Resilience Development in Action

E.223 When Trauma Comes Home: A Therapist's View

• Steve Bisson, Erin Sheridan • Season 12 • Episode 223

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The weight of trauma doesn't stay at work—it comes home. For first responders, this reality shapes not just their professional lives but transforms family dynamics, relationships, and personal wellbeing in profound ways that most people never see.

In this revealing conversation, therapist Erin Sheridan shares her unique perspective as both a mental health professional specializing in first responder care and someone who understands the lifestyle intimately through personal connection. With candor and occasional profanity that mirrors the authentic language of the emergency services world, Erin and host Steve Bisson cut through the stigma surrounding mental health in these communities.

The discussion tackles critical issues that rarely make headlines: the devastating impact of mandated 48-72 hour shifts on family life, the subtle progression from social drinking to problematic coping, and the cultural barriers that keep many first responders from seeking help until crisis points emerge. Erin shares powerful insights about building trust with a population trained to handle everyone else's emergencies while ignoring their own.

What makes this episode particularly valuable is the practical framework it offers for both first responders and departments. Rather than simply identifying problems, Erin outlines specific approaches that work: proactive mental health training, peer support systems that normalize help-seeking, and therapeutic approaches like EMDR that can help process trauma when properly applied. She explains how small shifts in departmental culture could prevent the cascading personal crises that lead to the troubling statistics on first responder suicide rates.

Whether you're a first responder yourself, love someone who is, or simply want to understand the human cost behind emergency services, this conversation offers rare insight into both the challenges and pathways to resilience for those who run toward danger when others run away.

Visit www.beautifullyunbrokencounseling.com to learn more about Erin's work or to connect for support services specifically tailored to first responders and their families.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action, where strength meets strategy and courage to help you move forward. Each week, your host, steve Bisson, a therapist with over two decades of experience in the first responder community, brings you powerful conversations about resilience, growth and healing through trauma and grief. Through authentic interviews, expert discussions and real-world experiences, we dive deep into the heart of human resilience. We explore crucial topics like trauma recovery, grief processing, stress management and emotional well-being. This is Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson.

Speaker 2:

Hi and welcome to episode 223. If you haven't listened to episode 222, go back and listen. Adam Neff is a very interesting guy, very interesting conversation, so I hope you enjoy it. But episode 223 is with a returning guest, aaron Sheridan. Aaron is someone I know personally. We've worked on a team together that now has become, behind the badge and beyond, a great group that hopefully will be developing in exciting features very, very soon. But Erin is also someone who has a great canine, bella works in her own private practice with first responders and does EMDR. We've actually consulted on a few cases. Don't know if she's going to bring that up, but anyway, here is the interview.

Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

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Speaker 2:

Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 223. You know I have a guest that I consider a friend now. We've worked together almost a year now with a group that was a first responders coalition with mental health. Now it's become Behind the Badge and Beyond, and she's a great therapist, but she's also very funny. She asked me to lead her in this podcast, which I'm like, oh, my God, that's crazy. So she's really funny, erin Sheridan. Welcome again to Resilience Development in Action.

Speaker 3:

Hi, it'll be kind of like the blind leaving the blind. That's okay. Isn't that what we always do anyway, right, when we're doing therapy? Are you good at this? Sure, pretty much.

Speaker 2:

I just always wonder who put me in charge of people. Well, what I? It's funny, I'll, maybe we'll. I'll just mention this because I think it's funny as people ask me like, oh, you must be good at this. I'm like well, I've never dealt with blank year old female, male who's been in this situation at this time. I've never dealt with that. I've dealt with similar, but I don't know how to do this. I'm fucking guessing. And that takes away the whole imposter syndrome for me, because then it makes me feel like I've been truthful and honest. But I don't know if that's. I'm like you. I don't fucking know what I'm doing.

Speaker 3:

I think EMDR really pushed the threshold with that too, because you're keeping people way up here. I can't say that window of tolerance. You have to keep leading them and just see where it goes. It's like all right, I guess we're going there. Crap, crap. What do I do? What do I say Then? You have to just keep going with it, Literally Go with that what do I do, what do I say, and then you have to just kind of keep going with it literally with that yeah, yep, yep, that's my default.

Speaker 3:

Yep, that's, that's all it is at this point. So I'm like, all right, what's gonna come up next? And then sometimes you're surprised and things are good.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of a crazy thing, the EMDR stuff is so fascinating for me because you know, I don't know what your experience is, but most of the time the traumas that they remember is not the trauma you end up working on, but that's just my experience.

Speaker 3:

Yep, it goes in every direction. You would think that it would be linear, but it's like basically a toddler scribbled all over a paper. That's kind of where all the thoughts go.

Speaker 2:

Well, we can talk about EMDR later. But you know you, I absolutely for the record, it's not like fake Me and Erin really work together and really enjoy each other's company. We're even helping a fellow therapist getting herself on her feet so that she can do the same crap we do and be as confused as we are. But anyway, that's enough about me describing you. How about you describe yourself?

Speaker 3:

Hey, I'm Erin Sheridan. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in Mass and I'm also a licensed professional counselor and licensed addiction counselor in the state of Connecticut. I started actually my career off working in Connecticut doing drug court, a lot of work in addiction, iop, php, and then eventually gravitated back here. Once I moved a little bit further out towards Western Mass, it didn't really make sense to drive an hour to work, especially during COVID. So that's when I opened up my practice and now I solely focus first responders, veterans. I have a few clients that are not, that have just been with me and have followed me for a long time, and right now I'm working on my EMDR certification, working on training a therapy dog.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, I can't wait for Bella to be a therapy dog.

Speaker 3:

Me too. Because, once that's done.

Speaker 2:

I'm getting the merch and just for the record, I'm getting the merch.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, yeah, I've already got a designer for embroidered sweatshirts. It's great. I'll have to come up with stuff.

Speaker 2:

You know I I will actually get one Cause I I love. I met Bella and Lisa at wedding meeting. She's very sweet, she right.

Speaker 3:

She is yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

She's, she's a little crazy, but she's, she's a very good girl.

Speaker 2:

Kind of describes our job, doesn't it? For those of you who don't know, you have a passion for first responders. You know there's a lot of stuff that you mentioned already. I we've had a similar course of action. I worked in, I've started, two drug courts. I've worked in several more. I ran a PHB IOP program and for those of you who don't know all this alphabet soup, that's the problem with our field Intensive outpatient program, partial hospitalization program, phb, iop and then EMDR. We mentioned earlier was eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. What I find funny is we always talk about those things, but you talked about drug court, php, you talked about everything, and you work with first responders. What's the name of the company?

Speaker 3:

again, so my practice is beautifully unbroken, counseling. How'd you come up with that? So this is a sound. So, corny, I had a dream one night and then I woke up and then that's how I came up with it. I don't remember the context of the dream, I just remember beautifully unbroken. And then I woke up and I was like, oh, that's going to be the name of my practice and that's what I went with.

Speaker 2:

Really, corny, it's not corny. I think that's the stuff that when I'm finding more and more, maybe because I just turned 50 a couple of months ago. But people do want to embrace their spirituality and their dreams and everything they see. So I don't find that corny. I think as I grow older that corniness goes away and more like it's significant. But that's just me, although some dreams make.

Speaker 3:

Well, and I think, like the biggest thing, with like my practice, I think of you know like a lot of people come in and believe they're broken and I don't believe anybody is broken I think we have to unbreak them in some weird way, and you know that that process is tough, but in the end it can be a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2:

I can't even remember who said this to me, so I'm not going to. It's not mine, but someone said actually we need to break you. You're already unbroken because you created all these defense mechanisms that were so helpful to you for all those years, but now they're fucking not serving you, so we got to do something to break you. So even I heard like to break someone is to unbreak them, if that makes any sense absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I said I came up with that and you know that was several years ago now and it's just kind of stuck and it's weird because it doesn't sound like a practice based around first responders. It sounds kind of like girly, but I'm like, I like it, it's my practice, it's me, so that's what you get. So that's what you get.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that you have one of those characteristics that we talked about right before we started recording, and I really appreciate that you have that girly, feminine young girl.

Speaker 3:

And then I opened my mouth.

Speaker 2:

And then you fucking slam them and I think that that's a gift I really do. I can't do the girly thing, obviously, but the rest of it is like I like to play innocent. Innocent sometimes and people are like, oh, you don't know about this. And then you're like actually I do know a lot more than you think, but I played stupid for a while. I think it's a great way for people to see where they're at and how they interact with other people, because if they treat you like you're stupid it's already strike one for me, absolutely, absolutely and I think too like for for just the counseling in general building the rapport.

Speaker 3:

I think like people don't know how to take it, especially when they come in and they're like oh, if you're like the, you know the therapist, and then then again I open my mouth and I can understand exactly what they're saying. I think, like last time is on with everybody else you had mentioned, like you know, like going to a call, what's a call? Like they're going to a call, or you know, the tones go off or pager goes off and people like, oh well, like a beeper, like it, looks like it, but a little bit bigger, you know. So I think like just being able to, to know some of that stuff, and then people kind of like sit back and like, oh, okay, maybe she know, I don't, I'm hoping that's what they think, but that's kind of the body language transition that I say.

Speaker 2:

But I think that part of our job as therapists I mean, you correct me if I'm wrong particularly with first responders, is to be disarming in the sense that you know, you know, I always I've never claimed to be a first responder. I've worked a lot with them but I'm not a first responder. So sometimes it's disarming to them. And then they're like oh, you know about all this crap and it becomes like oh, I can sit around and be my buddy, I'm still a therapist but now you feel buddy, buddy. That's great, right.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, because I think, especially with this population, just to be able to build that rapport and put down some of those guards because, like, they're always on edge, it's always hypervigilant. So to be able for them to like get that down a little bit and not have like be overstimulated in session, I think you know, is definitely a helpful for getting someplace. Um, I mean, there's times that we can keep them up there, like I said in emdr. But I think, just to start building that rapport, building that trust, because, like the moment you come, they come in like sizing you up, like is this person going to like get it? And there's always like the test questions just to you know, kind of see where you're at. But yeah, no, I like building the rapport with them what's the difference between dead, then, and dead?

Speaker 3:

right, right, dead, dead. You're really dead.

Speaker 2:

You wouldn't come back no, but that's what I mean. That's the my favorite one too. I think you mentioned that when we were talking and I'm like, oh, I love that one because that's what they do with me do you know the difference? Like now, can you please explain to I don't have hair to twirl, but I try to pretend, and then they're like oh, you do know. I'm like yeah, please Been around a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

I always thought that my favorite line is I've been around for a couple of weeks, I read that one book. I should be okay, but anyway I know that you have. I love the whole thing about first responders is particularly meaningful to you. I know why, but can you explain a little bit to the audience as to why it's so meaningful for you?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely yeah. I come from a first responder family and I've unfortunately seen where it can leave a pretty negative impact on a family, from alcoholism to everything else under the sun that can go wrong in the family. So my goal was to not do that. So, of course, you know I married a first responder, which didn't help the plan. But the goal was to have a healthy relationship, to have a really good relationship, and I do have that. And I'm married to a firefighter, medic and safety diver who sees a lot and has been on the job for quite a while, and I I just I don't I enjoy hearing different things when he comes home and I I like the atmosphere of the firehouse, I love the camaraderie, I love how everybody's got your back like you can be pissed off at each other, but if you you need something, they're there in a heartbeat and it's kind of a cool thing to see and it's a little bit, you know sometimes, of an extended family, which is really nice. You know they're. They're great guys and gals and I love seeing them and they're unbelievably funny, like to be able to work with folks that have a similar sense of humor that I do.

Speaker 3:

That's not really, you know taken well in many places in many contexts, but in my office it works really well and I think just to understand a lot of the humor and still hear a lot of the humor at my house, like, you know, not worrying about oh my gosh, am I going to say something offensive, but nine times out of ten it can be outdone pretty easily and I think it's absolutely hysterical.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, so I really wanted to, you know, have the opposite version of a relationship that I grew up around and I was able to get that and I get to see and I get to experience what it's like to be able to have conversations and to talk about the job, I mean sometimes talk about my stuff and still be okay and have like just that comfort. And it's nice to see that you know you can have a healthy relationship within first responders, because I think there's such negative connotation about, okay, what it's like to be married to a firefighter or police officer. People always just assume that, oh well, there's domestic violence, there's abuse, there's alcoholism. It's a small population of that.

Speaker 2:

It's the same thing that we've talked about before. I think there's domestic violence in CEOs to business people, to restaurant people. There's no discrimination about domestic violence in CEOs to business people, to restaurant people, to no discrimination about domestic violence. It's just pursuing war, because if there's a DV within the first responder world, it's front page news on the local news. Oh yeah, absolutely Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

So everybody thinks that's what it is and it's definitely not. It's such a small fraction of it and I mean, sure are there good cops, bad cops, absolutely good firefighters, bad firefighters, good CEOs, bad CEOs, like all of them. I think it's such a small population that is like the not so great ones, and I think there's more good ones. But I think that's where trauma comes in and I think people have trauma and that's what happens, and I you know I'm probably going to get hate even for saying this, but all the ones that you see on the news that things go really bad, there's probably some element of trauma that happens and there's some reaction, or you can only take so much and you explode and there's like the anger and their symptoms of something more. And I think a lot of people just don't see that and it's unfortunate because that can be worked on in therapy.

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, if you're controversial, that's perfect. That's controversy, creates cash.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, I don't care.

Speaker 2:

I joke. All joking aside, I don't think you're controversial personally, because it's the truth. 95% of the firefighters it's this, I say this all the time on my podcast 95% of firefighters police, emt, paramedic dispatchers, ceos all they want to do is go to work, be safe and come home. That's all they want to do. This 5% assholes are not good people.

Speaker 2:

And yes, of those 5%, highly likely some sort of mental health issue. And to me it's one of those things that when you wait too long for your treatment of mental health or addiction or whatever, that's what leads to this 5%. I'm wondering if we can talk a little more in regards to what happens when we wait too long for treatment, because that's what I feel happens a whole lot. I've seen people who come to me after the sixth or seventh. We'll call them incidents and they don't have to be police or fire incidents, they're just incidents and they're slowly breaking and that's not the expression. They're really breaking because all their defense mechanisms they've used are just shattered now they don't fucking work. Can you talk more about a little bit of that waiting for treatment and what the consequences are?

Speaker 3:

absolutely. I I mean, like, think about it too. Like I think a lot of people be like, oh, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll, I'll make that call tomorrow. But there's never really a good time to start treatment. It's gonna suck going in no matter what you do, so but you got to get that stuff out. You, you know?

Speaker 3:

I think you know kind of similar to working with folks with alcoholism addictions. They really don't see that there's a problem until it's they hit rock bottom. Everybody else sees that it's a problem. And with mental health, like most of the time other people are seeing it's a problem, but sometimes it's hidden, might come out like anger or might come out as avoidance, things like that. But I think that the longer you're waiting, the more you're just kind of stuffing things down and it's going to explode. Similar to with, you know, alcoholism. Like you get in that DUI and then realize like, oh crap, there there may be a problem that made me not a problem. But now I'm forced to go to treatment. I'm fine, I don't have an issue. But now, like you're, you're working on it and stuff for sure it's starting to come up. So I I think, like nobody wants to address it. I think there's such a huge stigma among first responders veterans too for seeking out mental health treatment.

Speaker 2:

Um, when research shows, the more you talk, the better outcome there's going to be yeah, but I think that that's where I think that again yes, I'll be controversial on my own podcast that's where, within the community of firefighting, of police and all that becomes detrimental because you say, hey, you know what? I had a problem with this call and this and that next thing, you know, some johnny and jane are being told that you know, you can't fucking handle the job, or you're this or you're that, and then they're like fuck it, I'll never talk about it again. And then they let it accumulate. I don't know if that's your experience, but that's yeah. I'm not saying it's a hundred percent, by the way, but the truth, a lot of departments still do that oh, a hundred percent, and that's what, to me, is.

Speaker 2:

The problem is that, hey, you know what I'm having a tough time with this call. You know what Erin can't handle her own, she and, and then, god forbid, you're a woman. Then that adds a little layer Right and sorry for controversy, but yeah, see, she can't really handle it and I'm like motherfucker. So I don't know if that's your experience. But I think that part of the stigma is that people are chatty for lack of a better word and then it causes the delay for getting treatment.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm, absolutely, yeah. I think there are many departments that they don't handle it the right way, especially if there's somebody there at the department that does, like you know, stress evaluations or you know they send them through EAP, through the department or department clinician, like it's going to be separate. It absolutely has to be, because if the trauma is coming from the job and you have the job assessing you, like that's not really going to help. You got to go outside and I'm sure there's probably some great EAP programs out there that you know they don't send notes or they're not descriptive in their notes for clients or don't report back from the job, which is great, but they're few and far between, which is unfortunate. So I think the benefits of going to a private practice and doing something on your own you're going to have, I think, a little bit more confidentiality.

Speaker 2:

And I think that that's why wellness visits have become a little more prevalent, or within the police, fire community, but I, but I also think that there's that stigma of oh I'm erin does wellness visits. She's not going to leave a note, but everyone knows I went to see erin and you know I, I think that you see that sometimes, even with more federal level, oh, I went to see the, you know internal review or whatever and they end up seeing a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, whatever you want to call them this week, and I think that that's the stuff that also plays a factor. How do we kind of like and again, this there's, there's an administration betrayal too. That happens sometimes too. Again, being controversial or not, that's just what it is the chief saying. Well, you know what steve went to see the? Went to see aaron for treatment, oh, chief, or for wellness or whatever.

Speaker 3:

No, that's like a punishment fuck you, chief.

Speaker 2:

Why are you telling, telling people about that? That's supposed to be quiet without saying fuck you, as I just said, really nicely, how do we kind of get that message across to administration that this is also something we need to protect? Well, I think that do we kind of get that message across to administration that this is also something we need to protect?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think that to stop kind of the punitive process of, oh you have this, you need to go here and get evaluated, I think, be more proactive. And I don't think a lot of departments are proactive in the sense of, okay, maybe let's have education around mental health, addictions, trauma, just general wellness. They do trainings, have trainings specifically on that, whether it be you have a peer support team within a department or you have somebody that you're connected with, like in Massachusetts we've got CISM. Have them come in, have them do different trainings, like especially if you can get like con eds, like why not? Then you're at least listening, maybe getting like a little nugget of something out of that. It. Have other presenters come in again.

Speaker 3:

So much is, normalize it right. Like don't make it be all right, you saw this. Now you need to go here as a punishment. Have it just kind of always be talked about. Have more access to them, like like there's departments that within their contracts they only have officers can call for CISM. Anybody can call, like that's the other thing. So it becomes like you have to then ask for permission to talk to somebody and in reality you don't, because it's a completely confidential service and whether that's just having a peer come in or seeing a clinician or having like a full debrief, you know like have that available. If you have it available, versus you have to ask for permission. It doesn't really seem like something that's going to be taken advantage of, because nobody wants to go and say, oh hey, I have a problem, I need to talk to somebody, have it be available. Then it becomes more of like the culture of the department and like a quote-unquote normal thing. That's just there.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes what I find is some departments will be like ah, this is not schism worthy. Well, if someone on the team said that they needed it, it's not up to you. Administration, and I mean that from sergeants up or in the police absolutely.

Speaker 2:

A lot of times it's not even about the call it's about something completely different and I think that that's what helps with creating more of that feeling of administrative, shouldn't betrayal, because, to me, I think that we need wellness visits, we need peer support and we need schisms, not one or the other or perhaps two out of the three, we need all three absolutely absolutely go ahead no, I think if they have more peer support, have more access to schism, like, yeah, I, my role isn't as important, because the the peers are usually going to like get to somebody and like work with them initially better, like it's a perfect, like triage first line.

Speaker 3:

The more you have that in, maybe, the less they need clinicians and yeah, I might put myself out of a job, but I'm happy that they're at least getting some help. And then, at the point when they need a clinician, okay, we're here. Here's a list of people within the community that understand your job right, having, like, mental health providers come in or other wellness providers that have experience working with first responders come in. This way they can put like a name to a face and not just oh, there's this mysterious person in this location who knows anything about them. You then have somebody maybe that they've made a connection with, and maybe it's three years from now. They make that phone call, but like, hey, I met you during this. I really enjoy talking to you, you know.

Speaker 3:

I think that that's a totally different way. That's probably going to be more effective and at least have it be part of an everyday conversation versus only talking about it when times are tough. I think you got to be proactive with it, get it in there, have it be something. That's not just the stigma around. Oh, I got to go see this person for an evaluation. It's no, I'm going to go talk to my therapist about this, call, process it and feel better on my way out when I leave. I think that's a little bit better approach.

Speaker 2:

You're not going to get an argument out of me. I think that that's why I like for me. I encourage therapists who want to work with first responders go to your local PD, go to local FDA and go talk to them and become go sit around. Like to me, the best experience I ever had was really sitting at dispatch and we had a regional, so we did fire and police at the same time and sitting there and learning how that works and then, all right, jump into the police officer's car or can you go with fire for this, and you know, obviously we had permissions and all that happened or shit. But ultimately I think that was much more of an education to me. And yes, thank you advocates, my old company who gave me those things but that gave me much more of an education than me reading it in a book. And not only that. People from those departments remember me from hey, remember, you went on a call with me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you have any openings? I just need to chat and then suddenly you've lifted a stigma and you're one of the one of the girls, one of the boys, whatever you want to call it, and instead of some fucking outsider sitting there saying, I know a lot about first responders, well, that's great. That's just words, and I don't want to talk about people who say those yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

I think it's all about being proactive with it, because if you have a shit call and then you've never had any, you know, talk about mental health, no, talk about schism nobody's going to know what to do. And I've seen it where everybody panics and literally nobody knows what to do in that situation and they make it much more complicated than it ever needs to be and they make it much more complicated than it ever needs to be. You know, even just having basic like, say us as in team going give a presentation, this is how you contact us. This is why you would contact us. Here's the numbers.

Speaker 3:

Versus everybody just panicking, it makes it a little bit easier. Like, all right, we have this one point person that's going to call. Yep, I think we need to make this phone call. Let's call. Team comes in, you go from there. But versus everybody just panicking and being like deer in the headlights and not know what to do, that's not helpful because it just adds to the stressful event and then sometimes when they panic, they may not think like, all right, well, we just don't need to call, we'll be good, we're fine, because you know they're fine, or who?

Speaker 2:

again, who's making that decision that they're fine? Right, well, more than that too, not too long ago, I'd say in the last couple of years oh, I know the citizen person, but I'm gonna hold the phone number, I'm gonna call them so they can call you. This lack of sharing resources was also, and again continues to be a problem. It's a little less now but to me like me knowing Aaron, I want everyone to know. I know Aaron, she's not in my area and she can help you.

Speaker 2:

And if it takes away from me getting a client, I don't really care, because the client, the client is what's more important than me getting $2.50, because that's essentially what we get paid at this point. But all joking aside, I think the other part too that I want to really address with you, because you've seen it and I've seen it there's when people delay too long, you know, for me, you know 55% of the first response, or there's a 55% more likelihood of suicide in the first responder world than the general or civilians, whatever you want to call them, even though me and Aaron are civilians Also. It also affects work, because then you don't trust or you seem to be like in a gaze or you're fucking angry, and then it affects your family because you go home and you're not pressing for your partner, you're not there for your kids, you're not there for mom, dad, neighbor, whatever I mean.

Speaker 3:

I don't know about you, but to me that's the other, really hidden issue with delaying treatment for first responders Absolutely, absolutely, especially like when they bring it home and a lot of times they just shut down or it comes out in anger, because it's easier to be angry than talk about anything. It's easier to be angry than feel sad. It takes out their kids, maybe they isolate or they just keep picking up more shifts so then they don't even have to be home. That's not helpful to family life and I think there's a lot of first responders that they don't talk to their spouses. Whether they try to think they're protecting them, they're not.

Speaker 3:

Because if you know where our imaginations are, left up to us, like it's going to be something out of like Fire Country or you know Chicago Fire or any of those big like Hollywood shows, but in reality it's not like that, but that's what we end up assuming is going on, and then again you're not spending any time together. There's no connection, you know, not going to family gatherings and spouses have to say, oh yeah, no, I promise they exist. It's not helpful. The kids don't see their parents.

Speaker 3:

That's not great either. They miss their parents and then they wonder, or the first responder wonders why oh well, they're not listening to me, they're, you know, defiant or they're doing this. They're never there, so they don't even like know you what? How are they going to listen to you? It just it messes up the whole family dynamic and it's snowball effects. And then at that point it's like all right, they become super depressed, super angry, they think there's one way out, because they're not going to go talk to anybody and then you suicide rates are so high because of those things and holding it.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. And there's been so many this year too, just this year alone. It's crazy. I feel like almost every month there's a first responder on the news. It's sad.

Speaker 2:

No, new York city has been plagued by suicides lately. Um, and I say lately in the last year or so, so not if you guys are listening, this will be out in October or so. I don't want people to say, well, not in the last month, ok, I get it, but that's not what I meant. Do you think the other part, too is one of the things that I find that there's an impact and I talk about this because I think it's so important is that you know and again, I I've never met your husband, so I don't think he exists, just just for the record. But all joking aside, I also know that it recreates better feelings from partners.

Speaker 2:

A lot of partners like come to me and they go, like you know, jane or John is like so into their work because they're taking details or they're forced or whatever, that the bitterness becomes really prevalent at home. Have you encountered that? I mean, I'm not talking. If you want to talk about your own life, that's fine too, but I'm just talking about in general. I mean, again, you don't have a husband as far as I know. I think you made that up. But all joking aside, I think that. Do you see that, cause I see it all the time.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. I mean for myself, like I absolutely guilty of like getting frustrated with the job and taking up like overtime details. But usually for us there's some type of like actual plan or reasoning, why, like financially, like why we're doing something you know whether, be that you know to save to buy a house, or like you know we've we're building a garage, like we need to be able to like financially figure this out so that there is an end goal in it. So, yeah, it can get frustrating, but I know why we're doing it as well. But I think for other like spouses if you think of, say, the mandated overtime, right, there's a lot of departments that I think are in this right now. They're completely understaffed and they're forcing guys in for 48, 72s, like thank goodness some have it in their contracts that they can't work past a certain time. But that also takes away from family and again, yeah, it's like a department issue where they're not fully staffing folks.

Speaker 3:

But you know, on many levels think like safety levels, but how it affects them at home. They're missing birthdays, they're missing holidays, they're missing family days, they're missing the weekends when their kids are home. That sucks, that really sucks. And I think that's a whole other issue that I don't think the general public thinks about when they're thinking, oh yeah, we should, you know, not staff these or we need to defund these, like you want your tax dollars to go to having public safety Like that's such a big thing, but dollars to go to having public safety like that that's such a big thing. But also look at the effect at home and you know, when you have there's the people they're like oh well, you know, you're married to this. Like they must be violent, they must be this. No, like they're, they're not, you're just taking away from their entire family life. Like they're they're. There's so many much of a snowball effect there. It's just levels and levels of issues that are created and it affects people at home too, and I don't think a lot of folks realize that.

Speaker 2:

I'll go a step further than you. Having done 24 hours myself again, not a firefighter I know they sleep all the time. That's a joke, by the way, for those who want to write me. It's a joke because I hear that all the time they're like mean, I'm like no, I'm just trying to be funny.

Speaker 2:

I'm, having done a 24 hour in the mental health world in a crisis team, having done a 24 hour because of xyz reason, I'm fucking junk after that 24 hours, even if I got to sleep on my desk when I did crisis, we can sleep on the desk but you're not really sleeping because the phone rings. I gotta handle it and if I gotta, and if I got to go to a call, I go to a call. It's not like all that's so different, but it's not. So I get it. And then I'm drunk the next day and then my spouse goes oh great, so now I got to take care of the kids. We were supposed to go apple picking, I was forced, or whatever.

Speaker 2:

I think that the impact that you people don't see is oh, you work 24, you get paid good for that, or you put, you did a 48. So you got overtime or time and a half. But the impact on the family life is a lot more than what people think and I don't know, if you speak that, you can speak to that. But I certainly want to mention that too, because I'm sure your husband does a 24, he's stuck on a 48. He gets home he's not like, hey babe, hi kids, let's go do this. I mean, he's junk.

Speaker 3:

I think we've had 75, 80 hours in a row before. You know, and I I think like I mean even if you think of like some departments that are really busy, where you know it's a typical Tuesday to do, say, 27 calls in a 24 hour period of time. Think about that. Think, think about you have 24 hours and you have 26, 27 calls. That's straight through. You're not sleeping and then you're forced in, you're on a now a 48 doing the same exact thing. That's not healthy at all on the body, on the family. You're. It's just creating so many issues and absolutely there's like resentments at home from the spouse, from the kids. It's unfortunate and I wish there's. You know, more departments would be like oh yeah, we should probably staff more so we don't end up having this issue, um, or again have the opposite. We just pick up overtime so we don't have to like deal with the problems. That's not healthy either. It's just layers and layers of problems and I'm sure you see it yourself.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know jane didn't take that overtime and john didn't take that overtime, so fuck them. I know I'm gonna get, they're gonna get forced, so fuck them. Also, the in in fighting within departments is absolutely fucking bonkers to me. But that's just what. I want to mention that, because that happens a lot. Oh, aaron didn't do, didn't take the overtime, so now I'm forced for 48 when she's going to be wanting me to take overtime. Screw her and I. That's.

Speaker 2:

The other part too is that I, as I understand you're part of a team and communicate. The other part, too, is not only about your mental health, but you know, part of mental health is to communicate with your partner. You know what? I'm being forced on a 48. If I get three or four hours, can we still go to John Doe's party or can we still go on the lake or whatever. I think that there's also something that's not encouraged is that the communication. I was forced on a 48 while the spouse is sitting there going forced 48 with two calls or forced 48 with 27 calls and 27 calls. They're not all uh, cardiacs, by the way, and they're not all fires, just for everyone who doesn't know. But you know, even if you do transport 27 times, even in a 48 hour span, you're not really up to going to John's party where everyone's going. Hey, where's your worst call you ever got? And no one wants to talk about that shit, but anyway that's just my two sets on.

Speaker 2:

That's my political side, but you're right that happens?

Speaker 3:

absolutely it does, and it you know, I think, being able to kind of communicate again, like not, you know tell, you don't have to like tell every single detail, but like, hey, like, did you have a lot of calls? Is it a busy shift overnight, was it, you know, like decent calls or was it the dumb calls? And you know like the dumb calls? Is the person that sprained their toe four days ago and needed an ambulance at 2 am? You know things like that. But I think, either way, like they're still getting up, the sleep's still disrupted, they still gotta write a report. You know, like that that stuff adds up, you know. So I think, again, it's such a multi-level thing where you've got one that affects the other, that affects the other, that affects the other, and either way it all comes home.

Speaker 2:

It does and that's why I think that it's important, because it brings home or you hold it in and then you put the pressure on mental health and you know it's a great way to fall asleep.

Speaker 2:

Alcohol makes me sleep right away oh yeah, yeah, and you know, we, we didn't touch too much on addiction. But addiction is also something that happens a lot because they, you know well, I need to stay awake, so I'll take adderall, or I need to relax. Let me pop a benzo and uh, alcohol. And again, I'm not attacking every single one. What are we?

Speaker 2:

or weed the, the chewies, as I've heard and talked about with some people. But the bottom line is that we don't talk about that stuff and while it may not start off as problematic and again for those of you who are not in this world, not every first responder does that it's not what I'm implying. I'm implying that it does come up that way, you know, and that, no, I don't have a problem. I'm just, you know, smoking weed every night to go to sleep. Well, that seems problematic if you can't stop, or I got to drink my drink when I get home in order to sleep, but then you certainly don't sleep. You stay up and you play video games or you talk, you shoot the shit with the neighbor, but ultimately, I think that's another part that we don't talk about in the first respond in the world there's an addiction issue that comes up.

Speaker 3:

Right, yeah, and it comes up far more frequently and I think even you know, I know about you as like a therapist. It's like I always kind of hate having my ear open for different types of addictions and I think there's that fine line to within the culture of first responders that there it is cultural for drinking. But there's also the point of when does it become a problem? And I think that's always like a can be a challenge to kind of tease out, to figure out what's problem drinking and what's drinking culturally, socially, um. So I think there's that that line. That's always, you know, it's a very fine line to walk because you know people have other coping skills. That's great.

Speaker 3:

If their coping skill is, you know, hanging out with Jack Daniels, not so great, we've got to talk about that. So I think there's always that that line of what's social, what's not. And there's some that like that, like is this, you're not quite sure, you kind of have to stay with it, but you end up seeing that it's not and it's just kind of a social thing, that that's okay, you know it. It's more, when is it becoming problematic? And if you're coming home and just drinking to forget it's a problem that's exactly what I was going to mention about coping mechanism.

Speaker 2:

You know I mean drinking, so to me, I look at the substance use as if it's a coping mechanism. So if you socially drink and you go out with the boys and you drink four or five because that's what you do, or the girls, right, okay, I get that, that's just one night and that's not a problem. But now becomes like I need it every night or I need it every time I go out in order to deal with the anxiety of talking to people or what have you. I think it's not uncommon to see that and it's important to look at it as the coping mechanism versus socialization. Some of you guys can drink socially a lot and that's great and congratulations. I cannot, and I think that that's just and congratulations I cannot. Um, I, and I think that that's just my choice, but I think it's because of my coping mechanisms in the past. I mean, I'm truthful with my clients and disclosure.

Speaker 3:

I think we one of the things I always mention is disclosing to your clients real stuff, particularly in the first responder world goes very, very, very very it's so different from, I think, just other populations of of you know again like you're still like thinking ethically right, but I think you have to have a little piece into you because otherwise why would they talk to you?

Speaker 3:

they're not gonna, they're not gonna, you know, I mean even my office, but my office office, this is my home office. Like I, I have things in there that you know show. Hey, like this, this is who I am I've talked about, like my coping skills, and I I mean sure I'd, you know, love to have a drink every so often I tend to be like more on the allergic side or I just fall asleep after a few sips, so I'm not really that much fun drunk. It's just cheaper. But yeah, sure you know. But again, it's figuring out that line of what's a coping mechanism. And you know, sometimes I think they can be blurred to like guys who like to go golfing but they're drinking on the course the whole time. Ok, so yeah, you've got a coping mechanism of golf, but how much of it is also that it becomes like beer pong where you're, then you know it's blurry and the drunker you get, the better you get. Like we got to. You know, tease that stuff out. But if you have other coping mechanisms like you like going hiking, like you know, you like the gym, like I don't know, like CrossFit or you like going fishing or you know doing any of these other things, okay, that's great. Let's do more of that.

Speaker 3:

I know when I started using EMDR I've been able to really kind of get more of those coping skills driven in. There's this one phase of EMDR that we look at resourcing, and resourcing is what are healthier ways that we can they call it, install like really kind of remember, get used to using, use repeatedly, so you build mastery over it, that that becomes your new coping mechanism. Maybe you don't need to drink as much. You know you have a difficult session. All right, I'm going to go for a hike afterwards. That's how you cope and that's how you decompress. That's a great thing I love about EMDR where it does give try this, oh, this didn't work, let's cross this out. You can totally do that. But if there's other things you enjoy doing, do that. It doesn't have to be anything overly complicated either.

Speaker 2:

No, and I think that that's the other part too with EMDR. I think that the resourcing, while it can be done within the EMDR session, I believe in the pre and post EMDR sessions of resourcing individuals. I think, EMDR itself and yes, I'm not going to be liked by some people. Emdr itself cannot help you if you're not resourced previously and post.

Speaker 3:

You have to be prepared. You absolutely have to be prepared, because there's, I think, a lot of people that you know you can take it in off the street and sure you can do EMDR and it's great. But I think there's also a lot of people that you know you can take it in off the street and sure you can do EMDR and it's great. But I think there's also a lot of people that need that prep work before they can even get to that point, because you have to be really comfortable with being uncomfortable for quite a long time. And are there people that you know take forever avoiding doing EMDR because that's what they come in for? Absolutely there are.

Speaker 3:

But I think that there's a lot of folks that they need just regular like cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, building some of those skills too before getting into it. You know, and I think sometimes that you know, ratio can be half and half, sometimes it can be more, sometimes it can be less. It really just truly depends on the client. I mean, if I have folks that like call me up and just want to do EMDR, I'll do just EMDR, but if they also are not like remotely ready, I'm going to assess that too, and there's some that it takes convincing to do EMDR, like, hey, I got this cool voodoo tool, let's try it, and they push it off or avoid it.

Speaker 3:

But there's some that just have no interest in it, and that's fine too. You know, I think it's great, you know where it needs to be and I've had great, great luck with it for folks that have had a lot of especially like in my certification process single critical incidents that it was, you know, something big that occurred, whether it be like, you know, like a newsworthy type thing or not. Come to me, they do the sessions and they feel amazing and that's all they need, because they've got all of these regular coping mechanisms, they've got a support system. It just this is a hiccup and they needed to work on it. You know I've had others that they come and we need to build that rapport before they even want to talk to me about anything.

Speaker 2:

Right and for me that's how I deal with it. It's like we build a rapport before I decide EMDR or not. And maybe you have a critical single incident that you can do the EMDR, which is amazing. But if everyone who want to go on YouTube, if you open another channel of something else, then simple EMDR probably won't be enough. But if it's like you saw XYZ didn't make the news. Maybe it did, doesn't matter. You deal with that. And then you're like there's nothing else attached to, it's just what. It is all right.

Speaker 2:

Single EMDR will absolutely work otherwise, and my experience is that it's never about that one thing oh, it's so many things they branch off so I always go like let's give you skills so that when you're done with EMDR because the first few sessions for me, I always find that people leave and go well, I'm all fucked up and I'm like, yeah, that's why we gave you skills before we, and then they get better, and then we resource them and we challenged them. And then, on the other side, most of my clients come in every two to three weeks, maybe four weeks after that. Sometimes people just go, but for the most part I try to hold them at least for a few sessions before they go on their merry way. Absolutely, but I look at the time right now, erin, and I want to make sure that we are respectful of your time and my time. But how will people reach you in general? Would they go to your website? Would they go to anything else?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, they can definitely go to my website, wwwbeautifullyunbrokencounselingcom. I do have a little form on there that if you know you're interested in counseling, send the form, and I prefer the form. Or you could even just email me from my website as well, just so I we can set up a time to have a phone chat. Um, because what I find is we'll play phone tag for weeks at a time and it goes nowhere. So if we can at least set up a time to do like a 10, 15 minute just phone consult, that always works. And my email is my name, erin Sheridan at beautifullyunbrokencounselingcom. I do have Instagram and Facebook for my practice. I do not, for the life of me, remember what the handles are. I don't update it that much. I don't have time to update it that much, but if you type in my practice name, I'm sure it will come up.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I like to read your LinkedIn because I feel like you do that really well. So thank you, yes.

Speaker 3:

I am on LinkedIn. I just discovered that recently I was like oh, this is pretty cool, it's like social media, but for networking. I I was like Ooh, this is pretty cool, it's like social media, but for networking. I'm a bit behind on the times, apparently.

Speaker 2:

Well, anyway, I do, and I I've reposted your stuff a few times. I enjoy seeing Aaron there. But, aaron, looking forward to more meetings together and chit chatting, and, yeah, it comes September, I think that when this comes out, you'll be coming over to my office for the first time doing the meeting here, so can't wait yeah, I'm excited for it.

Speaker 3:

I will bake this time. I'm not, you know, coming home the night before for vacation, so that was your excuse the last time.

Speaker 2:

It's not gonna fly I know I had no food in my house that I got home late well, whether you bring food or not, I'll be happy to see you, but I know we'll talk before that, and thank you so much for being on the show, and to everyone else, I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you join us for episode 224.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.

People on this episode

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Steve Bisson

Host
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Courtney Romanowski

Co-host
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Erin Sheridan

Guest