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Finding Your Way Through Therapy
Join Steve Bisson, LMHC as he unravels the complexities of therapy and counseling. Engage in straightforward dialogues, enriched with insights from special guests sharing a like-minded perspective. Each episode presents valuable, easy-to-digest information designed to help you perceive therapy, and those who partake in it, in a grounding, relatable manner.
Finding Your Way Through Therapy
E.175 Addressing Stress and Burnout: Mental Health Support for First Responders, Law Enforcement, Police
Join me in a transformative conversation with Kyle Goodknight, a veteran healthcare professional with over three decades of experience as a respiratory therapist and paramedic. We tackle the critical issues of stress and burnout that first responders face, shedding light on the vital role mental health support plays in sustaining their demanding careers. Kyle opens up about his personal experiences, underscoring the significance of mental health awareness and the need for equipping first responders with the right tools and resources for a fulfilling career.
We confront the often-unspoken emotional toll that repeated exposure to trauma takes on first responders and medical professionals. It's not just the major incidents that leave a mark, but the accumulation of experiences that can push individuals to a breaking point. Through personal stories, we reveal how professional stressors seep into personal lives, affecting family dynamics and highlighting the need for open communication. Our discussion extends to understanding how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) shape responses to trauma, particularly in close-knit communities where first responders might know victims personally.
Our conversation evolves into normalizing mental health conversations, encouraging first responders to embrace mental health care as essential. I share my personal journey, emphasizing the importance of being open about mental health struggles and the various treatment options available, like EMDR or ketamine therapy. We stress the importance of cultural competency in therapy and the benefits of virtual counseling, offering privacy and accessibility. This episode is a heartfelt call to action for first responders to seek the right therapeutic path, ensuring their well-being and that of their families.
Go and listen to Kyle's podcast at: https://podcast.kylegoodknight.com/
His full podcast can be found at www.kylegoodknight.com
For the ACES test, click here.
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Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Steve Bisson:Bonjour et bienvenue à mon balado. Thank you and welcome to the podcast. I think I've done that one before, but hey, you can rehearse your French if you want to. This is episode 175. If you haven't listened to episode 174, please go back and listen to it. Stephanie Cohen was an amazing guest overcoming the fear of dogs her book. I really read it. I think it's wonderful. If you have anyone who needs that book, please go get it. It's available everywhere. So I hope that you get a chance to look at that book.
Steve Bisson:But episode 175 will be with Kyle Goodnight. I'm going back to first responder stuff again because I really enjoy it. Kyle, among other things, is a podcast person. He does voiceovers. But more importantly, he served I believe he was a paramedic and he's still a paramedic from what I understand and he worked with a lot of people with issues in the first responder world and he's realized that his stress, burnout and decreased job performance led him to a certain place where he needed to do more treatment. So I'm pretty sure he's going to share that. We're going to talk about, hopefully, his other work. I think we'll talk about trauma, but you know I want to stay away from just talking about trauma for first responders because there's so much more to do, but we talk about the tools to sustain a great career. So here is the interview, after a short word from freeai Getfreeai yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again, because GetFreeai is just a great service.
Steve Bisson:Imagine being able to pay attention to your clients all the time instead of writing notes and making sure that the note's going to sound good and how are you going to write that note, and things like that. Getfreeai liberates you from making sure that you're writing what the client is saying, because it is keeping track of what you're saying and will create, after the end of every session, a progress note. But it goes above and beyond that. Not only does it create a progress note, it also gives you suggestions for goals, gives you even a mental status if you've asked questions around that, as well as being able to write a letter for your client to know what you talked. So that's the great, great thing. It saves me time, it saves me a lot of aggravation and it just speeds up the progress note process so well, and for $99 a month. I know that that's nothing that's worth worth my time, that's worth my money, you know. The best part of it too is that if you want to go and put in the code Steve50, when you get the service at the checkout code is Steve50, you get $50 off your first month and if you get a whole year, you save a whole 10% for the whole year. So, again, steve 50 at checkout for get freeai, we'll give you $50 off for the first month and, like I said, get a full year, get 10% off, get free from writing notes, get free from always scribbling while you're talking to a client and just paying attention to your client. So they went out, you went out, everybody wins and I think that this is the greatest thing. And if you're up to a point where you got to change a treatment plan, well, the goals are generated for you. So, getfreeai code Steve50 to save $50 on your first month.
Steve Bisson:Well, hi everyone and welcome to this episode. What's funny is that I met Kyle on his podcast a couple weeks ago and we have this exchange now that I've been on his podcast and he's going to be on mine. So it's very exciting to me. Because I don't want to do his whole introduction, I'll let him introduce himself. But we've had informal conversations and then we had a formal conversation and we can stop ourselves from talking. So, kyle, good night. Welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Kyle Goodknight:Thank you so much, steve, for having me. I appreciate it and it was an absolute joy to have you on my podcast and talk about the stuff we talked about and we're just going to somewhat continue the conversation. But, um, you know, in general, just because you and I both through our pre discussion and the times we met so far, we, we, we know there's a gap, we know there's a, there's an emptiness of of this type of thing in in our industry, healthcare and first responder world and, uh, it doesn't have to be that way. We can head it face on and come out on the better side and hopefully get people educated about stuff. And that's the main thing you know. Hopefully we'll talk about today is just the different forms. But just to introduce myself, my name is Kyle Goodnight. I'm 30 year.
Kyle Goodknight:In healthcare field, I was a respiratory therapist for about the first 10 or 12 years of my career and then I decided to take the jump and go into paramedic and become a paramedic and got into that. Love the schedule, 24 hours on, 48 hours off, and never look back at doing respiratory anymore. I stayed. I still have my licensure as respiratory therapist. I did go into medical sales for a while and sell respiratory therapy and EMS products. So I've never been really too far out of either career. But but yeah, that's who I am. I'm, you know. So I've got that background of of inside the hospital and all the stuff we see at level one trauma centers and ICUs and out of hospital stuff. So I'm also an educator. I'm one of our six educators that goes around the month every month and trains our department and I've gotten a lot of experience doing that and love that, love that part of it and that's going to be but we'll talk more about that later.
Kyle Goodknight:But that's me in a nutshell. And I'm also a voiceover actor, you know, a podcaster. I mean, there's there's a couple of things I I just got done painting, painting my new studio behind that wall. I've got a new studio that's coming, that that is going to be very podcast oriented. And so I'm also in construction and do handyman stuff. My whole life, as long as I've been old enough to swing a hammer, I've been doing construction stuff. So I kind of do a little bit of everything. There's never a dull moment with me. I barely I don't know what it means to sit down and just chill.
Steve Bisson:And you forgot the most important part A big fan of the Ohio State.
Kyle Goodknight:The Ohio State University of Buckeyes, yeah.
Steve Bisson:That's why I mentioned that. We had a fun conversation. You went to a game and everything else. So I love college football, so I'd like to mention that too.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, this weekend was fun, man. That Georgia-Alabama game was crazy and that catches. But did you see any of the highlights from the Ohio State game? Jeremiah Smith catching two passes in a row with one hand Without like just boop, okay, I'll put this in my arm Crazy.
Steve Bisson:I was not able to watch all the games live Saturday, but I saw the highlights. I did definitely watch Alabama and Georgia and I went on my. It was funny because I watched it to the half. I was at my girlfriend's house and her parents were there and I'm like, oh, I'm going to go home, I'm just tired, I get home, I'm like what? The hell happened and then watch like one pass after another completed for like 80 yards. Every single time I'm like what is going on?
Kyle Goodknight:I never thought Georgia would come back like they did.
Steve Bisson:But anyway, we'll digress because I'll talk about football forever. Yeah, we, because this is fun football and watching my Patriots just crumble right now is just very difficult, yeah, and then watch Buffalo come down to earth. Last night was also very nice. But anyway you know, since this podcast is going to probably play in about three or four weeks from when we're recording.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, it'll be a long time. People are going to be like what the hell are you talking?
Steve Bisson:about Buffalo's like only lost one game.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, absolutely, and I started my therapy path early on. Um, I remember being in college and you know breaking up with a girlfriend and not, you know, getting bad advice from friends, you know, and, and so I, you know, in college you have these free sessions and you may be with a grad student or whatever, but it's, it's, it's a third party. You know they're not going to be. You know, they know they're not going to be, you know, one sided or what have you. So my, my therapy, you know, progression started very early for me.
Kyle Goodknight:I didn't know, you know, I didn't know of the first thing I remember of therapy. When I was a freshman in high school, my mom and dad were facing a divorce and they ended up fixing it and they went to therapy, but they didn't talk much about it. So I was. I did know that there was something out there, before I got into college that I'm like well, maybe subconsciously, I'm like, well, mom and dad stay together, therapy may be good, you know, what have you? So? So I have never been ashamed of doing it. I've never. You know, when I, it's usually when I'm backed up against the wall, like it's for sure, like it's not something that I think of any. Well, I used to not think of it as a therapeutic or preventative measure. I always thought about it as okay. Once I get to crisis, I'll ask for help. And unfortunately, you know my possible divorce. I've faced divorce once and it took us two years to correct it and nothing happened until we got good counseling and it wasn't. They weren't shrinking our heads, they just helped us think of things a little bit differently, help us think of things in a different light, help me understand her, help her understand me. I remember one time he asked me a question during our couples therapy and our couple sessions and I answered it and she was like whoa, she got all pissed off and he's like hold on, jen, hold on, jen, let me interpret Kyleese, you know. So he's like what I think this man is trying to say is this. And I'm like yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. So it's, it's. Sometimes it's just you don't know how to get the words out properly, to understand it yourself or have someone else understand you, and it's and it's good to have that third party to to like okay, so. So let me unpackage that a little bit and let's talk about the different parts of what you just said and so I've never been opposed to it.
Kyle Goodknight:You know, I actually, when I had my blind side is what I call it when I was in, you know, as a respiratory therapist, I've seen crazy things in the hospital setting, in the ER level one, trauma centers and and ICUs the sickest of the sick just seen some crazy stuff, right. And that was the first 10 years of my my career. And then I became a full-time paramedic and in the, you know, in the 911 system and saw more crazy stuff. And it wasn't until the 20th year of being in healthcare where I have what they call my blind. I call it my blind side. I had no clue that this day was going to happen, I had no clue how it was going to affect me and it just. It sent me the first one, which was about 30 days prior to the one that really sent me down a path, but it was all built up from the first one. It was just one of those things where I didn't realize there was things going on until the second one hit. And then, when the second one hit, I was very calm, I was very precise.
Kyle Goodknight:I called my mentor up and I said hey, I'm going to go do this. And she's she's like no, you, I don't want you going knocking door to door in your township to make sure everybody's alive. And it because it was a carbon monoxide incident and I thought everybody was dead After my shift. We had so many carbon monoxide runs. I'm like everybody's dead in my township and those are the words I was using with my mentor. And she's like listen, are you safe? I'm like yeah, I'm safe, I'm fine. I'm like I just need to go back to work and help and help people. And she's like you're talking that. That's not what normal people say, kyle. They're not just going to go door to door in a large entire you know township and and expect that that's normal. You know you're, it's out in the country, you're gonna get shot to be. He meet you with the shotgun, like what are you doing here? I'm just trying to make sure you're alive, sir.
Kyle Goodknight:But so she came over to the house. We both agreed that I should probably get a little bit more advanced help. And I'm like yeah, I'm totally down with that. I don't feel right. I don't feel good about the way I feel right now. It wasn't suicidal or anything like that at that point in time. I don't believe I've ever been truly suicidal, but it's one of those things where those kinds of things enter your mind when you're going through stuff and you know, even if it's just a blip, you need to be able to unpackage that and be able to understand that.
Kyle Goodknight:You need to be open about it, and that's my biggest message to people now is let's normalize this conversation. Let's raise our hand. Let's try to raise our hand before we have crisis. But when you're in crisis, for sure, like, please raise your hand. But before crisis, if you can do some preventative measures or some things that help you unpackage things better, because it's not all about what we see. That's the biggest misconception too.
Kyle Goodknight:Well, you trained for this. Well, why should this affect you? You trained for this? Absolutely not. I trained to help you in the moment. I didn't train for the aftermath of what I was going to be dealing with, right, and it's one of those things where, no, we didn't train for that, we don't train for that. We need to train for that. It has to be something that gets put into the education system and it has to be normalized. We I've ever been was that day that I called my mentor and I said, jenny, I don't feel right, I don't know what's going on with me, but I need help. I don't feel. I look back at that time and I was. That was probably the toughest I've ever been, and I was damn tough too through my divorce, my possible divorce. I was really strong through that too, for my kids, for my wife, so I could show that I could be different. And it was, and I was never tougher than that day when I called my mentor to say, hey, I don't know what's going on and I need help.
Steve Bisson:You know, a common thread with everyone that I've ever talked to is that it was the hardest thing for them to do to reach out and ask for help, whether it's their mentor or finding a therapist or what have you. So that's a common thread and I think you brought up so many good points that I want to talk about because, at the end of the day, I think that it's usually not the event that causes people like people say what event caused you to be in therapy? No, it's an accumulation of events. It's very rare because it happened. You know that I see people right after the Boston Marathon bombings. Of course I did, but usually it was a succession of different things and not just one singular thing. That really affects first responders. I think part of the stigma is that people wait till they have their breaking point.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, and I think that's the biggest stigma personally.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, and that's exactly what happened to me. I had an incident one time where someone I'm in the ER and someone grabs my back. It that's that's exactly what happened to me. I I had an incident one time where someone I'm in the ER and someone grabs my back. It's like you need to leave. And I'm like, wait, what? No, I'm the airway guy. I'm like I'm this little kid's airway right now. And they're like, no, you have to leave. This kid looks just like Carter, my Carter's, my son. And I'm like, yeah, I know. And they're like you can't be here. I'm like, no, I'm his best. I mean, like I like there's no other therapist in the room, we'd have to call a therapist down Like no, I'm doing it. And and 100%, it was the same age, same timeframe, drowning victim, and you know, and it was everything I could do in the moment I did my job. After the moment it was, I had to go find a quiet spot. It's probably one of the only times that I broke down on duty Like I just I needed like 20 minutes to myself just to grieve, right, because it was too close to home, and that's.
Kyle Goodknight:I think that's another thing too is we, as first responders and medical professionals. We see stuff that reminds us of grief, our real life, and that's when it can really mess you up. And and to understand how to package that we can't we. We just we don't know how, we don't get trained, we don't get taught how to do that and we have to find out the hard way. When our backs up against the wall and someone's like you're not acting right, you're not being, you know you're looking at a divorce because you're being an asshole, because you don't know how to, you don't know how to deal with stuff and just know that everything that we do, yes, we serve our community, we serve our fellow man and woman. That's who we are and it's ingrained in us.
Kyle Goodknight:But we have to accept the fact that what we see affects us, and it's not just what we see in the incident at the hospital or the scene. It's also the way that our family is left behind, sometimes by my duty days and where everything always breaks when I'm on duty and I just can't leave to come home and get you out of the garage. You know like. You have to, like you have to have some communication of who can help when I'm not there, you know, or who can, who can help me when you're not here, because my wife's a medical professional as well and there's times when she's not here, she me when you're not here, because my wife's a medical professional as well, and there's times when she's not here.
Kyle Goodknight:She worked night shift for years when we were raising our kids and like, wake up in the middle of the night this kid's crying.
Kyle Goodknight:I'm like I'm just the dude. I'm like the baby needs the boob, but the boob's at the work, you know. And I'm like, I'm like if, if anybody listened in this right now that has has had any type of daydreams, any type of flashes. I call them flashes too, not so much daydreams, but I'll see someone and it'll instantly remind me of somebody from 10 years ago and that's a flash. That's not a positive thing, you know. So if you have flashes, if you have any type of doubt, if you have any type of remorse after the fact, you know, you know it and everybody, you're you're, you're human. The brain is a human product and it's not meant to take every. All the stuff that we see, all the stuff we go through, whether it's at the scene, at the hospital, or in our family life, in our own personal life. It's not meant to understand it, and the only way to understand it is to talk about it and to understand that there's other things out there.
Steve Bisson:Right and I think that that's not always what you see. You're right. You know, I had someone recently tell me that they went to the same exact area, that they had a pretty horrific scene, we'll say five years ago, and then they went back for another horrific scene and it brought back all what happened five years ago. And that doesn't mean that she's like broken in my opinion, but it's just normalizing. Yeah, human. You know I'm a therapist. They teach us about vicarious trauma, but the bottom line is we're all going to have it and I know it's a different type of stuff. So I want to mention vicarious trauma, because that's what that is sometimes.
Steve Bisson:Here's the story I want to share, because this is a true story. At one point, when my daughter was about nine months old, I was asked to go to see someone who had a SID and I had to go to the ER. I was asked because of my specialty with first responders and I was sitting there listening to them talk about the SID of their seven month old. Six month old wasn't quite the same age. I'm a human right. Do you think that fucked me up a little bit? Because of my own kid? Of course it did, so. I think that that's what people don't normalize, even first responders in general, and I think that it's realizing that it's not only what you see but it's also how it affects you in the long term.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, yeah, exactly, and you don't know what that long term means. Is that long term a month from now, or is it seven years from now, or is it 20? You know, I was 20 years in before I hit my wall, you know, and it and it was. It was very, very it was a local. My daughter knew, you know, the little girl and it was just. It was horrible, you know, and and just unfathomable. And then fast forward 30 days and we have more incidences of a carbon monoxide issue and come to find out.
Kyle Goodknight:One of the things that I learned about about a year ago was something called the ACEs score, and if you've listened to any of my podcasts, I pretty much bring it up almost every episode because I think it's that important, because the ACEs score is adverse childhood encounters and basically anything that happens from zero to 18, you have to count those years and it's a set of 10 questions and if you answer yes to any of those questions, it's just one point and then, when you add up your points, you have an ACEs score. Well, I'm an ACEs of six and you know I watched my sister overdose when I was 10 years old. That's not normal, right? Like my, my father was an alcoholic prior to me being born, but I didn't know him as an alcoholic. But you, you know, my sister gave me the my sister actually. I'm going to have dinner tonight with. She's in from out of town and so you know she's still alive. She didn't die, thank God, yeah, thank God, but it was something that affected me. So do I go into an overdose situation and think of that? Maybe has it affected me, not to this point. There could be a day where I walk in and it's the same kind of house, it's the same in the kitchen, on the floor in front of the sink, and her friends are trying to wake her up. You know, maybe that's what I see and it sends a trigger like, oh, you need to go talk about this. Maybe it's just me talking about it right now. Maybe this is all I need and to understand that trauma from when I was a kid. But the ACEs score is something that you have to understand what it is, what it means and what it does to you.
Kyle Goodknight:Because the big thing that happened to me when I was in Cub Scouts, I had a Cub Scout who was the life of the party. He was the ham of the group and he succumbed to carbon monoxide to the point where he didn't die. But he was severely mental and physically disabled afterwards and I remember seeing him as a lively individual. And I remember seeing him as a lively individual and I remember seeing him at the Cub Scouts in the wheelchair, not being able to sit up and even understand who we were, severely brain damaged right and from carbon monoxide. Well, that was a traumatic incident. I didn't see it happen. It was vicarious because I just saw the aftermath of it. It wasn't something I saw with my own eyes that night when they pulled him out of the house. I didn't see that part of it that I would have as a first responder and I have as a first responder. But it's one of those things when I had I finally had I shouldn't say finally, because I'd had carbon monoxide incidences in my career but this one was different. I got out of the truck and I knew somebody that called 911. They met me at the back of the truck. Hey, kyle, go in and help. Firefighters in there helping right now, come to find out.
Kyle Goodknight:My daughter knew the little girl that was in the home. I came home from the debriefing and my daughter's crying in the kitchen and I'm like, oh my God, baby, what's up? And she didn't know where I was. But she saw me in uniform and she's like my friend and her family just died and I'm like, oh baby, I'm so sorry. And she saw the look on my face. She saw me in uniform and she was like, oh my God, oh my God, you were there. And I'm like, yeah, babe, I can't talk about it. And she's like, why didn't you save him, dad? You know, and it was that breaks your heart. That that's the worst. You know, I get, I get it. I mean, I mean I'm I. That was part of the reason why I had my downfall in my blind side. I get emotional about it because it's OK to get emotional about it, correct, it was, it's. I grieve for that family. My friends were friends with that family. I didn't know it until later when I went to the funeral with my daughter to support her. You know my daughter was friends with her, with some of that group it was. They were a handyman, they were a family of four with dogs, like it was just like, oh my God, this is way too much and it was just an overload.
Kyle Goodknight:You know we talk about the drips in the cup. You know every incident that we have, whether it's family, whether it's on scene, whether it's, you know, whatever, whatever bad happens to us in life we hear about in life. It's a drip in the cup right, or a drip in the bowl, drip in the pool Some people's are bigger than others. Well, this was a freaking downpour into my cup, you know that day and it was the beginning of my downfall. I'm looking back on it now. I was showing signs and symptoms of PTSD. I was absolutely 100%, having nightmares, all that stuff. The good news is is I couldn't qualify for PTSD because I actually had another incident within a 30 day period that really sent me down the spiral, and that's when I came home from work that day and said, hey, I need help. So I never actually got diagnosed with PTSD, but I was right up to the to the line of it.
Steve Bisson:Right and there's so many things I want to say to that. First of all, sorry, because that's tough and it's one of those things I was asked on local TV here in Boston, massachusetts, someone I got interviewed after there was someone who was found similar situation. It was a it wasn't poisoning but it was you know carbon monoxide thing, but it was, um, it wasn't poisoning but it was you know carbon monoxide thing, but it was a small town and the responders knew the family. And one of the things that I kind of sit like they don't teach you this in any school that when you know if I go, if you go to Boston, there's a good chance you don't know everyone in Boston. Actually, I'm pretty sure no one knows everyone in Boston, so you get to these calls and you're not so attached. Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one knows everyone in Boston, so you get to these calls and you're not so attached. But I think that when you're in a smaller town you grew up around there or what have you there's an impact that people do not understand that affects the first responders. And you know I'm in a small town out here in what I call central Massachusetts and I know some of them.
Steve Bisson:Go to calls like oh, you know, I'm a local firefighter, I grew up in Northbridge all my life and I went on a call where someone passed away and I knew them because of X, y, z and I'm trying to keep it as vague as I possibly can here and not naming the real town and that messes you up.
Steve Bisson:I think that that's nothing to like. You need to reflect on that when you don't go to these calls. The other thing, too, is I'm going to attach the aces onto this podcast. I'm going to put it in the show notes, because the aces is something I talk about when I do CIT trainings for police officers and what I do is, instead of reading the questions or talking about how people are affected by that, I'm like here are the 10 questions, you look at them and I leave a silence about two to three minutes and I can see them kind of like write them down and you know, one of the things that I feel is that and again, this is just experience that I have is that those ACEs do affect if people go into the helping field. I know it sounds strange.
Kyle Goodknight:No, it doesn't. It's very correlated because if you have a high ACEs score, which is four or more, right is what they consider a high ACEs score and a lot of the higher people. Well, and here I'll share something, I was at a lecture. I was at a mental health lecture last April and one of the company called Save a Warrior was there to speak they were a second speaker on the day was there to speak, they were a second speaker on the day, and they use the ACEs score as like that is the first thing they do before you can come into their program. Right, they have to know that and they have someone that unpacks it for them when they do it.
Kyle Goodknight:But one of the things that they said and I can't remember the gentleman's name who spoke, but he said that the average ACEs score of incarcerated individuals is seven out of 10. So anything above four is bad, right, is, is, is is things you have to unpack, Right. So what they found out through over twenty, eight hundred people or so that have come into their program mostly first responders, nurses, veterans Guess what their ACEs score. Average ACEs score was Seven, seven.
Steve Bisson:And it's like wait a second. Sorry, I knew the answer. I should have gone. Oh gee, I don't know. Kyle, tell me.
Kyle Goodknight:No, I'm okay with that, but it's like wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait. So we have, and I'm a six, so it's like, oh, my goodness, you know like, yeah, and we're out here helping people, we're trying to help people, so we have to help ourselves, help people, and we have to be. You know, if we're not there for ourselves, how in the world can we be there for other people? Period, whether that's our coworkers or whether that's the community.
Steve Bisson:Or our family.
Kyle Goodknight:Our family Right.
Steve Bisson:Right, let's not forget about that too, because you said it yourself and I you know. The other part that I didn't get to touch on just yet is a lot of people like well, it must be the job that makes you go to therapy. Well, you said, you know, you're one off, two off, one on, two off, that's your schedule. Yep, people who don't work in that field do not understand the impact on the family, right, do not understand the stressors that goes with that, and people are like, oh, because they saw stuff. No, it doesn't have to always be trauma.
Steve Bisson:I'm so sick of this trauma thing, sometimes Right At the end of the day, what I've, what I've told people like you know. I was listening to a documentary and I, I wish, I wish I could remember the name. But they were saying do you know how many Christmases I miss? You know how many?
Kyle Goodknight:Thanksgivings I miss. I miss Thanksgiving, christmas and New Year's this year I miss. I'm not even going to be there.
Steve Bisson:And you know that may seem trivial when I say it that way, but when you've missed 14 of the 17 birthdays of your kid, how?
Announcer:do you feel, you know?
Steve Bisson:and that's not about Right Trauma. It's about how the first responder job affects you even.
Kyle Goodknight:Well, and you know, and to piggyback on that, on that, I've got a story, you know, and I don't think I've, I don't think I've shared this story on any podcast ever, exclusive, exclusive. Let me get my.
Steve Bisson:I wish I had my little button here.
Kyle Goodknight:We put it in post so and it brought it up when you were saying that you're away from home. And you know, as a 24 hour on and 48 hours off, I'm away from home for a whole 24 hours. I leave at 5 am, I come back at 630 am the next day. My wife's a nurse and we build a house out in the country. You know, we that's what we thought we wanted and that's what we both said. I built the house, I designed the house, I'm in construction, so I was able to do a lot of the work myself. Well, about six months, maybe six months to a year, living there.
Kyle Goodknight:We live on this big old country road with houses within. You know, closest house to me was 700 feet away or more and I get a phone call 2 am away or more and I get a phone call 2 am. I'm on duty. I was, luckily, on a run and I got back from the run and I saw that she called Call her up. She's like where the hell you've been? I'm like baby, I was on a run, what's up? And she's like we figured out what it is, but I thought someone was trying to break into the house. So what had happened? Some kids down the street shot bottle rockets at the house from the street. We had a 400 foot front yard so it started hitting the house. She thought somebody was taking a hammer trying to break through our front door, which was all glass. So she's got, she's home with two small kids. You know, I mean at the time that would have been, carter was would have been six and Cam would have been three. You know. So two small children by herself. No, she never believed in weapons. So, you know, she thought someone was breaking into the house. She called a neighbor Neighbor, came over and said hey, you know, it's just. You know, there was a box of poop on fire on the front porch and you know they're just hooligans, right. And, and so she was. She called me up, she talked about it and I'm like do you want me to come home? I'll leave right now. I'll call my captain and say, hey, I got to get home for emergency. And she's like. She's like no, no, no, you know, you just got on a run. We know how that works, you know, just talk to me on the phone. And I'm like okay.
Kyle Goodknight:So as I'm coming home, I see footprints in the dew footprints lead right to their house. And uh, I go over and knock on the door at six 30 in the morning, knocking that lady's door, and she's like why are you? She's like, and I'm like did your kids have s'mores last night by chance? Yeah, well, there's a box of s'mores with shit in it on my porch. Um, and she was like well, not my. I'm like no, no, no, no, no. I see footprints. All I want, you know, you're lucky, my wife didn't have a shotgun because she thought someone was breaking into the house. And I'm like we can, we can. I just want the boys to come down and clean things up and have a talk. I don't want to call the police, I don't want to do it, which I can. You know you guys vandalize my home.
Kyle Goodknight:Fast forward five years. That's when I came home from work and my wife's like I'm done, I'm out. I'm like what do you mean? She's like I can't do it anymore, I can't live here, I can't be with you.
Kyle Goodknight:And as we unpacked that discussion for the next two years, come to find out she felt uncomfortable from the moment that night happened. She was uncomfortable every night. I left Right and that weighed on her and she's in health care too. So, but she never, she never brought it up. She pushed it down like she should have brought it up. I should have brought up, I should have checked in on her, right, hey, are you doing OK with that? You know, do we need to talk about? You know, like I, we, we both should have done things better, and that's what I'm talking about.
Kyle Goodknight:It's not just the stuff that happened at work. This was at home. This was my family. This was the true fear of her being attacked in our own home, and that was a major downfall of our possible marriage and our life together. And, thank God, we had good communication at a point in time with a therapist or a counselor that helped us unpack everything properly and realize that it wasn't all me, it wasn't all her, it was situational, it was a little bit of everything, just this big huge conglomerate of bullshit and crap that happened to us, that made us not want to be with each other anymore. And we were able to unpack it and I'm happy to say I'm 24 years in now. Congratulations, yeah, and that was year 12. So, yeah, I mean, it was, that was year 12. So, yeah.
Steve Bisson:And I think that that's exactly the other part that I talk about in therapy with some of the first responders who are like well, I saw this adverse event, whatever it is. I'm just trying to keep it as vague as I can. I'm like how did that affect your family? I'm not here to talk about my family. Hell, you are.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah it affects your family.
Steve Bisson:Yeah, and now you know, and the best part of my job is if you were one of my clients and the day they say I wonder if I should invite my wife, Please bring your wife in. Yeah, absolutely, I tell people right away. And what I found is, once you start opening that, you know, I know there's always these images I'm going to interpret see if the French Canadian in me just kicked in uh, interpret what's going on and take your words and make sense of them and vice versa. For your partner, whoever that is, and being able to have that open communication is so important because both, both. What people don't understand is this this job affects your home life. This job affects so many other things. It is not singularly anything else. So for me personally, it's always reminding yourself that work on the communication at home, work with your kids there's a lot of stuff that you bring.
Steve Bisson:This therapy is not about just trauma, and so you know, I did a survey recently with a bunch of first responders and one of the things they they ask is like, once the trauma is resolved, am I okay? And so you know I I did a survey recently with a bunch of first responders and one of the things they ask is like what's the traumas resolve? Am I okay? You know that's the question they have. I'm like I don't know, Maybe, maybe not, highly likely not.
Kyle Goodknight:But okay, you smell something that reminds you of the scene, right, you know so I think that that's the other part too.
Steve Bisson:Is you know how do we communicate with first responders about this stigma? Because I have my own thoughts on that. I'll share them with you after, but I'd like to hear your thoughts about how do we work on this stigma, because everyone wants something like it's just my trauma and I'm like, geez, I wish I would tell you that I work only with trauma, right, yeah?
Kyle Goodknight:And the word stigma is starting to become a stigma. I know we talking about you know I and I just recently, you know, in my, in my division, I'm one of the educators for my department and I was lucky enough to help guide some training that we've had recently on first responder mental health and, um, and we ended up was it two months ago? We had the whole month. Was we? Every month we have a new lecture and this month, two months ago, we had a lecture on like basically just just an introduction to mental health and first responder stuff, including, like, what my department offers for us and how to get ahold of it and stuff like that. But one of the things that that I talked about, at least in my lecture. I don't know this was shared with the other five people, but I was like, listen, guys, we've all heard the word stigma. We hear it on the radio. Now we hear it about mental health in general and people are starting to get numb to the word stigma. So or start already, hear the word stigma and put a guard up. And I startup and I'm like I don't want to talk about this thing, I want to talk about normalization. I want to normalize this conversation.
Kyle Goodknight:I'm here today to tell you guys how, what I went through. A lot of you already know what I went through because I've been open about it, because I feel that is the best policy. If I'm open about it, I'm not ashamed, not even close to ashamed. You know the people that didn't see or didn't. I didn't even see. I didn't even see the family. I wasn't even there to see the family.
Kyle Goodknight:I didn't go in and but I had all of this trauma that come down on me and this incident along with my family, and it affected everything in my life, including my friends. You know, I had friends of mine calling me. One of the guy was in my wedding and he called me up. It's like, oh my God, blank, blank, blank, blank. You know, just passed away. I'm like, yeah, dude, I know. And he's like, oh shit. I'm like yep, I can't really talk about it, you know. And he's like, oh my God. And I'm like yeah. So it affected more than just me in that day and the one thing that I tell people is I'm not, I'm not ashamed of that day. I you know that story, whether you know carbon monoxide Okay, tomorrow is Firefighter Month. Right, it is National Fire Prevention.
Steve Bisson:Week For October yep.
Kyle Goodknight:Yep. So guess what? Everybody Guess what I talk about for the whole month of October. Not just fires, but the carbon monoxide detectors. Everybody get their batteries changed. Everybody go get the combo. Everybody should have a carbon monoxide detector in the house, and I don't care if you're an all-electric house, unless you're an all electric house, unless you're an all electric house with an electric car and you have zero combustible gas stuff in your home.
Steve Bisson:You know, get a darn cut or $17, man and no liquids or whatever, because that's also another factor.
Kyle Goodknight:No chance of any combustible. Yeah, like, if you have a hot water tank done, you got to get one. If you've got a furnace boat, get one. I don't care if you. I mean most of my life. Most of my life I lived in a, in a heat pump environment but and and electric water tank. But there's still vehicles in a car and I'm telling, I'm here to tell you right now.
Kyle Goodknight:I treated six firefighters who were on a scene of a cardiac arrest in a upstairs bedroom with the garage underneath. Somebody forgot to turn the car off. They went inside and I treated six firefighters that day after they did their job and got that patient out and didn't even realize that there was a car running in the basement Right. Basically it was a. It was a split level and they were acting funny. They weren't, their stories weren't straight, they couldn't, they weren't able to give the report over the radio properly and I pulled one aside. I'm like, dude, what is going on with you? This is not you. He's like oh man, I can't keep my thoughts straight. Aside. I'm like, dude, what is going on with you? This is not you. He's like oh man, I can't keep my thoughts straight and I'm like come here, come here, let me, let me do something.
Kyle Goodknight:So I went out. I told the doctor. I said hey, listen, they just worked this lady who had extremely high carbon monoxide level. They worked her in the house for more than 20 minutes. I'm like I go get them. So I went out to the truck. I said everybody in here, so I grabbed everybody this was early on in my career grabbed everybody. We lined everybody up. I got blood gases on everybody and their levels were high. We put them on a hundred percent oxygen and they were eventually got discharged.
Kyle Goodknight:But it was one of those things where, where it's just you, you just have to be, you have to normalize this conversation and to get back to that, to where we started with. This is that's what I talk to people now. I want to normalize this. I don't want this to be a stigma. I don't want this to be, oh you know, normalize it. Let's just talk about it Like we talk about anything. If you had something going on with your kid in the medical world, you're going to talk about somebody with them. Right, you're going to say, hey, you know, my, my kids got this kind of condition or what have you. Like you're going to talk about stuff. How about we normalize all of this mental health stuff and just understand that it's part of life, it's part of being a human? You know we're not. We're human, we have. It's the best thing and it's the worst thing, because we have a brain and our brains can be highly effective or highly damaging, and being able to normalize this conversation makes everything less damaging up there.
Steve Bisson:Normalizing. I love the word and that's why I tossed you that softball, because I want to talk about that. Yeah, thanks for the home run. But ultimately, that's the part I talk about also with my clients, because this is the important part is that no one goes to oh, I've got my physical today. I just don't want to talk about that. No, you're going to your physical. Who gives a crap? Right, right. And you're like oh, I have my mental health update. Oh, you're mentally ill or you're dizzy. No, no, no, it's a mental health update. I'm going once a year to check in with my therapist or whatever.
Steve Bisson:The goal of this podcast is to demystify this stuff and make sure that people treat their mental health as they would treat their physical health. You're not doing so good. Go see your mental health counselor a little more. That's fine. Once you start doing better, see them once a year. Who cares? But I think that that's my view and there's a couple of chiefs I know I can only speak intelligently in the New England area, but I'm sure there's other places in the country but there's chiefs that will give you four hours every year to go see a therapist and it's basically time off. You want to go see your therapist. Some of them is eight hours actually, it's a whole shift for police and you go see a therapist and you don't need to report it, you don't need anything else. I'm going to see my therapist and to normalize it in that way is so important.
Steve Bisson:And being able to sit around the table if you're at the fire station, sit at the police station and talk about the stuff. That's hard Because there's too many people. You know you talk about the ACEs score, the downfall of the ACEs score. Just, my experience is that people are like well, I handled my crap when I was a kid. I should be able to handle it as an adult. I'm like no, no, no, that's not at all what that point is. You missed the whole point here. Yeah, exactly so. Um, those, you know, that's why I talk about. You know, being able to talk of normalization, normalization of mental health, I just it just to me is so not like common and but a lot of people don't want to see it that way. Yeah, exactly, exactly so. You know I could go on and on to talk about this, but I do want to give you, you know, be respectful of your time, no problem, you know. One of the things that I would like to hear more is about Elevate your podcast and tell people about it a little more Sure.
Kyle Goodknight:So Elevate is the podcast that I started for mental health resilience and just to share different avenues of what mental health on the backside of mental health, could look like therapy, if you will, I don't wanna.
Kyle Goodknight:Therapy does also have a negative connotation to it. In general, people don't wanna go to therapy, but there's a lot of options out there now and I try to do my best to talk about, to have. It's not all about talk therapy. What I like to say is that you have a counselor that is a guide for you, to guide you through and find out what is the best. You know not cure, but best treatment for your symptoms you wouldn't go to. You know you have a nutritionist for your nutrition. You wouldn't ask them about how to build lean muscle, although they may have some idea, but they're not professional at it. So you need to. You know you go to the personal trainer that that does that. They kind of sometimes they overlap a little bit and sometimes have knowledge. People have knowledge in both. Well, it's the same thing when it comes, just like you said, when it comes to your mental health, you need the right person to help guide you through what is the right therapy, if you will, for lack of better terms, the right decision to treat the symptoms that you have.
Kyle Goodknight:Is it EMS, etms, is it? Is it EDMR? Is it hypnotherapy? Is it? There's all kinds of things out there. Is it? You know the, the ganglion block, you know therapy? Or is it ketamine therapy and like, what is it? What is it for you? Is it group therapy? Is it talk therapy? What is it Like? What resonates with you? Let's see what helps you.
Kyle Goodknight:I did EDMR myself and I came out with flying colors from it. It worked for me. I've had other people that have told me like I tried. It didn't work for me for very long, so I went to something else else. Well, good, I'm glad you went to something else. You know, I'm like it's not all about one thing.
Kyle Goodknight:So the elevate podcast is that one help normalize the conversation and bringing on professionals in the, in the industry, even people that are somewhat removed from the first responder world, like I had one gal. Come on, she went. She went through school for uh, for being a psychologist married to a police officer, and that was such a great conversation because it was like wait a second. This is helpful Because not only is she married to a first responder and sees his lack of ability to say, hey, I need help, but she's actually a helper, she's actually someone that would guide things, and is she the answer for him? Most likely not because it's your loved one, but or it's the person you're, you're married to or engaged to, I think at the time you know, but, but it's still. It's like she needs to help him understand that this is this is a normal thing to discuss, and another thing that she brought up was the fact that what they're teaching them in school is not what is going and working nowadays, and she came out of school completely disappointed because she felt like she wasn't prepared for the real world, and so she's.
Kyle Goodknight:She came on the podcast talking about how we need to basically elevate the educational system on what is now found. I mean some of the things like if you read go read the book the body keeps a score. Some of the stuff that is is ingrained in us now only came out in 2012. That's what that was. That was 12 years ago. That's very, very small amount of time compared to the whole world of of psychology and and mental health in general. So you know, and we're just now learning about the brain with the scans that we can do, that, that that show what lights up during different conversations and smells and and it's all. It's all all relevant.
Kyle Goodknight:And that stuff is not being covered as deep from what she said in, at least in her school. You know. So it's. You know, the the elevate podcast is the podcast that that introduces. I want it to be a place, a safe place for people to come listen to it on their own time, and if they get one nugget per episode, if you get one nugget every fifth episode, I don't care, because I want them to get something to be able to raise their hand and say, okay, I want to be able to unpackage some of this stuff that I've dealt with.
Steve Bisson:I listen to Kyle's podcast, Elevate, and it's really good. I recommend it to first responders, people who want to work with first responders, because the competency of the therapist is also key and I think that sometimes that plays a factor too, because if you don't have that cultural competency, I think that that plays a factor and that's what affects some of the guys who go see a therapist. But that's what I think you talk about on your podcast.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, and a lot of first responders don't want to go to a therapist because they don't know my world, they don't know what I go through. So we are lucky right now that we're having this movement of a lot of first responders that have been down the path of needing help and gotten help and realize that things are better now after they've got the help, whatever it was and they want to do something to give back, and so there are more and more counselors and therapists out there that are geared specifically to the first responders, and that's going to be. That's huge, you know, and you know not just have you worked with first responders, no, do you specialize in first responders? And now, with the power of what we're dealing with right now, you're in Massachusetts, I'm in Ohio, we have Zoom counseling. This is this. It can, that's, you can now get a counselor that is completely far away from you. That's not even in your local community.
Kyle Goodknight:So if you wanted to keep it under wraps, if that's was still the stigma in your department that you don't want people to know is, you can do that now through zoom therapy and and it and it's very effective and it's almost. It's almost more effective because you can be a little bit more open about it. You know you don't have to worry about the way you can shut your camera off. You shut your camera off and they don't see you and you could just talk. You know what I mean. So it's one of those things where you know it. It is we are in the best time in our lives to have have the tools to learn how to cope with the stuff that we were never trained in school to deal with.
Steve Bisson:Right and you're right. You know whatever she said. You don't learn these things in school. And you know when I dated this story I like to share before we wrap up here when I was dating, someone had put me in a situation where she wanted me to be the therapist for her family, which is not my role in life. So one of the things that came up after that is in my profile of I can't remember which one Bumble whatever the hell it was. It said I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. And to this day that makes my girlfriend now, who I've been with her for two and a half years, laugh and laugh and laugh, and sometimes she even says I want to ask for advice, but I know you're not my therapist.
Steve Bisson:I'm like, okay, go fuck yourself, but anyway. So just wanted to share that story because that is absolutely true and I thought you'd laugh and make people laugh about my silly stuff. That happened in my life. So where do we find Elevate? I would like people to go pick it up Elevate is it's spelled with two ones.
Kyle Goodknight:So, yep, elevate is, it's spelled with two ones. So I take the L out and I put two ones. It's a long story. I explain it on the Elevate podcast. You can listen and find out why I do it that way. But basically the two ones are the on and off duty persona of the first responder. So it's E-1-1-E-V-A-T-E. So just take out the L and put two ones in that look like L's and that's how I spell it.
Kyle Goodknight:So on YouTube you know all the major platforms YouTube, spotify, apple. You know kylegoodnightcom I'm, if you spell my name, even if you spell my name wrong with the leaving the K out of the middle Kyle Goodnight. Either way you spell it, you'll find my website. That has, you know, has links to all of my podcasts. You know I run two different podcasts and help about nine other people with their podcasts. So I'm kind of in my voiceover industry and my voiceover side job, I've become a podcaster as well and a podcast coach. So I'm kind of like it's kind of one of those weird things where you go to my website and you're like wait a second, where do I go?
Steve Bisson:I'm like well, I've got it set up at a first responder podcast or voiceover and we'll definitely link it to the show notes so that way people can reach out. Yeah, Whether they need you through first responder stuff, podcast stuff or your voiceover, I'll make sure that it's all linked up for you, but uh, you know I was talking to you beforehand and, truthfully, I enjoy our talks. I hope you come back on the podcast at some point, absolutely, cause I feel like we didn't even scratch the surface as to what people need to hear.
Kyle Goodknight:There's so much more we can talk about it so.
Steve Bisson:I'm looking forward to that, and if you ever want me back on your podcast, I'm always available. So absolutely Love talking to my first responder world, because you talked about competency and that's so important yeah.
Kyle Goodknight:Yeah, yep, so thank you very much, kyle, and I'll talk to you soon.
Steve Bisson:Well, this concludes episode one 75. Kyle, good night. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I think you're going to come back to the show. I love this interview. We even then scratched the surface of what we can talk about. Uh, but all of his stuff is on his website. You can go get it. I think I'm gonna leave the ACEs also in the show notes if you want to look at it for yourself. But episode 176 will be a returning guest, someone I truly appreciate as a human being, stephanie Simpson, and she's going to be here on episode 176. And I hope you join me then.
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