THE DALLES — A sergeant, a certified drug counselor, a Forest Service patrol officer and parent of an autistic child sat together to tell their stories.
About 30 first responders attended the 40-hour training on crisis intervention last month to help people in mental health crises, reducing the need for arrests and force, and increasing access to care, according to organizers. The lived experience panel gave the students a first-hand perspective.
The counselor experienced alcohol addiction. “I started as a peer. Before that, I was a client. ... I get to offer empathy born of lived experience.”
She emphasized alcohol’s progressive nature. “Slowly the cracks deepen until everything just starts to come apart. With methamphetamines, fentanyl, we can see that pretty quick. With alcohol it tends to be slower, but it happens. For years, I managed my life on the outside while silently drowning on the inside, but eventually the disease caught up with me.”
That spiral ended her 25-year-marriage to a police officer. “My addiction collided head-on with his badge,” she said.
“...his sense of self was completely wrapped up in that badge. I remember asking him once, ‘Who are you without the badge?’ He didn’t have an answer ... As an officer, my drinking felt like disrespect, like weakness, like something I should be able to stop if I truly loved him, and that misunderstanding created a painful silence between us.
The turning point was when she realized “if I didn’t choose recovery, I wasn’t going to have a life left to salvage.”
She also recalled a sympathetic paramedic. “He didn’t shame me. ... He simply spoke to me with compassion. ... that one human exchange, it stayed with me long after the IVs, long after the withdrawal and long after the hospital stay. Reminded me that I was still worth something, and that recovery was possible.”
“You may be the first person someone encounters at the lowest point of their life,” she told the class. “Your tone, your body language, your words, whether compassionate or dismissive, stay with people long after the crisis ends. You don’t have to fix everything. You don’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to have all the answers, but you have the power to be the opposite of shame.”
The mother of an autistic 35-year-old spoke next.
“She can cook for herself, and she can wash her clothes, but she cannot live on her own,” said the mother, whose daughter lacks a healthy sense of fear. “She walks up to strangers, and she thinks everybody can be trusted. ... She’s 35 but mentally, I think she’s about 13 because she’s hit the age where she knows everything.”
Like other such children, she can experience “meltdowns.” Her mother said, “the reason they’re acting out ... is they can’t verbalize what’s bothering them. ... they’re not doing it on purpose.”
Autistic persons may be so excited to speak with an officer, they don’t hear a word that’s said. “It can make you very angry; and in a law enforcement [situation] — or even for a fireman or a paramedic — ... that’s where they have a problem.” And if you leap into an emergency and try to change an autist’s routine, “they’re going to want to know why!”
The mother suggested officers talk quietly, give personal space, and avoid loud noise and bright lights. “Always defer, always redirect, always try to get their attention onto what you’re wanting them to do, not talking about what they don’t want to do.”
A police sergeant who’s worked in law enforcement since 1993 remembered the stigma around mental health help early in his career.
It started with a shooting, where he killed a person. “And at first, I was given medals, ... thanked by everyone around me. I did the right thing, all that. ... in the first two weeks, it was like, almost like a dream world. Maybe I was in shock or something.” He got “pretty significant” mental health issues months later. He tried to hand his badge and gun to his boss and quit. Instead, his boss got him help.
It didn’t end there. “I was that guy that would want to say, ‘Let me do it so you don’t get damaged,’” he recalled. “...I put myself in some pretty bad situations.” Along the way, he got therapy in secret, but word got back. “Back in the day, it wasn’t accepted.”
First responders have very high rates of PTSD and trauma. He’s seen coworkers brought down by it. “I’ve watched other law enforcement offers that I know pretty well, decent dudes, get caught up in booze and pills and just dwindle away, or they’re on parole,” he said.
Start self-care and hobbies — “Healthy hobbies, that aren’t cop-related,” he told the class. “That, and take time for your family.”
Stigma is better now. “I doubt that if you do get help, that it might stint your career, because it might. But will you make it to the end? You will. Will you keep living? Yes. Will you have a healthy relationship, finally? Yes, you will. Is that more important in life? Yes, it is.”
Then a Forest Service patrol officer shared his experience of depression.
“I grew up in a generation where boys ... didn’t talk about feelings,” he began.
“...then when I was 13, I survived childhood sexual trauma, and I never told anybody, because I didn’t know how; I never shared that, but I internally blamed myself for not being tough enough.”
He joined the army, became a Green Beret at 27, was a special forces sergeant for seven years, deployed to Iraq three times and as military police twice. “I knew stress. I was used to stress. It was not a big thing.”
Next, he joined the National Nuclear Security Agency, transporting 40 nukes on I-84 over two years. “I knew stress. I was used to it,” he repeated. “And then I transferred to the US Forest Service. And within four years, I was driving around looking to die by suicide, because I could not handle the stress of being alone.” He patrolled 350,000 acres alone.
Just then, cops were “despised throughout the country ... I was listening to the news in my truck for six, seven hours a day.”
Six months later, Dr. Gil Martin gave a training on emotional survival for law enforcement. “He literally saved my life.” Later, he started a peer support group that became regional. “... if you don’t have a peer support group in your agency? Talk to your agency and make one.”
He now plays techno instead of news, with 245 days to retirement...
... Not that he’s counting...
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