There isn’t enough showering or disinfectant in the world to get rid of the creepy crawlies when you deal with someone that has a transmittable skin disease or parasite. Full body shudder at this point.

-Telling your spouse that you can’t be intimate until you have had two clear blood tests as you were exposed to blood at work. This occurs after being exposed to more than a couple drops of blood.

These are just a few of the many things that I have experienced. I am sure some of my old coworkers can add to the list.

In all of my pondering on on my PTSD diagnosis and how I got to this point, I can’t help but wonder if a big part of what contributes to it is the hours of work. We as police officers rarely get to respond to the horrific calls at the start of our first shift, where we are fresh and well rested, where we have our entire block of shifts to work on it. They usually happen at the end of our shifts or block, where we have to spend a lot of our days off working on them. There are things in files that are time sensitive and can’t be passed on to anyone else as all the knowledge is inside of the heads of the initial responding members. This means that members have dealt with a horrific scene on limited sleep, and continue to relive the file as they regurgitate their observations out onto paper for the court proceedings, all while being on hour 17 of work. Then they come back in the next day and start it all over again

People ask me if I can ever be cured of my PTSD. I always tell them that I can’t unsee what I have seen or undo what I have done. It will always be a part of me and directly affect my life and how I make desicions. It is also incredibly hard to discuss things with people “not in the know,” as they don’t understand why conversations are needed and may have never experienced anything even remotely close to it.

With that parting thought, I will leave you with a song. Today’s choice is “Lonely is the Night” by Billy Squier. The first two stanzas have always described to me what PTSD is like.

[theshadowofme]

What’s in a name?

So today’s post is going to be on names. What is in a name, what names can mean. Mainly, I’m going to talk about why I have named my blog “The shadow of me.” I’m also going to touch on names and how they effect preception. So lets get started.

Why “The Shadow of me?” My original thought on this was that my PTSD had made me a shadow of my former self. That the person that was could never be again. That at times you could see right through me. This is slowly changing. Parts of my former self may be gone, but the base person still remains. I can do most of the things that I use to, however, now there are limits and bounderies. This is simply my new reality.

My follow up thought on the shadow of me is that PTSD will always be there, like a dark shadow that follows you around every day. Unfortunately PTSD isn’t the only thing that follows you around. PTSD likes to invite friends to the party with names like Anxiety and Major Depressive Disorder. Some days it is just one of the party I have to worry about, but some days it is completely overwhelming as they try to tag team me in a ring match. This takes me to the point that I can barely muster up the strength to get out of bed. These days are incredibly tough to get through, but I have got through every one of them so far. But the shadow still remains.

The unfortunate part about PTSD is that once you get that name or label, it comes with some preconceived notions, a lot of which are propagated by the media and TV/Movies. The most common one is that people with PTSD are violent and unable to control their anger and rage. While this may be true for some, there is also a large portion that want absolutely no conflict at all. We have seen this in examples throughout history. The warrior who walks away from it all to go live a peaceful life in the woods. It isn’t that the person isn’t a warrior anymore, they just couldn’t stand the constant fight. I’m not denying that there are people that have PTSD that aren’t incredibly violent individuals, but that isn’t all of us. Much like a lot of society, we are judged by the actions of a few.

What other preconceived notions are there? All people with PTSD are alcoholics and/or drug users. Again, not denying that some are, and for those that are, I hope they can slay their demons. For me personally, I will drink occasionally as I like the tast of ciders. I have my one a night and that’s it. But for me, the smell of aspirated alcohol is a major trigger. I very rarely go into bars anymore and talking with drunk people just sets my teeth on edge. I think a big part of this comes from the fact that most of the collisions I went to, it was a common smell in the vehicle while investigating the file. Then there is the fact that I don’t think I have ever fought anyone that wasn’t intoxicated on some substance or another. All of these has led me to go into full on fight mode whenever I smell it.

It’s interesting that while writing this, I still manage to find new things in names. In my last sentence of the paragraph above I stated that I go into fight mode. Most people would perceive this to mean that I was going to be angry and violent. However, by this I mean the fight portion of fight, flight, or freeze. As part of our historic development, our body developed the ability to dump massive amounts of chemicals into our system in response to perceived danger. This was to prepare us to to do one of three things. Fight the threat, flee from it, or freeze and hope for the best. For me, because of the historical development part of it, and the fact that most of the fights I have been in have been with intoxicated people, my body goes into fight mode. Blood pressure and heart rate go up, clotting chemicals are dumped into the blood, all to prepare you for the fight and potential injury.

Another name that I hate is when PTSD is described as a mental illness or a mental disorder. I fought this one long and hard when I was at inpatient treatment. What I have is not an illness. I wasn’t born with it, you can’t catch it from me by having contact with me. To me, it’s a mental injury. As I once read, it’s a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Human minds are not meant to deal with the level of trauma that first responders deal with. I recently read a stat that stated that police experience 800 traumas over the course of their careers. I don’t know if this is true or not, but if it is, stop and think about that for a bit. For the average person, their traumas will revolve around the loss of a loved one. This may happen every couple of years, but for the most part, not that frequently. If you figure that the average police officer is in a career for 20-25 years, this means that they are exposed to 32-40 traumas every year of their career. How is that normal for anyone?

Another name in the policing world that I came from was the term “ODS.” This meant off duty sick. However, there was also the term used when you didn’t agree with the person being off, and that was “ODM.” This means off duty mad. I will freely admit that I used the second one early on in my career. I stopped using it the day I was diagnosed with PTSD because then I got it. I all of a sudden understood why a person would be off work for months or years with no apparent injury. I now realize why that person that is off seems perfectly fine when you talk to them on the phone or stop by their house, but are unable to work. So for all the ones that I may of doubted, I sincerely apologize.

I think that for today I will just leave it as names and stigma hurt. To quote an old cliche, “don’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” On that, I will add my own line of, “Or lived an hour in their head.” As I close off, I will again leave a song that means a lot to me when I first heard it as I felt that it was the best description of what happens to a person as they experience trauma. I apologize for the opening scene, but please listen to the the commentary after the video.

https://youtu.be/IdqEaU0uSPI

[theshadowofme]

Hello everybody, it’s going to be a long winded one today. I don’t write this looking for sympathy or regret, I write it to pass on a part of my back story to help people understand me and to potentially help others. I will also put this in the first paragraph that this won’t be a pleasant read. For most it will be downright horrifying, and for some, unfortunately, they will completely understand or be able to say, “I’ve seen worse.” So on that note -TRIGGER WARNING...

In my 16 years in policing, I have been to approximately 60 fatal collisions. That is a lot of dead people. And that is solely in collisions. They are not a peaceful way to go. They are violent and destructive scenes that quite often aren’t capable of being understood. While we may understand the physics of what happens, we frequently do not understand the reason behind it. Why was the person speeding? Why did they veer over the centerline? Those are things we never know. Six years ago today was one of those days for me that my mind still has not comprehended.

To set a bit of the back story on this day. 10 days previous I had been up for a ride in the rcmp float plane based out of Prince Rupert. We got to fly the lower Skeena River estuary and over a bunch of the lakes in the area. We saw about 50 sea lions on a gravel bar, got so see all the boats in the harbour. Sounds like a great day at work until you ask the question of why we were up in the plane. Well, the reason was to attempt to locate the body of a person that drove into the Skeena and floated away. This was day one of what I’ve come to call my ten days from hell.

Why my ten days from hell you might ask? On day one we were assisting prince Rupert detachment with a car with a family of three that went into the river. The dad and the daughter drown, but the mom who had just been diagnosed with stage four cancer survived. As we landed at the float plane base, my work phone started ringing, and I was told we had another fatal in Houston, two vehicle, head on collision. It took us four hours to get to the scene. At the scene I considered it to be one of the worse ones I’d ever been to. Five or six days after that, there was an 18 year old kid from prince Rupert that decided he didn’t want to live anymore and drove his car of a 100 ft embankment. This all brings us to what I consider the worse collision I’ve ever been to and day 9.

I am not going to go into great detail of the collision, except to say that it was horrific. It was the only time I have ever seen a vehicle split in half. Lengthwise. Lengthwise. Yes. You read that right. A station wagon got split in half.... Lengthwise. What did it hit? An F150. Think of the forces and speed required to do that. I have posted a link to the news article below. If you have any trauma around collisions, please don’t open it.

While on scene I operated on autopilot. I did my job. Got yelled at by the public and my bosses because I was taking too long. I yelled at a TV crew because they thought they had a right to be in the middle of my scene. All in all it was a bad day for me.

https://www.terracestandard.com/news/update-hwy-16-reopened-near-fatal-crash-site/

This was one scene that I couldn’t comprehend due to the level of destruction and chaos at the scene. As we were photographing the scene, we lifted the blanket off of the driver of the station wagon and a fuzzy orange caterpillar crawled off the body and started trucking through the middle of all this destruction. In all my career, this was the only time I have ever wondered about a higher power and reincarnation. Never answered that one, but to this day, fuzzy orange caterpillars take me right back to that scene and cause me to completely shut down.

The following day, we had to reattend the scene to get some more pictures. The other person who was on scene with me was a person that I supervised. While there I could tell that they was struggling with mentally processing the scene and asked them if they were okay and if they wanted to leave the scene. They replied that they were fine and that they could keep going. Bear in mind that I probably shouldn’t have been there either as I was almost catatonic at this point as well.

Later that evening as I was just sitting down to dinner with my family, I got a phone call from that member asking for my help as they had completely shut down due to what they had seen. I was able to get that member help, but for their privacy I won’t detail what exactly happened. After I had returned that person to their house and assured the family, I had to return to the office and inform my bosses in Prince George of what had just happened. That was the end of the ten days from hell.

Up until last year, I blamed myself for what happened to that member that I worked with. I saw what happened to them and I didn’t force them off the scene. I didn’t tell then to leave. If only I had, then maybe they wouldn’t have got to the point that they were at. It was only through inpatient therapy that I came to realize two major truths out of it. 1) By the time I was able to see the external signs on them, the damage was already done. 2) That member trusted me enough to call me in their moment of crisis. So while I may have not helped them at the scene, I was able to help them earlier on which then helped them to reach out to me.

So what was some of the fallout from all of this. You will recall earlier that I was slated to do two months of training across north district for the rollout of the new screening devices. After the last crash, all of my gear went into my locker and stayed there till mid November when I was slated to go over to Haida Gwaii to teach. While over there I planned to do some enforcement, so the day before I grabbed my gear from the locker. As I grabbed my boots, I touched the bottom of them and my hand came away black. I flipped the boots over and there was still parts of that last scene embedded in the threads of my boots. Boom, I was right back in the middle of all that destruction and chaos. I spent the next half hour chiseling that out of the bottom of my boots.

I kept working, even though I should have been off due to the commitments that I had made to instruct these courses. I pushed myself until the middle of December and then went off for a month and a half due to the symptoms of my ptsd. I realize now that I should have gone off a lot sooner, but I was stubborn and it has affected me to this day.

How has it affected me? For two weeks leading up to this I don’t sleep well and have nightmares. Certain places and objects that I see take me right back to that point as soon as I see them. I now have a health dislike of seeing fuzzy orange caterpillars. There is a laundry list of other symptoms and issues but the key point is that there are now memory triggers for me everywhere.

For all of the first responders that read this, please take care of yourself. Trust your mind and your body. Take the time you need and realize that it is okay to say that you’re not okay. It’s okay to ask for help.

My parting thought for today can best be described in song. This will describe September 25 for probably the rest of my life.