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I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast

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that is Transcend.

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Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did

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for 14 years.

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Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,

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hair loss, etc.

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Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have

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seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely

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incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left, right

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and center.

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So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology

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and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down

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my throat.

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Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason

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why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.

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They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first

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responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.

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So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood

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drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they

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guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.

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In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been

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very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.

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So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology

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knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.

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Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies

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they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.

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So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,

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but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.

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So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that

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you can't come back from.

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So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely

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one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.

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So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the

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Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.

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This episode is sponsored by TeamBuildr, yet another company that's doing great things

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for the first responder community.

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As a strength and conditioning coach myself, who also trains tactical athletes, dissemination

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of wellness information is one of the biggest challenges.

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Now TeamBuildr is the premier strength and conditioning software for tactical athletes.

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And there are several features that really impressed me.

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Firstly, there is a full exercise library.

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So you, the personal trainer does not have to create that within your own department.

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Secondly, you can send out programming, but also individualize, which I love.

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So you blanket program for everyone.

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Now you can tweak based on someone's injury, someone's need to maybe drop some body composition

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rather than having to write a program for every single person on their own.

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Team Builder also allows you to build custom questionnaires to collate health and wellness

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data.

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It integrates with wearables.

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And I think one of the most important things is obviously it tracks.

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To me, it's imperative that we as a profession start tracking our people from day one and

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then over the full span of their career.

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Therefore catching potential wellness issues and injuries before they happen.

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Now if you want to try TeamBuildr, they are offering you, the audience of the Behind

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the Shield podcast, a free 14 day trial to experience all of the features.

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And if you want to take a deeper dive into Team Builder, listen to episode 1032 with

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Melissa Mercado or go to teambuildr.com and I'll spell that to you because it's not as

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you think.

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T-E-A-M-B-U-I-L-D-R.com.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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My name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show

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veteran firefighter and paramedic Keith Hanks.

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Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from Keith's early life, entering

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the fire service at a very young age, the loss of his first wife in a tragic car accident,

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his powerful mental health story, post-traumatic growth, his book, Alan, a firefighter's journey

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and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week, please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier

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for others to find.

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And this is a free library of over 1,000 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Keith Hanks.

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Well Keith, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming

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on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Awesome.

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Thanks for having me James.

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I appreciate it.

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I'm looking forward to our conversation.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?

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This afternoon I am home in the little borough of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, which if you look

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at a map and you look up the second most hiked mountain in the world, Mount Monadnock, I

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live two miles from the base of it.

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Is that something that you hike a lot yourself then?

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I have not undertaken that task.

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It is supposedly a very tough hike, which is why it's the second most hiked in the world.

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I do hike mountains.

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I do hike outdoor trails and stuff, but I have not undertaken that yet, but it is on

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my to do list.

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Gotcha.

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All right.

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Well, let's start at the very beginning of your timeline then.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings?

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Awesome.

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So to start with, I was born down in Massachusetts, not far from where I reside now.

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In a smaller town, a medium sized town, probably about eight thousand people.

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My family comes from a very long line of firefighting and military routes, in particular, my mother's

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side, where I could trace back the firefighting routes to 1875.

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So there's been a member of my, at least one member of my family on the job since then.

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And then military goes back as far as civil war on both sides of my family.

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So grew up as an only child upbringing was a little disciplined, to say the least, given

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where the family came from.

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I always joke that I was potty trained at gunpoint, which is funny to joke about now,

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but it was pretty strict.

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It wasn't a lot of emotion.

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The dynamic was pretty, you know, pretty strong with, you know, kind of suck it up.

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We don't cry.

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You're a boy.

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And my parents, my parents separated when I was very young.

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They separated when I was about three, got divorced by the time I was five.

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My dad was out of the picture by the time I was five and a half.

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And my childhood was extremely rough and riddled with all forms of abuse, including sexual

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abuse and psychological.

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I got bullied in school a lot.

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So I kind of kind of went through a lot as a kid in sort of a cliche broken home, if

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you will, which sort of sets the stage for, you know, stuff later on in life.

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Well before we dive into that, because I think this is an important conversation, you know,

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what happened before we put the uniform on is a very under discussed element of first

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responders mental health.

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But huge when you've learned about the generations prior that were in the fire service, what

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are some cool stories that you heard, whether it was the apparatus, the gear they wore,

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the calls that they were on?

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It was a, it was a lot of different stuff.

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You know, when I, when I first, before I got on, leading up to the time I got on, you know,

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most of the members of my family all had the long coats and the hip boots.

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You know, they had their night, what they called night hitch at the time, because they

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only wore it at night, the turnout pants.

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But there was the department, my family was on all had the frontline engines were all

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wrist up a true wrist up like on the tailboard, you know, canvas cover over your head in the

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winter kind of shit.

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And there was all sorts of stories.

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It was me witnessing my family in particular, my uncle's, you know, riding off to a fire

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on the back of these things.

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Well, I still like his heroic without saying hero stories.

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But I remember I remember growing up hearing a story of I had three uncles on my mother's

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side.

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One of my uncles, my oldest uncle Chuckie, who was on the job in the mid to late 70s

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of a there was a mob related hit at one of the pizza shops in the town where they model

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toft the joint because someone didn't pay the grocery bill or something.

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I don't know.

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And they were wearing hip boots at the time.

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It was February.

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It was very cold.

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It was, you know, like subarticulars to England.

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And he ended up getting water in his boot, which back then anyone who's ever wore hip

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boots, those things could they could you could put a fish tank in them and they would retain

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water as much as repel water from the outside.

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And he ended up almost losing his leg because of it.

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And I was always so just kind of blown away.

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I don't know why.

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Even to this day, I don't know why.

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But it was always so blown away by like the story of like, hey, you went to fight a fire

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and you're in your boot filled up with water and you almost lost your leg just fighting

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the fire.

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It was always one of those things that I held on to.

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And then when I get on my front line gear was obviously bunker pants and a long coat.

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But my secondary backup was a pair of hip boots.

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And because I got on in 96 and the department was still using those.

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And so I was always leery in the winter months when I had to wear those hip boots being like,

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OK, don't get any fucking water in these boots.

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Don't want to end up like the family.

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You know, don't need to repeat that.

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It's interesting.

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I've touched on this a few times.

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It's a very unpopular conversation.

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But when you look at what we wear, especially the helmet, people will say, oh, it's fire

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service tradition.

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And I say, bullshit.

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If you were truly embedded in tradition, then we'd still be using steamers pulled by horses

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and you'd be wearing, you know, you just have a big beard and a brass helmet and you'd be

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running it in your in your business suit.

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If we're going that far back, there's a certain point where technology is in place, where

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something else is just better.

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And I think that some of the resistance to changing our gear really is a great example

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of the same resistance when it comes to, for example, talking about mental health.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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And you know, I'm someone who who always had, you know, that traditional leather helmet

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when I was on the job.

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You know, it was every one of my family did.

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So I was kind of got it.

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But as time went on, I realized that, you know, yeah, this you can be as traditional

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as you want.

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But at some point, you got to think about safety and functionality and everything else.

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And now these days we have what we got all the car citizens they're putting in our in

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our gear.

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And it's just it's just crazy tradition.

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Traditionalism going gets you so far.

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And in this job, if you don't change and you're you're set this you're setting yourself up

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for a failure.

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Absolutely.

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Well, I've said there's tradition and there's history.

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And what we wear is clothing, it's PPE.

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So that's not tradition.

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There's nothing traditional about this type of helmet or these type of boots.

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That's literally what you're wearing.

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And you don't see the Navy SEALs wearing tin helmets.

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There's a reason for that because they want to be the best at killing the enemy.

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We want to be the best at killing the fire.

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So to me, that kind of distorted mentality is stopping you from being a better firefighter.

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Tradition is courage and teamwork and selflessness and camaraderie and service, though that's

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tradition in the fire service.

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The other things are clothes.

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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And I agree with that.

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100% say all that was embedded in me from from birth, you know, you know, pacifier,

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I went here and, you know, two and a half inch nozzle and the other it was it was grew

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up around the firehouse and it was just all these stories of quote unquote tradition.

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And and you know, like you said, the brotherhood and the camaraderie and all that was it was

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the the good points of my childhood growing up was with all the stories and being around

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the firehouse.

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So I hold on to those.

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Absolutely.

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Well, what about with this 2024 lens that you have now, when you reflect back on some

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of your family members that were in this profession, did you see either the physical impact of

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the job and or the mental health impact?

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There was both.

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Yep.

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There was alcoholism in both sides of my family, in particular the side and my mother's side

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with the job.

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And then, you know, you you pick up back then, you just kind of played it off as, oh, this

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is just my family.

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This is the dynamic, you know, whether it was the anger, whether it was a lack of emotions,

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whether it was, you know, the overzealous discipline, whatever it was, you just as a

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kid, you just play it off as this is just my life.

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Every kid must go through this, even if their their family is in the fire service and the

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fire department is in the fire department.

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They must go through this.

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Looking back on it, I know it was definitely different, but in particular, the physical

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part took its toll on my family.

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My one of my youngest uncle, who's only 10 years older than me, he was on the job for

236
00:13:49,560 --> 00:13:54,340
just about 30 years and he ended up getting cancer twice, all job related.

237
00:13:54,340 --> 00:14:00,680
And my other uncle ended up getting a form of emphysema caused by his time on the job

238
00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:01,680
as well.

239
00:14:01,680 --> 00:14:07,880
So just on and never mind, never mind the weight loss or gain or knee and back injuries

240
00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:09,680
that everyone had.

241
00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:11,280
Bad backs, bad shoulders and all that.

242
00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:15,360
I mean, that that was just riddled through my family.

243
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:17,840
And you always just you always just attribute it to old age.

244
00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:22,080
But then as you get on the job and you do it yourself and you hit 30 and you're like,

245
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:27,280
wow, I'm I'm a beaten horse and I'm in pretty good shape.

246
00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:30,040
You realize that a lot of things that you weren't paying attention to as a kid that

247
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:33,120
you were like, holy crap, my family's a firefighters, you know, all this.

248
00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:38,560
A lot of it was taken as toll, both mentally and especially, especially physically, but

249
00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:39,560
both really.

250
00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:41,960
Yeah, it's definitely amplified.

251
00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:43,320
I've made this comment a lot.

252
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:47,120
You know, we had this conversation where it seems police fire EMS.

253
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:52,880
There's a pretty solid acknowledgement, even though there's been no real studies that a

254
00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:56,120
lot of us will pass away within five years of retirement.

255
00:14:56,120 --> 00:15:00,560
I think what makes that even more scary is if you think about the men and women that

256
00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:06,000
stand on the grinder and on the drill ground the first day of whatever academy, arguably

257
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,760
at some of the most resilient fit men and women of your community.

258
00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:11,640
So they should be living a lot longer.

259
00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:15,560
They should be in much better health at 30 at 40 years old.

260
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:21,080
But the way that we work a lot of our first responders at the moment isn't looking at

261
00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:25,320
performance, isn't looking at injury mitigation, isn't looking at resilience mentally and

262
00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:26,320
physically.

263
00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:32,360
Now, as we sit here, if you listen to a fitness conversation, it will be about just getting

264
00:15:32,360 --> 00:15:33,920
firefighters moving.

265
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:38,440
If you listen to a nutrition conversation, just try and eat less fast food.

266
00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:42,000
And you listen to go into a Delta team room and they're going to be strength and conditioning

267
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:46,440
and mobility and elite performance and nutrition and supplementation.

268
00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:52,000
And we're so far from that, but both professions are held to the same standard.

269
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Lives depend on us.

270
00:15:53,720 --> 00:15:56,920
So that shouldn't be accepted.

271
00:15:56,920 --> 00:16:02,560
The two divorces and alcoholism that we joke about, we've got to take a step back and go,

272
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:03,560
that's not right.

273
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:05,720
And at 30 years old, you shouldn't be falling apart.

274
00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:06,720
No.

275
00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:10,240
And that's something we shouldn't be handing down to the next generation.

276
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:14,960
And it is most of those, that meme that's out there with all those things, you should

277
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,540
have IBS, two divorces, all this other crap.

278
00:16:17,540 --> 00:16:20,880
The only part of those, that list that's actually true is, yeah, you should have a pretty dark

279
00:16:20,880 --> 00:16:23,080
sense of humor because we see some pretty dark shit.

280
00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:25,960
But that's the only one that's probably not changeable.

281
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:28,880
All the rest are within your control if you actually take hold of it.

282
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:32,920
And going on what you were talking about with like, you know, the after retirement, dying

283
00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:35,640
within a very short period of time.

284
00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:38,960
One of the most interesting conversations I ever listened to was at a conference that

285
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:41,040
I was keynote at outside of Boston.

286
00:16:41,040 --> 00:16:43,040
And there was a cardiologist that was there.

287
00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:47,240
This was through first responder conferences with Sean Thomas.

288
00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:50,200
There was a cardiologist that I can't remember for the life of me what his name was, but

289
00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:55,280
he was speaking about the studies and the research they were doing regarding police

290
00:16:55,280 --> 00:17:01,640
officers and firefighters and dying after retirement after anything more than 15 years.

291
00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:05,680
And basically what he said was cops were dying within two to four, they had about two to

292
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,920
four years, a window on average of when they were dropping after.

293
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:12,360
And firefighters were about three to five, not a huge window.

294
00:17:12,360 --> 00:17:15,440
And the study they were doing, it wasn't the fat guy.

295
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:18,360
It wasn't the 300 pound guy that was dying.

296
00:17:18,360 --> 00:17:19,360
Not all the time.

297
00:17:19,360 --> 00:17:25,680
It's these disease, other markers in our cardiac system, apparently that aren't picked up on

298
00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:27,040
on your normal.

299
00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:29,360
They don't test for because of insurance reasons.

300
00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:33,320
They don't check for when you go in for your routine checkups, when you get older and you

301
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:37,960
start having cardiac exams, they don't check for them because of something to do with insurance.

302
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:42,240
Well, these things are hidden in some of the most physically fit people.

303
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:46,800
And they're finding with this study that it isn't just, you know, Mr. 350 pounds, that's

304
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:52,040
no longer getting his, you know, 5000 steps a day at the firehouse.

305
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:56,760
It's the guy who's got a, you know, six percent body fat, who's been doing, you know, 400

306
00:17:56,760 --> 00:17:59,240
pushups a day since he was 22.

307
00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:04,760
That's dropping because of these markers that have a tie to, you know, the long term stress

308
00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:10,120
we're being subjected to and not being taught how to correctly handle.

309
00:18:10,120 --> 00:18:12,680
And it was just a very interesting conversation for life.

310
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:14,360
I wish I knew his name.

311
00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:15,920
Yeah, it's fascinating.

312
00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:18,640
But it just aligns with what I talk about a lot these days.

313
00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,280
And I'm not saying that I'm an expert because I'm not.

314
00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:22,040
I just interview the experts.

315
00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:27,040
But when you listen to what happens when you don't sleep on everything, physical health,

316
00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:30,120
mental health, you know, injury, all the things, it's everything.

317
00:18:30,120 --> 00:18:34,560
So if you think about it, and I was, you know, the same and I'm sure you were too, you're

318
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:37,040
a driven firefighter.

319
00:18:37,040 --> 00:18:40,440
So you know, you're working all these hours that they're putting us through, but you're

320
00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:44,280
still making sure that you work out and you're still pulling hose and climbing the aerial

321
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:48,400
and doing extra classes on the side, you know, tech classes and VMR.

322
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:53,680
And that's that's that load that you're adding and adding to be the best first responder.

323
00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:58,040
But you're not getting the rest and recovery that an athlete would have to offset that.

324
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:01,640
So this is like the, you know, the rock hammer and the Shawshank.

325
00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:04,720
It's just slowly chipping away, chipping away, chipping away.

326
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:07,800
And this is why I always say firefighters don't die of one thing.

327
00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:09,200
They die of everything.

328
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:13,820
Whatever that weak link is, it's the, you know, the susceptibility to cancer.

329
00:19:13,820 --> 00:19:15,640
It's the mental health spiral down.

330
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:19,780
It's the catastrophic back injury, whatever it is that will get you.

331
00:19:19,780 --> 00:19:23,080
So this is why, you know, they say, oh, it's always the fit people that get hurt.

332
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:25,320
Yes, there's science behind that.

333
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:29,800
If you take your job seriously and you train and you don't get the rest and recovery, ultimately

334
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:30,800
you will get hurt.

335
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:34,720
And you could even have some arrhythmia or some, you know, terminal event.

336
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:35,720
Exactly.

337
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:39,480
You know, and I think upon the mental health aspect that we're starting to chip away at

338
00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:44,240
now, I think sleep is right up there, if not the most important subject that needs to be

339
00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:48,880
spoken about in the first response was particularly fire DMS because we, we work longer shifts

340
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,300
and we sleep, quote unquote, sleep at the stations or whatnot.

341
00:19:52,300 --> 00:19:56,020
They need the harp on it and they need to do better with these schedules and, and making

342
00:19:56,020 --> 00:20:00,440
it so these men and women are recovering in between.

343
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:01,440
Absolutely.

344
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:09,480
Well, you mentioned about, you know, all the different abuse areas that you were exposed

345
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:10,480
to.

346
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:14,000
One of those, I touched on before, one of the things that's really sad is a lot of us,

347
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:18,280
when we get into the profession, they assume that we're a blank canvas and oh, you got

348
00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:22,120
PTSD because you were on that call with that, you know, decapitated three year old or whatever

349
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:23,120
it was.

350
00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:27,920
But so many people, I know, especially people that went through an extremely dark place,

351
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,680
there is a lot of trauma in their early life.

352
00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:35,760
And when you start unpacking it, you know, if you've got sexual abuse or you just simply,

353
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:38,680
you know, one parent left, you know, when you were five and they were like, well, why

354
00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:39,680
am I not good enough?

355
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:44,860
I mean, all these different areas that compound as an extremely important conversation when

356
00:20:44,860 --> 00:20:48,680
it comes to anyone's mental health, especially in a profession where then you're going to

357
00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:52,700
be exposed to shift work and trauma and all the things.

358
00:20:52,700 --> 00:20:58,560
So when you look back now, what were the different kind of, you know, death by a thousand cuts,

359
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:04,440
what were the traumas as a vulnerable little child that started compounding and already

360
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:08,840
fracturing your foundation before you put the uniform on?

361
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:10,520
There was a lot, you know, there was a lot.

362
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:14,360
And when, you know, I ended up writing my book, Alan, I spent the first three chapters

363
00:21:14,360 --> 00:21:17,280
before I even get to age 18 because it's just so much.

364
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:18,600
And I did that for a reason.

365
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:24,240
And you just touched on it, that so many of us in the first responder world have, you

366
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:28,120
know, unresolved, specifically childhood trauma that we carry until we get to the job.

367
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:34,640
And a lot of us end up on the job because we want to help the next person.

368
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,800
And it's not just, hey, I want to be a fighter because I want to help people.

369
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:40,040
We specifically want to help people because of what we went through and no one helped

370
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:41,040
us.

371
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,960
And for me, a lot of what I went through was a lot.

372
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:50,240
There was a lot of psychological warfare in my household, in particular with my with my

373
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:52,760
mother, who was very upset after my father left.

374
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:57,240
And when he left, he wasn't in the picture, didn't help out with child support.

375
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,160
So it was a very hard time.

376
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:02,440
I didn't realize it, you know, maybe then.

377
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:08,560
But obviously reflecting back, there was a lot of manipulation and almost like brainwashing

378
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:16,800
going on that that led to the mold that I became as a man, where where I was making

379
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:21,420
decisions based on the things that were done to me as a kid.

380
00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:23,000
And a lot of this just added up.

381
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,240
I mean, we had, you know, the psychological warfare that I spoke about, there was the

382
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:30,680
physical abuse that was happening when I was going to school because I was just that kid

383
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:36,040
who was so beaten down from what I was going through at home that I was a target at school

384
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:41,200
to the sexual abuse and molestation and even rape that I went through by family members,

385
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:46,520
which compounded just everything, which led to such unresolved guilt and shame that I

386
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:52,000
carried to the job that, of course, when I get on the job and we don't have that outcome

387
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:56,640
that we all want, it amplifies that guilt and shame where so many of us find ourselves

388
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:58,120
falling into like a trap.

389
00:22:58,120 --> 00:23:02,840
And a lot of that, not every time, but a lot of that comes back to what we go through as

390
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,400
a kid.

391
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:08,520
The unresolved stuff that we weren't allowed to talk about, that we never felt comfortable

392
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:12,560
approaching another adult in our life about that carries until we start putting on that

393
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:14,400
badge every day.

394
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:17,760
And then we start seeing this shit from a different perspective.

395
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:22,680
And it's compounding our traumas that are sitting back there and have gone nowhere.

396
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:27,160
Just festering, waiting for something to give us some gasoline.

397
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:31,240
And our job does that.

398
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:36,200
When you were going through those childhood years, when you look back, what were the coping

399
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:38,120
mechanisms that you were leaning into?

400
00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:43,080
Were you just shoving it all down or were there any other things that when you reflect

401
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:47,240
back now, you're like, oh, okay, that was probably me trying to offload or trying to

402
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,120
feel secure during those vulnerable times?

403
00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:54,200
The biggest thing for me was avoidance.

404
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,720
And none of the coping mechanisms I had as a kid were healthy.

405
00:23:57,720 --> 00:23:58,800
It was the 80s.

406
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:00,080
We didn't know a lot about this shit.

407
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:01,080
No one was talking about it.

408
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:02,080
I avoided a lot of stuff.

409
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,680
And one of the ways I avoided was initially I would dive into comic books.

410
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:07,680
Imagination was my escape.

411
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:12,320
Comic books, video games, if I could escape it, yeah, I was stuffing it down.

412
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:13,600
I was stuffing it down hardcore.

413
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,760
But if I could escape it, I could make it through the next day.

414
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:24,440
Take some more, take a break, read some comics, whatever, escape.

415
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:29,040
But eventually as I went into my teenage years, and I think most teenagers eventually get

416
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:33,440
involved in alcohol, I think for the most part we all go to parties.

417
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:38,080
But I was drinking quite a bit as a 15 plus year old.

418
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:41,160
And I was doing it because it helped me not feel things.

419
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,200
It pushed the memories, it made the memories blurry.

420
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:49,320
So they weren't right here all the time causing me to have nightmares every single night.

421
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,840
When I drank as a teenager, 15, 18 or whatever, I was able to relax.

422
00:24:53,840 --> 00:25:01,500
I was able to not be that abused kid for a night, for a couple nights.

423
00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:03,440
So none of the coping was healthy.

424
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:09,540
I had a very small circle of friends to which when I was with, I knew I was safe.

425
00:25:09,540 --> 00:25:13,960
A lot of that, especially again, those teenage years, they encouraged the drinking.

426
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:21,280
And obviously it wasn't for the best reasons, but it did give me a break during those years.

427
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:22,800
What about sports and exercise?

428
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,320
What were you playing and doing when you were in the school age?

429
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,880
I tried football.

430
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:33,680
And I say this as kind of a joke, but it was a little too touchy feely for me by the coaches.

431
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,840
There was a lot of ass grabbing that I didn't approve of.

432
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:41,160
And it kind of set me off because of what I had been through.

433
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:43,120
And so I didn't really do sports.

434
00:25:43,120 --> 00:25:44,600
I wasn't a sports guy.

435
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:45,600
I was very tall.

436
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:46,600
I'm six, five.

437
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:51,040
I wasn't obviously this tall when I was in middle school, but I was probably top five

438
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:54,440
kids in my school for height.

439
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:56,400
And I was always, hey, play football, play basketball.

440
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:57,680
I was like, no, no.

441
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,480
And I was never encouraged from home to do it.

442
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:07,160
So I just stayed with my nerdy friends, so to speak, and buried my head in comics and

443
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:08,160
video games.

444
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:13,400
And once I was able to escape my house in a form of having friends with licenses or

445
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:14,840
me getting a license, that's what I did.

446
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:19,120
I just avoided being home in order to get away from it.

447
00:26:19,120 --> 00:26:23,120
Now I know that the fire service wasn't your initial career goal.

448
00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:27,620
So talk to me about the culinary world and what ignited that flame.

449
00:26:27,620 --> 00:26:33,600
So I had my mother's mother was very much the food person in my family and my life because

450
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,040
I spent most of my time there.

451
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,160
And she could cook just about anything.

452
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:43,240
She was French Canadian and Native American for the most part.

453
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,600
So she had a lot of like traditional meals that she said, but I learned how to cook from

454
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,440
her from a very young age, like seven or eight.

455
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:50,920
And I just loved cooking.

456
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:52,080
I loved cooking.

457
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:57,440
And because of my family having such strong firefighting roots, we all could cook.

458
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:01,320
But it's the one up, the one up, one of the many probably that the fire service has on

459
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:03,600
the police forces that we can all cook.

460
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:04,600
And I just loved it.

461
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,760
And so when I was in high school, I wanted to go to like Johnson and Wales.

462
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,080
I wanted to be a I wanted to be a chef.

463
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:17,640
But I knew because of my family, I knew because nothing was ever really supported outside

464
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,520
of what everyone in the family had always done.

465
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:25,240
And it was strongly encouraged not to go too far from the nest that I knew I wasn't going

466
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:26,240
to be able to do it.

467
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:27,480
I wanted to be supported.

468
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,840
And so I never actually tried to do it.

469
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:35,880
And so I ended up going I got on the job while I was a senior in high school.

470
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,440
I got on the on call side.

471
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:43,480
And when I graduated, I went to a college for fire school and ended up getting my degree

472
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:51,080
and just kind of forgot about culinary school, but still was the guy who could cook on shift

473
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,040
and ended up learning to cook better anyway.

474
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:59,120
But yeah, I ended up not pursuing culinary school.

475
00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:04,440
When I went to my first department, hi, Leah, there was a guy in my higher class that I

476
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,040
think I think he was a chef before.

477
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,960
And he was so good that we'd get calls and they'd leave him at the station to carry on

478
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:11,960
cooking.

479
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,360
I was like, All right, I'm going to make sure I can cook because I could cook a little bit.

480
00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:18,280
But I'm never going to be so good that I miss a fire.

481
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,040
So there was a happy medium there.

482
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,640
Yeah, there's definitely a competition when it comes to meals to who can make the best

483
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,840
spaghetti sauce, who can make the best chicken, whatever, quarter, whatever, whatever it is,

484
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:31,080
there's always there's always a friendly at times competition once you can learn to cook

485
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:35,000
and it's known that you can cook between the shifts and the different whether it be the

486
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,080
different shifts that are different people on the shifts is always that competition,

487
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:39,640
which was fun.

488
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:40,640
Absolutely.

489
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:45,200
Well, then you've obviously got this multi generational exposure to the fire service.

490
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,160
Talk to me about the road into it yourself.

491
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:51,440
And were there any kind of aha moments at the front door?

492
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:53,840
Perception versus you actually experiencing it yourself?

493
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:59,160
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a perception of the job.

494
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,800
But again, my family didn't sugarcoat shit.

495
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,040
I mean, they were they were as blunt as as I tend to be.

496
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:06,960
I'm just more honest.

497
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,600
And they they didn't hold back on what the job was.

498
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,120
But I definitely had this different view of what it was.

499
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:20,680
And so when I when I got on, I got on with two of my family members still on the job,

500
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,480
one of which ended up being one of my lieutenants.

501
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:28,240
And I definitely had this this idea of what it was.

502
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,600
And as soon as I started experiencing the job, you know, going in the fire is being

503
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:37,160
at medicals, seeing bad car wrecks, seeing the loss of life.

504
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:43,600
You know, firsthand myself, it was it wasn't so much a surprise as it was almost like a

505
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,240
filter was removed.

506
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:46,240
It was just taken down.

507
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:50,440
I was like, OK, so this this is how bad it really can be or how good it can be, depending

508
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,560
on what the scenario was.

509
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,960
And I just immediately fell in love with it.

510
00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:00,040
And it sounds to those of us on the job, that doesn't sound weird at all.

511
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:05,800
But for for a lay person to be to sit there and be like, oh, so you started seeing people

512
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:10,600
dying and then losing everything they own and blood and carnage and you fell in love

513
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:11,600
with a job that has it.

514
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,600
And yes, yes, I did.

515
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,520
And a lot of that comes down to what I had already experienced as a kid.

516
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,080
I knew walking on that job.

517
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,480
I mean, I was a black cloud in the first six months I was on.

518
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,840
It was a lot of stuff that happened.

519
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:28,600
And I knew seeing this stuff, seeing seeing even classmates that had died in car accidents.

520
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,440
Like I knew that this job wasn't going to have anything that I had already been on.

521
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:38,240
There was nothing this job could hand me that could top the horror of my childhood.

522
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,080
I knew that some in the back of my head.

523
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,000
I knew it.

524
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,320
And now, like reflecting, you know, 20, I know we're in 2025, but 2024, 2025, I've

525
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:51,000
talked to other men and women who who have been on the job and who are open about their

526
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,960
PTSD and their traumas, who are also open about their childhood.

527
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,080
And they're like, yeah, yeah, no, I knew I didn't care if I was going to die.

528
00:30:58,080 --> 00:30:59,080
I was going to die.

529
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:00,080
If I was going to see this, I was going to see it.

530
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:01,960
But it had nothing on my childhood.

531
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,520
And a lot of that is how I kept going.

532
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:11,920
Because that lens was removed and I was seeing the shit firsthand at times, a lot of it.

533
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:17,700
And I didn't think it was affecting me at the time.

534
00:31:17,700 --> 00:31:19,680
Looking back, it was breaking me down pretty hardcore.

535
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:26,320
And it was starting to set the stage for what was coming, you know, into my 20s and 30s

536
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:31,080
and all the other stuff that was I was lined up to to receive.

537
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:38,200
When you look back now, I said 2024, I totally forgot we're in 25 now with this lens.

538
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:40,680
I just had some conversations with people recently.

539
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,720
I got into the fire service when I was 26, I think I was.

540
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,080
So a little bit later.

541
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,300
And you look at law enforcement, usually is 21.

542
00:31:50,300 --> 00:31:57,740
What is your perception now of a 16, 17, 18 year old going into the fire service versus

543
00:31:57,740 --> 00:32:01,800
maybe wait until they're 21, have a little bit more life experience, allow that brain

544
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,780
to develop a little bit more?

545
00:32:04,780 --> 00:32:05,780
I think it's a big deal.

546
00:32:05,780 --> 00:32:10,260
I know scientifically, they say that especially men that we don't stop maturing or growing,

547
00:32:10,260 --> 00:32:12,880
you know, and developing into what like 25.

548
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,880
And it is.

549
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,060
It's like a double edged sword.

550
00:32:19,060 --> 00:32:21,200
We already have issues with staffing, right?

551
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:22,860
We already have issues getting people in the door.

552
00:32:22,860 --> 00:32:29,000
And I don't ever, at least not anytime soon, foresee the fire service changing from allowing

553
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,920
18 year olds in some areas, you know, 16 to be on the job.

554
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,940
However, having been an 18 year old and having to go to a fatal fire and then the next day

555
00:32:36,940 --> 00:32:40,940
sit in the math class and take a test and try to focus on, I can tell you right now,

556
00:32:40,940 --> 00:32:43,000
that shit fucks you up.

557
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:47,600
And you you you do it, you get through it.

558
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:52,480
And I'm not saying that people can't endure and show resilience in the moment, but you

559
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:57,480
don't acknowledge you don't quite understand what it's doing to you as a young kid, especially

560
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:04,160
a kid who is engaged in kid activities like school, starting college, still living at

561
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:09,440
home with mom and dad, whatever it is, it affects you in ways.

562
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:14,560
And I truly do believe that, yes, if there was a possible way to keep staffing at the

563
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:20,160
level it needs to be at, they should push to make it so you're older before you can

564
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:25,240
get on any of the first responder jobs, EMS, fire, police dispatch is one of those things

565
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:28,220
that is sort of a gray area with the age.

566
00:33:28,220 --> 00:33:33,200
But really any of the pillars, you need to be a little bit older, a little bit more mature,

567
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:38,760
you need to be sure of what is happening to you.

568
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,480
When you start having these things that you have no control over them happening to you

569
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,480
that the exposure you're getting, you need to be a little bit more sure yourself as a

570
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,240
man or woman.

571
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,880
You need to be more sure yourself and we're not at 18 or 16.

572
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:57,640
Well, this is what's exciting about this crisis that we're in at the moment is we can turn

573
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:58,640
it around.

574
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:00,260
Obviously, I mean, there's no question now.

575
00:34:00,260 --> 00:34:05,340
It's just concrete evidence that it's not the job, it's the working conditions that

576
00:34:05,340 --> 00:34:09,360
young people don't want to work under because they now, you know, like when we were working

577
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,960
when I got first hired, which is a few years after you, you know, it was just, you know,

578
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:18,280
sooty faces and saving babies and, you know, all the things.

579
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:23,800
Well now it's divorces and cancers and suicides and overdoses as well as all the hero shit.

580
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,720
But what you're realizing is the hero shit is the job.

581
00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:30,780
The other stuff is whether someone in the government building decides that you are worthy

582
00:34:30,780 --> 00:34:34,000
of being taken care of or just being driven into the ground.

583
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:38,520
And obviously we've chosen option B almost everywhere and this is the result.

584
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:44,320
So but if you look at 20 years ago, how many people tested for this position, a lot of

585
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,320
people weren't getting hired until 21 because they wanted you to have life experience.

586
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,760
They wanted you maybe to volunteer or, you know, just do some other areas first and then

587
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,920
kind of build that resume and then, okay, now, now, as you said, you're a more well-rounded

588
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:58,200
man or woman.

589
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:02,160
You've worked on your physical fitness and you've, you know, done some extra fire classes,

590
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:03,160
whatever it is.

591
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:04,880
And now, you know, clearly you want to be a firefighter.

592
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,920
It wasn't just what am I going to do when I leave high school?

593
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:13,800
So by fixing the fire service and putting that bar up again where it should be, I think

594
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:18,760
that then when you've got thousands of people testing, you can say 21, you know, but right

595
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,760
now people are scraping the bottom of the barrel and I'm not throwing shade in anyone

596
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:27,520
that's getting hired today, but the percentages that are being accepted are completely different

597
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:28,720
than 20 years ago.

598
00:35:28,720 --> 00:35:33,920
So an exciting thing would be if we want to really make a dent on the mental health side

599
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,920
is one of the long-term plans to be like, all right, as a profession, we're going to

600
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:43,480
make it 21 like PD so that we can have these people ready because it's not fair on them

601
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:49,040
as a child because I was a black cloud too, to first, you know, first day have one of

602
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,560
my shifts that I have with three different people die in that same day and horrifically.

603
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,360
And that's an 18 year olds welcome to the fire service fucker.

604
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:02,640
So, so yeah, so we, it's a responsibility to the profession to groom these young people

605
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:06,200
to make sure they are ready and set them up for success.

606
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:07,200
Yeah.

607
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,480
And that all comes down to educating, you know, education when it comes to what we do

608
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:17,200
for work to turn a blind eye and say, this job doesn't affect you in some way is stupidity.

609
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,760
This is, this is not, it's not true.

610
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:24,080
I mean, it affects everyone to some degree, but it affects others who may be predisposed

611
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:28,720
for whatever reasons it affects them monumentally.

612
00:36:28,720 --> 00:36:33,880
And we, as a career, as a, as a culture, as a community, as a career path, we have to

613
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,840
take care of the people who are coming in the door, who aren't on the door yet, who

614
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,160
are been in on the job for 20 years.

615
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:46,160
We owe it to all of them to ourselves, to, to create longevity, to create that applicant

616
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:50,800
pool, to create that drive that used to be there of, of people who want to do this job,

617
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,960
because it is a great job to have those waiting lists again.

618
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:54,960
Absolutely.

619
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:56,880
I don't think waiting lists exist anymore.

620
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,200
I don't think there is a waiting list for in the fire service anywhere.

621
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:04,880
No, there's fricking hiring bonuses now thousands of thousands of dollars per person, you know,

622
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:06,880
so the money is there.

623
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,280
I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole because I talk about all the time, but if

624
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:13,980
you look at the overtime budget alone of an understaffed department, there is your money

625
00:37:13,980 --> 00:37:15,640
for the rest of the shift that you need.

626
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:16,800
It's just that simple.

627
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,640
So another thing I think there's been interested in to get your take on that.

628
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,660
I think we do a huge disservice.

629
00:37:23,660 --> 00:37:28,920
We have the MMPI, which is that bullshit, you know, bubble psychological tests that

630
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,280
we have to take to get in.

631
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:36,200
And I've had many, many people from the psychological and psychiatry world that have said that was

632
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,720
never meant to be a standalone test on its own.

633
00:37:38,720 --> 00:37:42,960
It's forensic psychology and use it with a gamut of other tests to create a profile of

634
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:47,280
someone and certainly not for a first responder.

635
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:52,560
So where I think we have a great opportunity to turn those, as you said, that unaddressed

636
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:59,320
trauma into resilience into post-traumatic growth is to put counseling sessions in with

637
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,440
probation at the front door.

638
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,040
And you can talk about the weather, you know, you don't have to dive deeply, but normalize

639
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:10,280
that mental health conversation so you can start processing some of your earlier stuff

640
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,520
so that you're not walking in with your bag half full already.

641
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:15,520
Which is the case.

642
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:24,000
And honestly, it should be so encouraged to discuss, you know, your mental health, your

643
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:29,160
past, whatever it is, because in no way do I feel that anyone who's already got a bag,

644
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:33,560
you know, half full, three quarters full of trauma rocks, you know, they carry it around

645
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:38,760
when they walk in that firehouse door or whatever, in no way do I feel that person isn't competent

646
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:39,760
to do the job.

647
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,720
Matter of fact, in some ways, some of us may be a little bit more competent than others,

648
00:38:43,720 --> 00:38:46,280
because our resilience has already been tested.

649
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:51,520
You know, and we've obviously shined through because we're here, you know, and I think

650
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:58,920
it could be such a strengthening tool to allow the conversations to happen right from walking

651
00:38:58,920 --> 00:38:59,920
in the door.

652
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:00,920
You know, where have you been?

653
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:01,920
What have you been through?

654
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:03,760
What is it that makes you tick?

655
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:04,760
What ticks you off?

656
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,920
You know, what is it?

657
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,280
And we open that dialogue and we start talking about, like we talk about, you know, what

658
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:13,960
used to be referred to as the C word, cancer.

659
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:15,280
We never used to speak about it.

660
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,360
We never used to speak about the risk factors with it.

661
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,360
And now it's just, it just, we talk about it all the time.

662
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:20,360
We're having pre-screenings.

663
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:22,240
Why aren't we pre-screening for mental health?

664
00:39:22,240 --> 00:39:25,960
Why aren't we given the tools and the resources that are out there?

665
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:30,720
By the way, the resources have been out there for like 30 or 40 years, but the first responder

666
00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:32,920
community just hasn't been using them.

667
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,320
And now there's so many more, there's so many different modalities.

668
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:39,200
Why aren't we like showing these people and making these opportunities available to them

669
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:43,240
so they can strengthen their career, their self, their soul, their mental and physical

670
00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:48,460
health right from the get-go from age 21 or 18 or 25, whatever it is.

671
00:39:48,460 --> 00:39:49,880
Why can't we make these available?

672
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:51,680
That should be like priority number one.

673
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:52,680
Absolutely.

674
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:53,680
Yeah.

675
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,440
And screening not to eliminate someone, screening to discover where you can help them grow.

676
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:58,440
Yeah.

677
00:39:58,440 --> 00:39:59,700
Where are your strengths?

678
00:39:59,700 --> 00:40:02,480
Because in some ways trauma can be a strength.

679
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:03,920
I know it's always this taboo thing.

680
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,320
You see the memes where trauma didn't make me stronger.

681
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:07,680
That's bullshit.

682
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:08,680
Trauma did make me stronger.

683
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:12,920
It made me able to handle so many things that I didn't realize I was handling until I got

684
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:13,920
a handle on it.

685
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,840
And then I used my trauma against itself.

686
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:18,840
You know?

687
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:19,840
Absolutely.

688
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:26,080
Well, an interesting kind of observation that one of my friends made who had childhood sexual

689
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:30,920
abuse went into the military first and went into the fire service.

690
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:36,760
But he said the busyness of the job kept his mind away from thinking about the things.

691
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:42,920
And so when the job became less interesting around the 10-year mark was when he had his

692
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:43,920
relapse yet again.

693
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,560
It was a very, very deep one that almost cost him his life.

694
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:49,240
Talk to me about this journey in.

695
00:40:49,240 --> 00:40:53,660
Did the excitement, the adrenaline, the hours of the fire service kind of act as a buffer

696
00:40:53,660 --> 00:40:55,680
for what was simmering underneath?

697
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:57,600
For sure.

698
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:03,040
And I think I worked for the fire department I was on was a smaller department in the scheme

699
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,440
of calls per day, we'll say.

700
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:11,840
But I always worked in privatized EMS in bigger cities where I do 20 to 30 calls in a 24-hour

701
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:13,320
period of time.

702
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:18,480
And the chaos was medicine.

703
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:19,600
It was actually my junk.

704
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:22,320
It was my heroin, my whatever.

705
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:28,720
I was pumping into my veins, if you will, to get through.

706
00:41:28,720 --> 00:41:30,440
And it worked well for a long time.

707
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:39,720
And it wasn't until I hit about 30, which would have been about 12 years in, that the

708
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:44,960
chaos, the addiction to the chaos, started to not work as well.

709
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:52,240
And that's when I really I fell back into using alcohol or finding other means to create

710
00:41:52,240 --> 00:42:00,120
chaos that wasn't existing in my personal life, especially, but even on the job.

711
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:04,960
Risk taking, doing things on the job that aren't necessary to the job or the task at

712
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:09,520
hand that put me in danger because it gave me that chaos, gave me that threat that I

713
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,680
thrived in because I was starting to lose it from the routine shit on the job where

714
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:18,640
like going out the door 15 times a day just wasn't cutting the mustard anymore.

715
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:19,640
It wasn't enough anymore.

716
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,820
And I needed something.

717
00:42:21,820 --> 00:42:29,840
And it was around that time that, you know, I started thinking more of an escape.

718
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:34,080
And I had already had a few suicide attempts up to that point.

719
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:39,040
But I realized around 30, my mind was pretty much staying right there, that if something

720
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:43,760
didn't change, if I didn't get some sort of fix with this chaos, if I didn't if I couldn't

721
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,440
keep the chaos coming because I didn't know there was help, I didn't know I could fix

722
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,240
this, if I couldn't keep the chaos coming, I was going to have to leave.

723
00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:53,920
I was going to have to check out, I was going to have to punch my own ticket again.

724
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:55,760
I was going to have to try to.

725
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,040
And that right around age 30 is when that really started to happen.

726
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,520
And that was like 12 years in.

727
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:05,640
One of my military guests made a point a while ago now and it was really interesting, like

728
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:13,940
some of those heroic actions that you hear at war, was that blatant courage or was it

729
00:43:13,940 --> 00:43:19,000
someone that got to that point where they perceived the value of their own life to be

730
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:24,000
extremely low and so it made the decision, I don't care if I get hit by these bullets,

731
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:25,000
I'm just going anyway.

732
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:30,800
And in some of those incidences, they were successful as far as killing the enemy.

733
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,040
And I thought that was really interesting because at times I'm sure it's just blatant

734
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,100
courage and the person was terrified and they did it anyway.

735
00:43:37,100 --> 00:43:43,400
But if you are at that point where you just don't value your own life anymore, that could

736
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:48,600
also be seen as an act of courage, though really it's a mental health crisis.

737
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:49,600
It is.

738
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:54,520
And it was definitely specifically the EMS jobs I worked in some of the inner cities

739
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:58,840
up here in Massachusetts were pretty dangerous.

740
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,560
One city in particular was known for a lot of gang violence and there was definitely

741
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:10,080
times as this chaos was thinning out that I would put myself, I was getting myself into

742
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,460
situations that I could have been killed.

743
00:44:13,460 --> 00:44:17,800
And it wasn't even that I didn't care, but it gave me that.

744
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:22,720
It gave me that that pump of adrenaline and gave me that that drive to stick around another

745
00:44:22,720 --> 00:44:24,000
day.

746
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,440
But I was not only putting myself in danger, I was I was possibly putting my partner in

747
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:32,560
danger, patients, you know, other bystander, whatever it would be.

748
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:37,640
And yeah, you know, there are times of heroism short, just, you know, you're scared, stiff,

749
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:39,840
but you do it anyway.

750
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,920
But I believe just from my own journey and what I've talked about with other people over

751
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:50,720
the last whatever many years that we do, we push that envelope and we take those chances

752
00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:58,000
to get that that fix that we need to give us the reason to stay here when it starts

753
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,440
to wear off in the regular routine ways.

754
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:01,440
Absolutely.

755
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:06,600
I mean, I saw that even in myself and not so much a kind of mental health spiral, but

756
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:10,520
the you know, the chasing chasing the adrenaline definitely.

757
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,880
You know, you start off as a rookie and you get a mattress fire and you're losing your

758
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:14,880
mind.

759
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:16,120
Oh my god, this is amazing.

760
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,520
And then, you know, 10 years later, you're like, if it's not a fully involved building

761
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:23,920
that you have to fight your way even to get to the front door, it was like, I wasn't really

762
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:24,920
a fire.

763
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:25,920
And it was my time.

764
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:26,920
Yeah.

765
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,880
And you know, but it's not like I was complacent as much, but it just it's kind of like the

766
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:35,760
heroin, you know, it takes a higher dose each time to feel like it's valid, like, oh, yeah,

767
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:37,560
that was a fire worth talking about.

768
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,440
Whereas, you know, room and contents fire as a rookie would have blown your mind and

769
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:45,120
it's still a fire and that situation you get to save the rest of the house.

770
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,960
But no, I need to fight my way there and make entry.

771
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,920
And it's, you know, my my eyes are burning through my mask.

772
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:52,160
So that was a real fire.

773
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:53,160
But no, no, no.

774
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,880
Now you're starting to dance a little bit too far on the other side.

775
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:56,880
Yeah.

776
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:57,880
Yeah.

777
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:58,880
And I think it happens.

778
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:00,840
And I think the more people that start talking about this and more we're going to hear that

779
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,280
people can concur with what I just said.

780
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:05,280
Absolutely.

781
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:10,680
Well, I want to kind of roll time back a little bit because I heard you talking on the hope

782
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:11,840
behind the badge podcast.

783
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,160
I think it was an Irish host in America.

784
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:16,160
Great conversation.

785
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:18,360
Great podcast, by the way.

786
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:23,680
But you mentioned about is it losing a girlfriend in a car crash when you when you my first

787
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:24,680
wife, my first wife.

788
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:27,320
OK, so I mean, again, huge trauma.

789
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:32,000
So talk to me about that event and then the ripple effect of that.

790
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:33,000
Yeah.

791
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:37,760
So that that happened when I was I was 24 when my first wife died in a car accident,

792
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:38,760
which I was driving.

793
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,240
I was driving the vehicle at that time.

794
00:46:41,240 --> 00:46:46,400
We had another couple with us and both me and the other.

795
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:48,440
My friend who was him and his wife in the car.

796
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,280
We were both in the job, obviously.

797
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:55,280
And the you know, you have you have the trauma of losing your wife.

798
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:58,400
And we had me and me and Heather was her name.

799
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,320
We had two young children.

800
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:04,080
My son at the time was two and his sister was 10 months old.

801
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,540
So you have you have the trauma of the accident.

802
00:47:06,540 --> 00:47:08,040
You have the trauma of losing your wife.

803
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:11,640
You have the trauma of trying to become a single father and trying to explain to your

804
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:14,420
kids where their mother is or isn't.

805
00:47:14,420 --> 00:47:17,080
But then you have the twisted part that people didn't think about.

806
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:23,200
And it never got taken into the equation initially with some of my early on therapy is the association

807
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:29,800
between that incident and what I do for work and how every time for four years, I would

808
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:37,560
show up not just a car accident, but mainly car accidents with a with a predisposition

809
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:44,100
mentally of what I felt was going to happen or what I felt needed to happen or the association

810
00:47:44,100 --> 00:47:48,560
I made to my own life event.

811
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:58,280
And it changed my let's say both sympathy and empathy quite a bit after that night because

812
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:03,120
I wasn't getting the help I needed, even though I went to a grief counselor and and got referred

813
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,320
to a group grief session, which was a big mistake, by the way, because I walked into

814
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,320
a room and it was a bunch of 80 year old men who just lost their wives because old age

815
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,840
and I walk in at 24 and they're like, well, fuck.

816
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:18,560
I wasn't getting that all the pieces weren't being put together.

817
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:19,560
It was you lost your wife.

818
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:20,560
You're sad.

819
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:21,560
We're going to talk about that.

820
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:22,560
It wasn't you lost your wife.

821
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:23,640
You were in a traumatic event.

822
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:25,300
You possibly have a TBI.

823
00:48:25,300 --> 00:48:27,720
You're trying to explain the two small children.

824
00:48:27,720 --> 00:48:31,300
You know, you have a friend who also survived the accident who's dealing with their stuff,

825
00:48:31,300 --> 00:48:35,120
you know, and you're you're a firefighter in the empty and you're still going out the

826
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:39,880
door 15, 20 times a day to accidents.

827
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:41,120
None of that was taken into consideration.

828
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:43,280
It was just you lost your wife.

829
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:44,540
You're sad.

830
00:48:44,540 --> 00:48:46,440
Death is bad.

831
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:47,920
And that was what was focused on.

832
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:55,560
And so all of that, like just built this sort of trauma pyramid.

833
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,180
And it just it molded me.

834
00:48:58,180 --> 00:49:07,880
It caused me to lose a lot of love for the job pretty early on and at a very young age.

835
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:09,680
And it just kind of continued that way.

836
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:17,160
And I realized later in life, you know, just how much by the way, at times I was acting

837
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,120
or not acting.

838
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:25,040
When you look back now, as far as your children, what were the things that you did well or

839
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:30,120
worked as far as helping them over the years navigate the grief of losing their mother?

840
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:35,120
And then were there any things that when you look back now, you would do differently?

841
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:39,620
The biggest thing that I always say I did well was keeping her memory alive and keeping

842
00:49:39,620 --> 00:49:44,280
her her spirit and her outlook on life as involved in theirs without her being there

843
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,900
as I could, because she was very much a free spirit.

844
00:49:47,900 --> 00:49:51,280
These days, she would probably be considered a hippie.

845
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:53,280
And she was just an amazing person.

846
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:59,600
I did my absolute best to try to keep that alive and in our house.

847
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:04,600
But right after she died, I spiraled into a lot of drug and alcohol abuse.

848
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:11,280
I used a lot of pills and I made a lot of decisions just to try to get by that, you

849
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:16,640
know, cost them time with me, you know, cost them eventually, you know, cost them the father

850
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:18,700
they deserved.

851
00:50:18,700 --> 00:50:20,560
And that would be one thing.

852
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:26,320
And again, it comes down to the support that wasn't there, the knowledge that, you know,

853
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:27,520
wasn't even being asked for.

854
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:33,200
But I also wasn't sharing regarding like my past and everything that was coming together.

855
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,040
That's the biggest thing I wish.

856
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,560
I think back on a lot that I was like, man, I really wish I had gotten the help I needed

857
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:45,980
so I could have been the father these two kids needed and deserved because I wasn't.

858
00:50:45,980 --> 00:50:50,760
And eventually, years later, I would end up losing custody of my kids because of, you

859
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:55,080
know, some of the shittier decisions I was making coupled with other reasons.

860
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,720
But they deserve the better father.

861
00:50:57,720 --> 00:51:02,600
And my biggest wish would be for there to have been support to have helped me be that

862
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,920
that father they needed.

863
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:11,440
One of the common denominators has risen his head over and over and over again.

864
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:16,440
And it breaks my heart because you never really hear it mentioned in the you know, the general

865
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:23,800
public first responder mental health conversations is so many people have come on the show, you

866
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:28,720
know, have been right there either stopped by a phone call, a dog, whatever it was, or

867
00:51:28,720 --> 00:51:30,480
went through with their suicide attempt.

868
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,280
And they and they stayed lived, you know, and they're smashed up or they're in a wheelchair

869
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:35,120
now but they lived.

870
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:41,720
And pretty much every single one of them mentioned how they felt like they were a burden to the

871
00:51:41,720 --> 00:51:43,360
ones that they loved.

872
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:47,840
And this totally reframes what you and I were raised on, which is suicide is cowardly and

873
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:52,800
selfish and how could you and think of the kids and you realize that through this perfect

874
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:58,840
storm which you've illustrated perfectly of all these traumas, some micro some macro,

875
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,200
the brain becomes miswired.

876
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:06,120
Just like you said, you know, the the the young boy that grew up in your household,

877
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,320
that's your baseline, that's your reality, that's normal to you, you know, the kid that

878
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,320
grew up in the mansion, that's normal to him, the kid who grew up on some rubbish tip in

879
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,720
the Philippines, that's normal to them.

880
00:52:17,720 --> 00:52:22,400
You know, the brain slowly starts being miswired and distorted.

881
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:28,800
And this reality, this voice is convincing them to their heart that they are the problem.

882
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:33,800
And if they just weren't here anymore, their family would be happier, their wife, their

883
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:36,280
husband, their children, whatever it was.

884
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:41,600
Talk to me if you had that about that voice over the few years and the suicide attempts.

885
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:45,160
Yeah, no, that was definitely that voice was there.

886
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:53,240
And a lot of a lot of the burden perspective comes from the guilt and shame that any any

887
00:52:53,240 --> 00:52:57,280
any man or woman who's gone through childhood trauma that is that is laid upon you and it

888
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:01,040
and it's quote unquote inadvertently done.

889
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:06,640
But at other times, it's almost like with abuse, collective abuse, sometimes almost

890
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:11,080
like a cultish mentality, it's like brainwashing when when when what you have been through

891
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:15,560
and what has happened to you is your fault is being told it's your fault.

892
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,400
And so you take that and it grows.

893
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:22,800
And then you then you then you end up meeting more adversity as you go through your life

894
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:28,200
and either don't handle it right or you end up doing whatever it is that causes you to

895
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:35,160
to get this childhood, if you will, but previous guilt and shame to come up and say, of course

896
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:36,840
I'm a burden.

897
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,480
Of course, of course, everything that I do, I keep reacting incorrectly.

898
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:41,520
I have to be a burden.

899
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,880
Why would anyone care about where I'm at?

900
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:49,020
I have to because at one point I was told this is my fault.

901
00:53:49,020 --> 00:53:51,300
This happened because of you.

902
00:53:51,300 --> 00:53:54,560
So I'm going to carry that. And so I'm going to have this mentality that I'm going to be

903
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:58,280
a burden and my family will be better off if I'm not here because I'm causing so much

904
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,000
pain and causing so much misery, stress in my family.

905
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:06,120
They're constantly worried about me or they just they don't want anything to do with me.

906
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,120
So maybe if I'm not here, I won't be a burden to them.

907
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,560
And maybe they'll get along better without me.

908
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,180
And you think this and you get convinced of this.

909
00:54:14,180 --> 00:54:19,200
And it isn't what the misnomer used to be that this is you know, you don't think of

910
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,600
anyone but yourself and that you're selfish if you end your life.

911
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:27,680
Because I can tell you, at least the last time, my last attempt, all I thought about

912
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,840
was my children and my wife.

913
00:54:30,840 --> 00:54:34,080
It's the only thing that flashed in my head.

914
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,800
Was them being better off without me.

915
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:41,280
And it's a big misnomer. And once we can conquer that hurdle and start getting people

916
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:47,760
to feel comfortable about talking about how guilty and how shameful they feel over what

917
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:52,280
they're going through and allowing them to know that they're not alone in that, that

918
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:57,040
that is like the mindset that leads to suicide attempts.

919
00:54:57,040 --> 00:55:01,800
Once we can start getting over that hurdle is when we really start saving lives.

920
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:05,360
When we open that dialogue where it's not just hey, reach out if you're sad, it's hey,

921
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,100
I know I can reach out when I'm sad.

922
00:55:08,100 --> 00:55:09,600
Not being told to reach out.

923
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:10,600
I know I can.

924
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:11,600
Absolutely.

925
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:17,880
Well, I mean, thank you for sharing that because this is to me the big red flag.

926
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:21,120
This needs to be front and center on the posters and in the conversations.

927
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:24,080
Because like you said, oh, there's a number on the poster.

928
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:28,400
Just go call it if you're having problems or my door was always open or call me if you

929
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:29,920
need me, bro.

930
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:33,960
But the reality is, I think if you could get people to realize that when that voice starts

931
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:38,800
chirping away that you're a burden, that is your sign because you think about what people

932
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:41,520
say, well, think about your wife, think about your kids.

933
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,520
That's just kind of driving the nail into the coffin if they're in that mindset at that

934
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:46,640
moment.

935
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:51,600
But getting people to look in the mirror and go, shit, I'm at this point they talked about

936
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:55,080
where my brain's starting to kind of lie to me.

937
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:56,320
I do need to pick up the phone.

938
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:57,320
I do need to ask for help.

939
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:02,440
And I think for us in conversation around the firehouse table, in your family home,

940
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:05,240
whatever it is, do you feel like a burden?

941
00:56:05,240 --> 00:56:08,600
Are you guilty about, do you feel like you're hurting your family?

942
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:12,880
Whatever it is, that's a huge question that will bring that flag up.

943
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:14,960
And this is pre-crisis, hopefully.

944
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:19,560
So they're just entering this realm and you can grab them before they get to that point

945
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:24,640
that we've heard so many times where they're in some forest somewhere with a pistol or

946
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:28,960
the edge of their bed with a bottle of pills or whatever the scenario is.

947
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:33,560
But it's so often, I think actually, if I'm not mistaken, Boston just had a firefighter

948
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:35,240
suicide.

949
00:56:35,240 --> 00:56:39,480
It's always hard because you've got to figure out the wording, like was this a suicide?

950
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:43,300
Usually when they died suddenly, as we all know, it's an OD or a suicide.

951
00:56:43,300 --> 00:56:45,400
So I believe that's what it was.

952
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:46,400
Yeah.

953
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:47,400
Yeah.

954
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,840
And I think once we get that dialogue where the education's in place, where we're like,

955
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:57,320
hey, these are the warning signs of whatever, and this is quote unquote normal when you've

956
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:00,800
been through traumas to have guilt and shame, once you start considering yourself a burden,

957
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:01,800
this is what needs to happen.

958
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:05,320
And if people know that they're like, hey, I'm starting to feel like I'm a burden, this

959
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:07,520
guilt and shame is getting unbearable.

960
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:11,880
I know I can reach out to this person or I know I can tell my captain, I can tell my

961
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:16,760
chief, I can tell human resource, whatever it is, I know I can do it.

962
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:18,080
That's when we're going to start saving lives.

963
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:22,380
And it's not going to happen while everyone's going around chanting, please reach out.

964
00:57:22,380 --> 00:57:23,760
We have to change it.

965
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:27,760
We have to change this to this normal conversation because mental health is everyone's health.

966
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:28,760
Absolutely.

967
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:29,760
It is.

968
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:30,760
Everyone has mental health.

969
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:33,360
I can tell you that because people think I have a mental health podcast.

970
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:34,360
I don't.

971
00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:35,360
I have a podcast.

972
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:39,720
It's just that everyone that I talk to and they could be, you know, I've had people like

973
00:57:39,720 --> 00:57:42,920
Dan John's a good example, strength and conditioning coach.

974
00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:47,140
So we thought we were going to talk about bench press and deadlift and 45 minutes we

975
00:57:47,140 --> 00:57:51,800
talked about the multi-generational trauma in his family because he's a human being first

976
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:53,200
and a strength coach at second.

977
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:57,080
So everyone has mental health, as you said, we're all human.

978
00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:00,720
And that's something even as first responders, we need to realize, and we have to put that

979
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:02,280
up front as we are all human.

980
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:08,520
We are just as susceptible to the shit we go and respond to ourselves.

981
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:10,880
Everyone we go and help, we can go through that.

982
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:15,400
Some of us are, you know, we need to acknowledge that we're human first.

983
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:16,400
100%.

984
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:21,160
Well, then walk me through, you know, you mentioned that you would up to about 30, you

985
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:22,160
were doing okay.

986
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:25,240
So what did what did this spiral down look like?

987
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:30,060
And when was your first attempt or even, you know, ideation?

988
00:58:30,060 --> 00:58:31,760
So my first attempt was when I was 13.

989
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:32,760
Oh, wow.

990
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:33,760
Way back.

991
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:35,560
That was way back.

992
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:40,080
And then I never had another one after that until after, you know, my first wife died

993
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:41,080
when I was 24.

994
00:58:41,080 --> 00:58:46,560
I had a few incidents with overdoses via pills and then I was I was kind of I even keeled

995
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:50,440
I sort of status quo and made it until 30.

996
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:56,000
And then I started showing sort of signs of, you know, the two jobs I was working 80 90

997
00:58:56,000 --> 00:59:00,440
I was a week trying to balance raising my kids with now my parents.

998
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:01,440
We all decided to move in.

999
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:02,800
So now I'm moving.

1000
00:59:02,800 --> 00:59:05,960
I'm living back with my parents again, which is something I don't advise anyone to do once

1001
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:08,360
you hit 30.

1002
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:11,640
And you know, so there's a lot of different opinions on how to raise kids.

1003
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:12,640
And I'm trying to balance everything.

1004
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:14,720
I'm going to medical school and doing all these crazy things.

1005
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:18,160
And I'm just overloading myself because that chaos thing, right?

1006
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:22,680
Trying to get it all there, trying to trying to just, you know, keep the head above water.

1007
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:23,800
And I just started breaking down.

1008
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:28,800
And then, you know, things happen where, you know, I was deemed unfit as a parent.

1009
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:29,960
I lost custody of my kids.

1010
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:35,960
And that was just 2010 to 2011 when I was about 31, 32.

1011
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:42,200
I just I hit what I would call part of my first rock bottom.

1012
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:49,840
And just I lost sort of that drive to keep pushing for whatever the reasons were.

1013
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:56,520
And I had had I ended up having two more suicide attempts involving drugs and overdosing, and

1014
00:59:56,520 --> 01:00:01,720
one of which I ended up having to be my own department responded to.

1015
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:06,560
So I had people I had been on the job with who had a deal with me being unconscious on

1016
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:07,840
my own bathroom floor.

1017
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:13,140
And once you once you have that happen, the cat kind of comes out of the bag.

1018
01:00:13,140 --> 01:00:14,640
And a lot of things change.

1019
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:18,160
You know, I started getting treated differently because of it, because we weren't talking

1020
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,800
about trauma, we weren't talking about PTSD in the fire service.

1021
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:26,560
And that didn't help because then I started getting limited with what I was doing.

1022
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:31,680
I started getting removed from positions I was in, i.e. I was a training officer and

1023
01:00:31,680 --> 01:00:35,840
I started getting being less involved with trainings.

1024
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:39,840
And all this just kind of, you know, chipped away.

1025
01:00:39,840 --> 01:00:44,480
And eventually I left that department, went to a different department, stayed work in

1026
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:49,520
private MS and just try to keep my head out of water while trying to see my my two older

1027
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:53,560
kids and and trying to fix my life.

1028
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:58,560
This is a sea where so much damage was done, especially, you know, the back in the day.

1029
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:03,120
And I think some of those toxic departments that still hanging on to that old mentality

1030
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:05,640
are still doing it today.

1031
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:11,480
If you had a guy that you hired, who was an absolute shit bag from day one, and 10, 15,

1032
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,360
20 years, he's a shit bag.

1033
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:16,680
You know, OK, you know, again, if you're really being compassionate, then obviously he's got

1034
01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:19,480
some stuff going on from his early life.

1035
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:22,640
But maybe he wasn't meant to be in the fire department in the first place, or at least

1036
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:23,640
at that point.

1037
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:28,480
But more often than not, you get someone who was a great firefighter the first five, ten

1038
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:31,560
years, and then they start spiraling down.

1039
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:35,320
And you know, what you've done is you put this uniform on and you've sworn allegiance

1040
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:39,240
to this tribe and you've sworn selfless service to this community.

1041
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:41,500
And then you start spiraling downwards.

1042
01:01:41,500 --> 01:01:43,220
You have your own struggles.

1043
01:01:43,220 --> 01:01:47,300
The most detrimental thing that tribe can do is turn their back on that person.

1044
01:01:47,300 --> 01:01:55,120
And if you look at it anthropologically, you know, out in ancient man times, if our tribe

1045
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:59,260
expelled us and that meant death, you know, I mean, you're vulnerable.

1046
01:01:59,260 --> 01:02:02,300
You're probably not going to be able to hunt and forage enough for yourself.

1047
01:02:02,300 --> 01:02:03,300
And that's it.

1048
01:02:03,300 --> 01:02:04,300
You're done.

1049
01:02:04,300 --> 01:02:09,420
So, you know, in our very DNA, that tribal rejection is absolutely horrendous.

1050
01:02:09,420 --> 01:02:13,340
And so whether you're a police officer that got hurt in the job and then just discarded

1051
01:02:13,340 --> 01:02:18,520
or whether you're, you know, whatever the situation is, that organizational betrayal

1052
01:02:18,520 --> 01:02:22,020
is another kind of elephant in the room of this conversation.

1053
01:02:22,020 --> 01:02:25,940
If you have someone who's acting a certain way, we've got to view it with compassion

1054
01:02:25,940 --> 01:02:27,600
and empathy to a point.

1055
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:32,220
I understand the results of certain behaviors, but an envelop that person and be like, how

1056
01:02:32,220 --> 01:02:35,740
can we get them back to where they were or a new version of who they are because they

1057
01:02:35,740 --> 01:02:37,640
were so good for so long.

1058
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:39,700
This is just this, this incident now.

1059
01:02:39,700 --> 01:02:44,180
But, you know, if you look at the track history of the first responder professions, a lot

1060
01:02:44,180 --> 01:02:46,260
of people, it's, it's a downward line.

1061
01:02:46,260 --> 01:02:50,060
It really is, you know, they start off this bright eyed young, you know, young man or

1062
01:02:50,060 --> 01:02:53,060
woman that's madly in love with their partner and they get married and now they're getting

1063
01:02:53,060 --> 01:02:54,540
divorced and now they're drinking.

1064
01:02:54,540 --> 01:02:58,280
And the next thing they've got a DUI and you know, the next thing they're being fired.

1065
01:02:58,280 --> 01:02:59,860
Now they've been cast off.

1066
01:02:59,860 --> 01:03:03,800
And then we wonder why a lot of those then end up taking their lives because we're doing

1067
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:05,320
the wrong thing.

1068
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:09,580
You've got, even if they don't end up carrying on as a profession, cause they did something

1069
01:03:09,580 --> 01:03:12,860
that you just simply can't turn your head from.

1070
01:03:12,860 --> 01:03:17,580
It doesn't mean that the family within the fire service discards them too.

1071
01:03:17,580 --> 01:03:19,620
Which does happen, you know, a lot.

1072
01:03:19,620 --> 01:03:24,820
And you know, once I, after 21 years, when I left both fire and EMS, I mean, that's essentially

1073
01:03:24,820 --> 01:03:25,820
what happened.

1074
01:03:25,820 --> 01:03:31,660
A lot of, a lot of the job, both people and the profession did an about face.

1075
01:03:31,660 --> 01:03:34,980
And that still happens quite a bit.

1076
01:03:34,980 --> 01:03:36,980
Things gotten better, I feel.

1077
01:03:36,980 --> 01:03:40,700
But when I, when I got off the job after my time, that was happening a lot.

1078
01:03:40,700 --> 01:03:44,380
There was a lot of people I knew were leaving the job for similar reasons.

1079
01:03:44,380 --> 01:03:45,820
Even if it was like an injury.

1080
01:03:45,820 --> 01:03:49,620
And it was like after that glory moment leaves of like helping them with their groceries

1081
01:03:49,620 --> 01:03:51,100
or helping them with their life.

1082
01:03:51,100 --> 01:03:55,500
After you get over that hero part of helping that person, it fades away pretty quickly.

1083
01:03:55,500 --> 01:03:58,060
The camaraderie goes away and that person isn't here anymore.

1084
01:03:58,060 --> 01:04:00,680
They're not, we don't owe it to them anymore, whatever it is.

1085
01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:04,140
And that needs to stop because a lot of what is happening is because of what the job is

1086
01:04:04,140 --> 01:04:09,700
done and how we haven't done a good job at resolving these things.

1087
01:04:09,700 --> 01:04:14,620
And once that person is part of this lifestyle, this job, this career, once they're an employee,

1088
01:04:14,620 --> 01:04:19,780
we owe it to help them become stronger and resolve all their issues, whether they have

1089
01:04:19,780 --> 01:04:22,660
something to do with the job or not, because the job is going to manifest them and make

1090
01:04:22,660 --> 01:04:23,880
them make them worse.

1091
01:04:23,880 --> 01:04:26,460
We owe it to that person to help them heal.

1092
01:04:26,460 --> 01:04:29,780
And hopefully at some point that turns around and starts happening.

1093
01:04:29,780 --> 01:04:30,780
Absolutely.

1094
01:04:30,780 --> 01:04:31,780
I've said this a lot.

1095
01:04:31,780 --> 01:04:36,940
There's no VA for the first responders, even though the VA isn't your particular army unit,

1096
01:04:36,940 --> 01:04:41,900
for example, it's still part of that family that says, we'll take care of you after your

1097
01:04:41,900 --> 01:04:42,900
service.

1098
01:04:42,900 --> 01:04:46,580
The problem is in our profession, the Bay door closes down behind you the last time.

1099
01:04:46,580 --> 01:04:47,580
I've said this a lot.

1100
01:04:47,580 --> 01:04:51,100
If I have a heart attack in the parking lot, I don't even factor in the statistics as a

1101
01:04:51,100 --> 01:04:52,700
firefighter anymore.

1102
01:04:52,700 --> 01:04:58,100
So when they say, oh, we lost 80 firefighters this year to suicide, like, no, you didn't.

1103
01:04:58,100 --> 01:05:02,620
We probably lost 10, 20, 30 times that, but all the retirees where it's really going to

1104
01:05:02,620 --> 01:05:06,660
manifest, you don't even care enough to see if they're still doing okay.

1105
01:05:06,660 --> 01:05:07,660
That's a huge problem.

1106
01:05:07,660 --> 01:05:10,100
Once you're gone, you're gone.

1107
01:05:10,100 --> 01:05:11,100
Yeah.

1108
01:05:11,100 --> 01:05:13,920
Well, we talked about the burdensome element.

1109
01:05:13,920 --> 01:05:18,300
It was interesting in the hope behind the badge conversation.

1110
01:05:18,300 --> 01:05:24,180
You had talked about the equal and opposite resistance to suicide that you experienced

1111
01:05:24,180 --> 01:05:25,180
a lot.

1112
01:05:25,180 --> 01:05:29,820
It was intriguing because it's something that I've kind of hinted at that beneath all of

1113
01:05:29,820 --> 01:05:36,000
that distorted, miswired mind is still that voice of truth, that one that pushes you away

1114
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:38,740
from the edge of the building when you're standing too close.

1115
01:05:38,740 --> 01:05:43,820
So talk to me about that because I thought that was a beautiful analogy of that desire

1116
01:05:43,820 --> 01:05:46,740
to live trying so hard to pull you back.

1117
01:05:46,740 --> 01:05:50,380
Yeah, I think there's the voice of burden, right?

1118
01:05:50,380 --> 01:05:56,100
And I think there's also the voice of, I guess we'll call it reason that happens and is in

1119
01:05:56,100 --> 01:06:00,900
your head when you're someone who has been dealt a hand of trauma and it then ends up

1120
01:06:00,900 --> 01:06:06,780
spending a significant portion of their day to day and suicidal thoughts or ideation or

1121
01:06:06,780 --> 01:06:10,340
even just a not wanting to exist mindset.

1122
01:06:10,340 --> 01:06:22,420
And there is this sort of mindset where it's, yeah, I don't want to exist.

1123
01:06:22,420 --> 01:06:23,780
I'm a burden.

1124
01:06:23,780 --> 01:06:31,020
But then there's this, but even though in my case, even though I have attempted and

1125
01:06:31,020 --> 01:06:35,100
it hasn't worked, I am here.

1126
01:06:35,100 --> 01:06:43,900
And it makes you question in the darkest hour when you're like trying to convince yourself

1127
01:06:43,900 --> 01:06:48,300
that you need to go, that you need to end your life, there comes this other voice that's

1128
01:06:48,300 --> 01:06:52,400
like, but you've come so far.

1129
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:53,580
You've made it through this.

1130
01:06:53,580 --> 01:06:58,300
Remember what you told yourself when you were 18 that nothing was going to be worse than

1131
01:06:58,300 --> 01:07:00,860
what you went through as a kid?

1132
01:07:00,860 --> 01:07:04,420
That voice pops up and it tells you that.

1133
01:07:04,420 --> 01:07:10,980
And I think people have a misnomer that someone thinks suicide once and that's when they have

1134
01:07:10,980 --> 01:07:11,980
their attempt.

1135
01:07:11,980 --> 01:07:14,740
Oh, I need to end my life attempt.

1136
01:07:14,740 --> 01:07:16,580
It isn't how it works.

1137
01:07:16,580 --> 01:07:21,820
For most of us, anyone who's had any suicide attempt, more than one, whatever it is, is

1138
01:07:21,820 --> 01:07:26,580
usually a buildup, is usually a bunch of times sitting by yourself contemplating doing this

1139
01:07:26,580 --> 01:07:31,020
where that other voice kicks in and gets you not to do it.

1140
01:07:31,020 --> 01:07:35,860
And there could be a plethora of reasons why you didn't.

1141
01:07:35,860 --> 01:07:40,380
It may not be the same one every time, it may be, but that voice pops up and it tells

1142
01:07:40,380 --> 01:07:47,180
you and at some point you have to hold on to that voice because that voice is what will

1143
01:07:47,180 --> 01:07:54,220
keep you from having more attempts, from getting to the point where you're sitting 70, 80 hours

1144
01:07:54,220 --> 01:07:57,220
a week thinking about not existing anymore.

1145
01:07:57,220 --> 01:07:58,780
That voice is your resilience.

1146
01:07:58,780 --> 01:08:07,060
That voice is what will keep you here, which is where we all should be.

1147
01:08:07,060 --> 01:08:12,060
And it's hard when there isn't a support network, when we're not talking about this, when we're

1148
01:08:12,060 --> 01:08:16,980
not, oh, don't say suicide, they may do it, whatever it is, when we're not having these

1149
01:08:16,980 --> 01:08:21,660
discussions, it's hard for someone to hold on to that voice and see that voice as their

1150
01:08:21,660 --> 01:08:28,180
strength when no one else is talking about it, when we're not encouraging, learning more

1151
01:08:28,180 --> 01:08:32,740
about how a suicidal mind works, where it's just like people commit suicide because they

1152
01:08:32,740 --> 01:08:35,660
think one day they're going to kill themselves.

1153
01:08:35,660 --> 01:08:38,300
And that's the mindset and that's not true.

1154
01:08:38,300 --> 01:08:41,660
And anyone who has anything to do with psychology knows that's not true.

1155
01:08:41,660 --> 01:08:45,180
And we need to bring that to our job.

1156
01:08:45,180 --> 01:08:50,540
We shouldn't be learning more about psychology anyway, because we're a people business.

1157
01:08:50,540 --> 01:08:51,620
We should learn more about this.

1158
01:08:51,620 --> 01:08:57,420
We need to learn this not only for what our jobs and our duties require, but all of us

1159
01:08:57,420 --> 01:08:58,420
are humans.

1160
01:08:58,420 --> 01:09:03,060
All of us are coworkers, our administrators, town and city hall.

1161
01:09:03,060 --> 01:09:04,220
We're all humans.

1162
01:09:04,220 --> 01:09:06,620
We need to understand this better.

1163
01:09:06,620 --> 01:09:07,620
Absolutely.

1164
01:09:07,620 --> 01:09:08,620
100%.

1165
01:09:08,620 --> 01:09:14,260
We know one thing that really makes me sad as well, and I use the analogy of when I was

1166
01:09:14,260 --> 01:09:20,700
younger, you know, there will be, you go to a nightclub and you drink and you end up,

1167
01:09:20,700 --> 01:09:26,740
you know, kissing or more a girl who had you been stone cold sober, you probably never

1168
01:09:26,740 --> 01:09:30,740
would have done that with, or you get into a fight because you think you're a superhero

1169
01:09:30,740 --> 01:09:33,940
and then, you know, you get your ass kicked, whatever it is.

1170
01:09:33,940 --> 01:09:37,320
But you know, that's the kind of tongue in cheek scenario.

1171
01:09:37,320 --> 01:09:42,780
But what's sad is I feel like alcohol quietens that voice of reason, which is why so often,

1172
01:09:42,780 --> 01:09:46,140
you know, it's the precursor to some of these suicides, because I think if they were stone

1173
01:09:46,140 --> 01:09:49,860
cold sober, maybe that voice would have still won that night.

1174
01:09:49,860 --> 01:09:52,100
So that being a red flag, too.

1175
01:09:52,100 --> 01:09:57,060
I mean, if you're in this kind of spiraling behavior, don't reach for the bottle, reach

1176
01:09:57,060 --> 01:09:58,060
for the phone.

1177
01:09:58,060 --> 01:10:04,420
And I go again, we're talking about near crisis now, but I feel like, you know, the amplifier

1178
01:10:04,420 --> 01:10:10,620
of the voice of burden is alcohol, you know, the same way as it distorts your attraction

1179
01:10:10,620 --> 01:10:16,140
to a woman or your perception of your own masculinity and ability to fight everything,

1180
01:10:16,140 --> 01:10:17,140
everything.

1181
01:10:17,140 --> 01:10:18,140
And it's so encouraged.

1182
01:10:18,140 --> 01:10:22,220
I mean, when I grew up in the fire service, the sun kiss button on the sewing machine

1183
01:10:22,220 --> 01:10:23,700
was a Budweiser.

1184
01:10:23,700 --> 01:10:25,420
When I got on the fighter pilot, that was still the case.

1185
01:10:25,420 --> 01:10:29,640
When we were rolling holes, you drank or smoked a butt.

1186
01:10:29,640 --> 01:10:33,980
You know, it was always encouraged and it's so hard when it was so generationally pushed

1187
01:10:33,980 --> 01:10:38,940
to drink to deal with the job is hard to break that it's still there and pretty heavy pockets.

1188
01:10:38,940 --> 01:10:41,140
I mean, what do guys do off shift?

1189
01:10:41,140 --> 01:10:46,780
We're union parties at bars, bars and union and union halls.

1190
01:10:46,780 --> 01:10:51,300
You know, it's such a huge influencer of how to deal with what we go through both on the

1191
01:10:51,300 --> 01:10:54,080
job and what ends up happening at home.

1192
01:10:54,080 --> 01:10:59,900
It is go have a beer, go have sex, you know, and, and a lot of the ways to deal with a

1193
01:10:59,900 --> 01:11:07,020
lot of the things we are, we are dealing with and, and not healing from so many holistic

1194
01:11:07,020 --> 01:11:09,140
things can can sort these out.

1195
01:11:09,140 --> 01:11:14,120
And none of most of the things that you need to do to sort out and heal from your trauma

1196
01:11:14,120 --> 01:11:16,420
aren't very invasive.

1197
01:11:16,420 --> 01:11:17,700
Most of them can be done yourself.

1198
01:11:17,700 --> 01:11:22,740
Most of them can be done in the middle of conversations with people.

1199
01:11:22,740 --> 01:11:27,940
And those are the things that are tools that need to be brought into these fire and police

1200
01:11:27,940 --> 01:11:33,460
stations and, you know, EMS bays and everything and be taught to people be like, Hey, just

1201
01:11:33,460 --> 01:11:36,060
like we're going to teach someone how to correctly bench press, we're going to teach you how

1202
01:11:36,060 --> 01:11:41,300
to do breathing, yoga, mindfulness, whatever it is, you know, what is out there from with

1203
01:11:41,300 --> 01:11:45,180
Alex, all that stuff needs to be pushed because it just makes sense that to give the tools

1204
01:11:45,180 --> 01:11:50,540
for success and longevity to an employee and a coworker, I mean, that's just death to a

1205
01:11:50,540 --> 01:11:52,340
career not to at this point.

1206
01:11:52,340 --> 01:11:58,100
Well, speaking of that as a good segue, you find yourself in this, this most recent suicide

1207
01:11:58,100 --> 01:11:59,660
attempt.

1208
01:11:59,660 --> 01:12:01,300
What was, what was the change?

1209
01:12:01,300 --> 01:12:05,380
What was some of the tools that you started accumulating that work for you specifically?

1210
01:12:05,380 --> 01:12:12,500
Well, at that point, my last suicide attempt, which was December of 2019, it was right after

1211
01:12:12,500 --> 01:12:18,940
the birth of my last child and I had, I'd been in appropriate trauma therapy for a while

1212
01:12:18,940 --> 01:12:21,080
at that point, about four years.

1213
01:12:21,080 --> 01:12:24,700
And so I was already learning what I needed to learn years before about everything that

1214
01:12:24,700 --> 01:12:26,060
I had been through.

1215
01:12:26,060 --> 01:12:32,020
And after that attempt, I spent two months inpatient dealing with this.

1216
01:12:32,020 --> 01:12:33,460
It was like, it was okay.

1217
01:12:33,460 --> 01:12:39,220
This is, this can't happen because I went from having all my attempts being, you know,

1218
01:12:39,220 --> 01:12:43,540
going drugs to this last one involving a gun.

1219
01:12:43,540 --> 01:12:49,060
And it, after, after it happened, it was like a light went off.

1220
01:12:49,060 --> 01:12:52,500
It was like, okay, so now we've upped the ante.

1221
01:12:52,500 --> 01:12:54,940
We are no longer just, just taking a handful of pills.

1222
01:12:54,940 --> 01:12:58,740
We're taking a firearm and we're putting it against our head.

1223
01:12:58,740 --> 01:13:00,820
We have to stop this.

1224
01:13:00,820 --> 01:13:05,940
And once I realized, and it was the first time in my life I'd ever done it.

1225
01:13:05,940 --> 01:13:12,620
Once I sat with my therapist and we talked out the fact that now six times I have tried

1226
01:13:12,620 --> 01:13:14,860
to end my life and none of them had worked.

1227
01:13:14,860 --> 01:13:18,860
Nevermind all the shit I had been through in life where I shouldn't be here anyway.

1228
01:13:18,860 --> 01:13:23,660
You know, the stuff from the job, whatever it is, I'm obviously meant to be here.

1229
01:13:23,660 --> 01:13:24,780
And it sounds cliche.

1230
01:13:24,780 --> 01:13:28,540
It sounds corny, but it worked.

1231
01:13:28,540 --> 01:13:31,580
I actually told myself I'm obviously meant to be here.

1232
01:13:31,580 --> 01:13:34,260
And I, until that point, I had never said it out loud.

1233
01:13:34,260 --> 01:13:37,180
I had never said to myself, I'm meant to be here.

1234
01:13:37,180 --> 01:13:42,420
And at some point when you're living this life of just down a spiral all the time, when

1235
01:13:42,420 --> 01:13:44,700
you feel like you're a burden or you don't feel, you don't be here.

1236
01:13:44,700 --> 01:13:51,700
If you can find a person or a situation where you can sit and be like, I'm meant to be here.

1237
01:13:51,700 --> 01:13:52,700
It can be life altering.

1238
01:13:52,700 --> 01:14:00,620
And ever since that day, I have been going on an uphill slope to just the things that

1239
01:14:00,620 --> 01:14:05,260
I can do now and the things that I can get through without having to defer to past habits

1240
01:14:05,260 --> 01:14:13,820
and behavior of self harm or even like self pity or going down a very dark path where

1241
01:14:13,820 --> 01:14:19,500
I end up feeling that burden, quote unquote, has just been astronomical.

1242
01:14:19,500 --> 01:14:23,700
And it's been because I finally sat and looked in the mirror and was like, I'm supposed to

1243
01:14:23,700 --> 01:14:27,180
be here.

1244
01:14:27,180 --> 01:14:31,760
What was missing having done four years of trauma, having just had another child and

1245
01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:35,660
still finding yourself at that crisis point?

1246
01:14:35,660 --> 01:14:38,500
It was acknowledgement of things that I refused to acknowledge.

1247
01:14:38,500 --> 01:14:42,460
It was up until that point, I hadn't really delved into my childhood trauma.

1248
01:14:42,460 --> 01:14:47,020
I had never said the word rape pertaining to myself.

1249
01:14:47,020 --> 01:14:52,000
And I hadn't acknowledged other abusive parts of my life.

1250
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:56,820
Once I had that attempt and I realized that all bets are off at this point.

1251
01:14:56,820 --> 01:15:02,860
I got to do something I acknowledged specifically the sexual abuse of my childhood.

1252
01:15:02,860 --> 01:15:08,140
And once I did, once that was out, like out of my mouth, verbalized it, in some cases

1253
01:15:08,140 --> 01:15:10,680
wrote stuff down.

1254
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:15,220
That was the catalyst that was, hey, this happened to me, but I'm here.

1255
01:15:15,220 --> 01:15:16,220
I made it through it.

1256
01:15:16,220 --> 01:15:20,620
It was horrifying and it's pretty dark, but I made it through it.

1257
01:15:20,620 --> 01:15:21,620
Did it get reframed as well?

1258
01:15:21,620 --> 01:15:24,300
Because I heard this is the same guy I was talking about earlier.

1259
01:15:24,300 --> 01:15:26,940
For so long, they felt guilt and shame.

1260
01:15:26,940 --> 01:15:30,180
They felt like in some way it was their fault.

1261
01:15:30,180 --> 01:15:34,340
And then the counselor literally helped them reframe to know you were a victim.

1262
01:15:34,340 --> 01:15:35,340
That is it.

1263
01:15:35,340 --> 01:15:37,220
You were a victim of a predator.

1264
01:15:37,220 --> 01:15:39,540
Yeah, that was a big portion of it.

1265
01:15:39,540 --> 01:15:47,420
That was easily 75% of it was reframing the verbiage that had been in my head for at that

1266
01:15:47,420 --> 01:15:53,260
point 30 plus years, almost 40 years of it's your fault.

1267
01:15:53,260 --> 01:15:54,260
You did this.

1268
01:15:54,260 --> 01:15:55,260
You did that.

1269
01:15:55,260 --> 01:15:57,380
You asked for it, whatever it is.

1270
01:15:57,380 --> 01:15:59,200
Changing that verbiage to you were a kid.

1271
01:15:59,200 --> 01:16:00,300
You were helpless.

1272
01:16:00,300 --> 01:16:03,300
No one helped you.

1273
01:16:03,300 --> 01:16:08,340
Once that shifted, I got the upper hand on at least that trauma.

1274
01:16:08,340 --> 01:16:10,180
And that was a game changer.

1275
01:16:10,180 --> 01:16:16,340
And it was all because the therapist changed the dialogue or helped me change the dialogue.

1276
01:16:16,340 --> 01:16:20,940
So you're obviously having these talk therapy sessions with the counselor.

1277
01:16:20,940 --> 01:16:24,860
Were there any other of these many tools that you hear about EMDR, psychedelics?

1278
01:16:24,860 --> 01:16:29,620
I mean, the whole vast toolbox that we have today available.

1279
01:16:29,620 --> 01:16:37,340
I did do some EMDR, which for a few incidents did help due to the complexity of my PTSD.

1280
01:16:37,340 --> 01:16:43,080
It hasn't always been advised just because of the way EMDR works.

1281
01:16:43,080 --> 01:16:49,120
But later on, the biggest thing for me was mindfulness and meditation.

1282
01:16:49,120 --> 01:16:53,500
That was the biggest thing for me was sitting and being like, wow, I can do almost all this

1283
01:16:53,500 --> 01:16:54,500
myself.

1284
01:16:54,500 --> 01:16:56,260
Breath work, all of it.

1285
01:16:56,260 --> 01:17:04,820
All of that ancient shit that gets played down as hocus pocus and hippie stuff was monumental

1286
01:17:04,820 --> 01:17:09,980
and being able for me to be like, OK, I need to be in the now because I'm somewhere 30

1287
01:17:09,980 --> 01:17:12,740
years from now or 30 years before now.

1288
01:17:12,740 --> 01:17:14,300
I can't be there.

1289
01:17:14,300 --> 01:17:15,460
I need to be here now.

1290
01:17:15,460 --> 01:17:18,220
And the mindfulness, the meditation, the breath work.

1291
01:17:18,220 --> 01:17:20,500
That is what does it for me.

1292
01:17:20,500 --> 01:17:24,980
And I've used it for, you know, at this point, three and a half years and I'm trying to hone

1293
01:17:24,980 --> 01:17:30,580
it and that's my go to when it comes to things because I do it.

1294
01:17:30,580 --> 01:17:33,180
I do it anywhere and I push it.

1295
01:17:33,180 --> 01:17:37,060
I talk about it and I do it with other people who appreciate it.

1296
01:17:37,060 --> 01:17:42,780
And I think the fire service in particular could could really benefit from mindfulness

1297
01:17:42,780 --> 01:17:46,340
and meditation approach to what we do for our job and becoming more aware of what our

1298
01:17:46,340 --> 01:17:49,780
body is doing, trying to stay more in the now.

1299
01:17:49,780 --> 01:17:53,580
And that's really one of the biggest tools I use.

1300
01:17:53,580 --> 01:17:56,420
You know, it's funny, I've talked about this a lot and I've had, you know, like breath

1301
01:17:56,420 --> 01:17:58,740
experts on the show as well.

1302
01:17:58,740 --> 01:18:05,140
We are one of the only professions on planet Earth where the only air we have access to

1303
01:18:05,140 --> 01:18:08,180
is strapped to our back in an idealized environment.

1304
01:18:08,180 --> 01:18:12,940
And yet there's never any conversation of mental state breath work.

1305
01:18:12,940 --> 01:18:16,740
There's a resistance to cardiovascular standards because there's no fitness standards in the

1306
01:18:16,740 --> 01:18:20,940
fire service, not that I'm aware of, like punitive actual real fitness standards.

1307
01:18:20,940 --> 01:18:27,060
So everything that it takes to have a calm mind and an efficient breath is is discarded

1308
01:18:27,060 --> 01:18:28,980
or even a post, which is insanity.

1309
01:18:28,980 --> 01:18:30,660
Because would you do that as a diver?

1310
01:18:30,660 --> 01:18:32,340
No, of course you wouldn't.

1311
01:18:32,340 --> 01:18:33,340
No, no.

1312
01:18:33,340 --> 01:18:36,300
And it's amazing what it does.

1313
01:18:36,300 --> 01:18:38,460
Because a lot of people don't understand like why does breath work?

1314
01:18:38,460 --> 01:18:40,620
Well, you got to breathe through it.

1315
01:18:40,620 --> 01:18:44,380
It causes physiological things that you have no control over.

1316
01:18:44,380 --> 01:18:47,180
That's the greatest thing with any sort of breath exercises.

1317
01:18:47,180 --> 01:18:50,540
You don't get to decide that it's going to reset your program.

1318
01:18:50,540 --> 01:18:54,260
You're going to do it if you do it correctly, and it's going to reset it for you.

1319
01:18:54,260 --> 01:18:58,660
And that's one of the things I loved about it is that it took as much as control of the

1320
01:18:58,660 --> 01:19:00,020
big thing with me.

1321
01:19:00,020 --> 01:19:03,900
It took the control out of it for me where it was like, it's going to happen anyway.

1322
01:19:03,900 --> 01:19:06,020
If I do this, it's going to happen anyway.

1323
01:19:06,020 --> 01:19:09,380
And now I just do it and it resets my my program.

1324
01:19:09,380 --> 01:19:12,940
So it's funny you said about the hippie word.

1325
01:19:12,940 --> 01:19:16,900
If you look now, you know, versus when we were little, I mean, when you were little,

1326
01:19:16,900 --> 01:19:20,140
you talk about organic food, like, oh, you know, what are you a hippie?

1327
01:19:20,140 --> 01:19:23,380
It's like, basically you're saying what you don't like the people that grow your food

1328
01:19:23,380 --> 01:19:24,860
to be in hazmat suits.

1329
01:19:24,860 --> 01:19:26,580
Yeah, actually, I don't.

1330
01:19:26,580 --> 01:19:30,060
I was like, I don't mind worm wormholes in my apples is fine.

1331
01:19:30,060 --> 01:19:32,660
That means that it's not, you know, poison.

1332
01:19:32,660 --> 01:19:37,300
And it's the same with acupuncture and chiropractic and all these other things, you know, the

1333
01:19:37,300 --> 01:19:42,260
Chinese herbs, there's a reason that they've been used for a really fucking long time is

1334
01:19:42,260 --> 01:19:46,860
because they work, you know, and so now it's nice to see this kind of full circle where

1335
01:19:46,860 --> 01:19:48,820
people are going and I hate it.

1336
01:19:48,820 --> 01:19:51,080
And they go, oh, now we've got research to back it up.

1337
01:19:51,080 --> 01:19:52,900
You don't need your fucking research.

1338
01:19:52,900 --> 01:19:57,020
We know it works because it's maintained through these generations, the same as ayahuasca and

1339
01:19:57,020 --> 01:20:00,500
some of these other things that now people are realizing are incredibly powerful.

1340
01:20:00,500 --> 01:20:04,940
Well, these, you know, especially the Central and South American tribes have been using

1341
01:20:04,940 --> 01:20:06,360
it for millennia.

1342
01:20:06,360 --> 01:20:08,060
So there's your forever.

1343
01:20:08,060 --> 01:20:14,540
But you know, having the humility to say ancient wisdom is ancient wisdom, you know, finally,

1344
01:20:14,540 --> 01:20:17,140
rather than poo poo by science.

1345
01:20:17,140 --> 01:20:21,380
I think it's a it's a renaissance and it's amazing because like you said, what really

1346
01:20:21,380 --> 01:20:23,980
works doesn't even cost anything.

1347
01:20:23,980 --> 01:20:24,980
Breathwork sleep.

1348
01:20:24,980 --> 01:20:31,020
I mean, all these things that we've, you know, vilified for so long, that's the real superpower.

1349
01:20:31,020 --> 01:20:32,020
Yeah.

1350
01:20:32,020 --> 01:20:33,740
And you'd be surprised who does it.

1351
01:20:33,740 --> 01:20:37,620
And I learned my mindfulness and meditation from a three tour Marine, who is one of my

1352
01:20:37,620 --> 01:20:42,340
closest friends, you know, and, you know, this man has taken shots of the human beings

1353
01:20:42,340 --> 01:20:46,540
and he is the one who got me to meditate.

1354
01:20:46,540 --> 01:20:50,460
And it's not it's not the people you think that are that are doing the things they need

1355
01:20:50,460 --> 01:20:54,340
to to cope and to heal correctly long term.

1356
01:20:54,340 --> 01:20:59,980
It's the people you may you may disregard as the ones doing it, because we've been there.

1357
01:20:59,980 --> 01:21:03,620
We've been to the brink and we know now what works.

1358
01:21:03,620 --> 01:21:08,260
And it really needs that knowledge needs to be shared because there's generations coming

1359
01:21:08,260 --> 01:21:11,620
onto the job, generations that are on it now that didn't need these tools.

1360
01:21:11,620 --> 01:21:13,660
And we should be passing this on.

1361
01:21:13,660 --> 01:21:18,220
Well, even from the performance point of view, and this is a good hook for the naysayers

1362
01:21:18,220 --> 01:21:20,260
of the breathwork and the mindfulness.

1363
01:21:20,260 --> 01:21:26,860
I had a athlete coach, Logan Gelbrick, on the show and he was a pro baseball player

1364
01:21:26,860 --> 01:21:31,380
and he was talking about this flow state moment that he'd had and he's unpacked what you need

1365
01:21:31,380 --> 01:21:32,380
for flow state.

1366
01:21:32,380 --> 01:21:37,180
He said, you've got your 10,000 reps, you know, you need your stress and then you need

1367
01:21:37,180 --> 01:21:38,180
a calm mind.

1368
01:21:38,180 --> 01:21:41,660
Well, you think about the fire service, you know, as obviously progress through the fire

1369
01:21:41,660 --> 01:21:43,500
service, your reps get more and more.

1370
01:21:43,500 --> 01:21:45,380
Your stress is certainly there.

1371
01:21:45,380 --> 01:21:49,300
But if you don't have that calm mind, you're not going to be able to really get in that

1372
01:21:49,300 --> 01:21:55,180
flow for a primary search for an extrication for, you know, tying the right knots in a

1373
01:21:55,180 --> 01:21:58,980
in a in a RPM system for a rope rescue, whatever it is.

1374
01:21:58,980 --> 01:22:03,820
So if you want to be a better firefighter, you need to fight for the rest and recovery

1375
01:22:03,820 --> 01:22:06,300
in the sleep and the shifts that actually support you.

1376
01:22:06,300 --> 01:22:12,380
And you need to use mindfulness and breathwork because on the way to that pediatric cardiac

1377
01:22:12,380 --> 01:22:17,380
arrest, you need to get your alarm state down so that you can critically think and hopefully

1378
01:22:17,380 --> 01:22:19,380
do the right things for the baby.

1379
01:22:19,380 --> 01:22:21,420
Yeah, you know what?

1380
01:22:21,420 --> 01:22:25,100
And I think back now and that, you know, the 2025 brain that we're talking about, and I

1381
01:22:25,100 --> 01:22:31,580
think back to a class I took God, probably 14 years ago now through the fire academy.

1382
01:22:31,580 --> 01:22:35,420
And it was this like rescue breathing for like when you run low on your tank, if you're

1383
01:22:35,420 --> 01:22:36,780
trapped or something like that, how to reserve.

1384
01:22:36,780 --> 01:22:38,100
And it was I forget what the name was.

1385
01:22:38,100 --> 01:22:41,780
But anyway, the instructor was like, all right, so before we even go out to the drill, yeah,

1386
01:22:41,780 --> 01:22:46,220
before we leave this classroom, we're all going to do this breathing technique.

1387
01:22:46,220 --> 01:22:49,580
And this was, you know, 2010.

1388
01:22:49,580 --> 01:22:54,580
You know, maybe even before that, before we were even talking about it.

1389
01:22:54,580 --> 01:22:55,700
It was in a trauma class.

1390
01:22:55,700 --> 01:22:58,140
It was we're going to get ourselves right here right now.

1391
01:22:58,140 --> 01:23:00,660
We're going to baseline ourselves.

1392
01:23:00,660 --> 01:23:06,180
And I always think back to that with now what I do and remembering what I felt like when

1393
01:23:06,180 --> 01:23:11,940
I did this for the first time I ever did a breathing technique for a fire class on how

1394
01:23:11,940 --> 01:23:12,940
to survive.

1395
01:23:12,940 --> 01:23:17,900
If you ever become trapped with minimal air in a tank, I think back now with what I do

1396
01:23:17,900 --> 01:23:23,460
every single day, multiple times a day, sometimes 10, 12 times a day, I do what this instructor

1397
01:23:23,460 --> 01:23:29,000
was teaching us to do to get us to a spot where we could control our breathing to survive.

1398
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:30,680
And you have to breathe to survive.

1399
01:23:30,680 --> 01:23:35,140
And it can be applied to mental health, overall physical health, all of it.

1400
01:23:35,140 --> 01:23:40,260
And because I do it now, it's allowed me to stay here.

1401
01:23:40,260 --> 01:23:45,620
The now not, you know, ruminate in the past or try to escape to the future.

1402
01:23:45,620 --> 01:23:48,740
The now and so many first responders need that tool.

1403
01:23:48,740 --> 01:23:50,660
They need to be here now.

1404
01:23:50,660 --> 01:23:55,460
Not the past call, not home with the, you know, the soon to be ex wife or whatever,

1405
01:23:55,460 --> 01:23:58,180
whatever it is, they need to be in the now.

1406
01:23:58,180 --> 01:24:00,700
And that's one of those tools that can do it.

1407
01:24:00,700 --> 01:24:01,700
Absolutely.

1408
01:24:01,700 --> 01:24:03,820
Well, I've said this a lot on the show recently.

1409
01:24:03,820 --> 01:24:06,780
And it's funny because on my Facebook memories, it popped up.

1410
01:24:06,780 --> 01:24:10,660
I started a Facebook page eight years ago called the dark side project.

1411
01:24:10,660 --> 01:24:14,740
And what I wanted to do was just start the conversations, whether you were doing fine,

1412
01:24:14,740 --> 01:24:18,380
if you're doing fine, then you know, what are the tools that you're using, if you're

1413
01:24:18,380 --> 01:24:22,260
struggling and I had people literally in tears on their bed, you know, they didn't even get

1414
01:24:22,260 --> 01:24:24,180
out of bed that day and they did a video.

1415
01:24:24,180 --> 01:24:25,180
So it was, it was amazing.

1416
01:24:25,180 --> 01:24:28,940
And everyone, you know, the people that put videos up were extremely courageous.

1417
01:24:28,940 --> 01:24:32,940
But I start, the very first one was me and I said, and I have PTSD.

1418
01:24:32,940 --> 01:24:35,340
Now that was what we called everything back then.

1419
01:24:35,340 --> 01:24:39,980
Now fast forward, what I realized is I have, you know, more pieces of moral injury, absolutely

1420
01:24:39,980 --> 01:24:43,920
throughout my career, but PTSD, no.

1421
01:24:43,920 --> 01:24:49,140
But where I feel like the conversation is kind of caught its trousers leg, if you like,

1422
01:24:49,140 --> 01:24:52,580
is on the whole smash the stigma conversation.

1423
01:24:52,580 --> 01:24:55,540
And it's a very do me gloomy kind of chat.

1424
01:24:55,540 --> 01:25:01,740
A lot of times where I think there's so much value is the hope of post-traumatic growth.

1425
01:25:01,740 --> 01:25:06,700
And as you mentioned earlier in this conversation, the trauma that a lot of us have experienced

1426
01:25:06,700 --> 01:25:11,740
the struggles when we were younger, if processed, I truly believe becomes strength.

1427
01:25:11,740 --> 01:25:12,740
It becomes resilience.

1428
01:25:12,740 --> 01:25:14,300
It forges empathy.

1429
01:25:14,300 --> 01:25:15,980
It's shared suffering.

1430
01:25:15,980 --> 01:25:20,780
So talk to me about, as you're going on this healing journey, did you start to kind of

1431
01:25:20,780 --> 01:25:25,980
formulate a, you know, a 2.0 version of yourself on the other end of the kind of crucible?

1432
01:25:25,980 --> 01:25:26,980
Yeah.

1433
01:25:26,980 --> 01:25:33,020
I mean, that's essentially what ended up happening was that once, once I specifically after that

1434
01:25:33,020 --> 01:25:37,260
attempt and opened up about my, my childhood and realized, you know, I'm meant to be here

1435
01:25:37,260 --> 01:25:40,060
and that I survived this and that it wasn't my fault.

1436
01:25:40,060 --> 01:25:46,660
Once I got the upper hand on my trauma and I realized that I could take it and use it

1437
01:25:46,660 --> 01:25:48,940
as a strength.

1438
01:25:48,940 --> 01:25:49,940
That's exactly what I did.

1439
01:25:49,940 --> 01:25:54,780
I used the fact that I have been, no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't harp on it in a way of,

1440
01:25:54,780 --> 01:25:57,140
Oh, you know, sadness and dark stuff.

1441
01:25:57,140 --> 01:25:59,580
Like I've been through this, I've been through this, I've been through this, it's all been

1442
01:25:59,580 --> 01:26:00,580
bad.

1443
01:26:00,580 --> 01:26:02,260
I've been like, I've made it through this.

1444
01:26:02,260 --> 01:26:04,860
I've made it through this, this, this, this.

1445
01:26:04,860 --> 01:26:10,180
And that was the catalyst for the strength building with, with this whole thing was, was,

1446
01:26:10,180 --> 01:26:15,340
okay, well now I'm on the side where I can look back and be like, I made it through it.

1447
01:26:15,340 --> 01:26:16,340
I didn't die.

1448
01:26:16,340 --> 01:26:18,340
I didn't, I didn't cease to exist.

1449
01:26:18,340 --> 01:26:19,340
I had some bad days.

1450
01:26:19,340 --> 01:26:20,860
I refused to get out of bed for a week.

1451
01:26:20,860 --> 01:26:24,540
You know, whatever it is, I didn't sleep or it slept too much, whatever, what it was,

1452
01:26:24,540 --> 01:26:25,860
I'm human.

1453
01:26:25,860 --> 01:26:30,540
And once I acknowledged I'm human and that I know is that a lot of the things that happened

1454
01:26:30,540 --> 01:26:32,940
were out of my control and weren't my fault.

1455
01:26:32,940 --> 01:26:36,740
All this became a strength and I realized that, you know, something life until, until

1456
01:26:36,740 --> 01:26:40,540
the day I punch my last card, until the day that I ended up in a wooden box, six feet

1457
01:26:40,540 --> 01:26:44,620
in the ground or whatever it's going to be, I'm going to have to get through shit.

1458
01:26:44,620 --> 01:26:46,740
Life's not going to stop throwing me curve balls.

1459
01:26:46,740 --> 01:26:49,060
It doesn't get any easier as you get older.

1460
01:26:49,060 --> 01:26:52,100
As I'm finding now in my mid forties, it gets harder.

1461
01:26:52,100 --> 01:26:56,180
You know, there's all sorts of fun stuff that happens as you get older and it's not going

1462
01:26:56,180 --> 01:26:57,520
to stop.

1463
01:26:57,520 --> 01:26:59,180
You have to bank on that resilience.

1464
01:26:59,180 --> 01:27:03,800
You have to tap into the shit you got through the strengths that you are developing because

1465
01:27:03,800 --> 01:27:08,060
you continue to get through it and you refuse to give up.

1466
01:27:08,060 --> 01:27:10,660
Even if there's times where you're like, yeah, I just don't want to do this.

1467
01:27:10,660 --> 01:27:11,660
You're still not giving up.

1468
01:27:11,660 --> 01:27:12,660
You're still here.

1469
01:27:12,660 --> 01:27:15,980
If you're, if you're sitting here listening to this right now, you haven't given up.

1470
01:27:15,980 --> 01:27:17,940
You have to bank on that.

1471
01:27:17,940 --> 01:27:20,860
You have to use that as a strength because that's what's going to continue to get through

1472
01:27:20,860 --> 01:27:23,460
life as it continues to throw shit balls at you.

1473
01:27:23,460 --> 01:27:25,620
Cause that's what's going to happen.

1474
01:27:25,620 --> 01:27:26,620
It's never going to stop.

1475
01:27:26,620 --> 01:27:28,880
We have to get through it.

1476
01:27:28,880 --> 01:27:30,820
There was a sign on a CrossFit gym.

1477
01:27:30,820 --> 01:27:33,660
I did CrossFit for a long time.

1478
01:27:33,660 --> 01:27:37,660
And this one gym had a sign that said it never gets easier.

1479
01:27:37,660 --> 01:27:43,020
And I love that because you're getting faster and stronger and fitter and hopefully more

1480
01:27:43,020 --> 01:27:44,020
mobile.

1481
01:27:44,020 --> 01:27:47,740
So you are getting better, but you're constantly pushing that a little bit more.

1482
01:27:47,740 --> 01:27:50,860
And then, you know, obviously if you really want to break it down, there's high intensity

1483
01:27:50,860 --> 01:27:55,460
days and low intensity days and rest days, but you know that we get the principle, but

1484
01:27:55,460 --> 01:28:00,820
I think this is kind of underlines what you just said is that you're navigating that journey.

1485
01:28:00,820 --> 01:28:03,380
And I've had friends that have just been through so much.

1486
01:28:03,380 --> 01:28:05,460
One of my good friends, Dustin Hawkins.

1487
01:28:05,460 --> 01:28:09,980
I mean his fucking life story is catapults of shit have been thrown at him and his wife,

1488
01:28:09,980 --> 01:28:15,180
you know, the last couple of decades, but he's also a beacon of light for a lot of people.

1489
01:28:15,180 --> 01:28:16,420
He's still carrying on.

1490
01:28:16,420 --> 01:28:21,500
So I think that's it is not expecting some Disney utopia when you emerge the other side,

1491
01:28:21,500 --> 01:28:25,860
just realizing that now there's an armor that serves you, not one that you've built around

1492
01:28:25,860 --> 01:28:28,740
that you're hiding inside, but you've got scars.

1493
01:28:28,740 --> 01:28:32,900
And I always talk about, you know, the, the analogy of the Japanese pottery with the gold

1494
01:28:32,900 --> 01:28:33,900
glue.

1495
01:28:33,900 --> 01:28:34,900
Yes, that's exactly it.

1496
01:28:34,900 --> 01:28:39,300
You know, you are this, this, you know, this more resilient version of yourself.

1497
01:28:39,300 --> 01:28:44,620
Talk to me about the beacon of light element though, because I hear so many people when

1498
01:28:44,620 --> 01:28:48,460
they've been through this journey and they are able to talk about, you know, again, as

1499
01:28:48,460 --> 01:28:54,380
they emerge, how many people come out the woodwork saying I've been hurting too people

1500
01:28:54,380 --> 01:28:59,580
that they thought were doing so fucking well, because we had wear this mask of, um, you

1501
01:28:59,580 --> 01:29:02,220
know, fake stoicism, if you like.

1502
01:29:02,220 --> 01:29:03,220
Yeah.

1503
01:29:03,220 --> 01:29:08,700
When I, when I first came out, so, uh, it would have been right around 2015.

1504
01:29:08,700 --> 01:29:12,900
I started to go in public with having, uh, what I got diagnosed with PTSD and then all

1505
01:29:12,900 --> 01:29:16,500
the other elements of trauma, I started to get becoming very vocal, which back then there

1506
01:29:16,500 --> 01:29:18,900
wasn't a lot of us being public with it.

1507
01:29:18,900 --> 01:29:23,260
And so you grow that, you know, you transition at this point, almost 10 years, uh, and over

1508
01:29:23,260 --> 01:29:30,020
the years, um, when you start getting people who on their own approach you and they're

1509
01:29:30,020 --> 01:29:34,260
like, Hey man, I really appreciate that your giant ass is out there saying that you have,

1510
01:29:34,260 --> 01:29:39,300
you've had struggles, um, and that you haven't always made the right decisions and that you've

1511
01:29:39,300 --> 01:29:42,340
lost a lot and blah, blah, blah, blah.

1512
01:29:42,340 --> 01:29:46,980
And once you start hearing other people, it causes you, yeah, sure.

1513
01:29:46,980 --> 01:29:48,180
There's the beacon of hope thing.

1514
01:29:48,180 --> 01:29:50,260
And you're like, okay, I'm a lighthouse for people.

1515
01:29:50,260 --> 01:29:51,260
That's great.

1516
01:29:51,260 --> 01:29:56,220
Um, but then for me, there was, there was moments where I was like, man, I've given

1517
01:29:56,220 --> 01:30:02,180
these people what I wish I had years ago, that other voice that, that, Hey, there's

1518
01:30:02,180 --> 01:30:04,140
other people going through this.

1519
01:30:04,140 --> 01:30:07,180
And that for me is what drives me to keep doing this.

1520
01:30:07,180 --> 01:30:11,100
They keep doing the peer support to keep doing the advocate and the speaking, the, whatever

1521
01:30:11,100 --> 01:30:18,540
it is I do is that, and as humble as I can say it way, I'm giving people what I wish

1522
01:30:18,540 --> 01:30:25,100
I had since I was a kid, that, that voice of it's okay, you're not alone.

1523
01:30:25,100 --> 01:30:30,940
And I do use my disposition and my size because not a lot of six foot five, 240 pound men

1524
01:30:30,940 --> 01:30:34,460
get up on stage and say, I was raped as a child and I made it through it.

1525
01:30:34,460 --> 01:30:36,340
And now I do this.

1526
01:30:36,340 --> 01:30:41,180
I do use that to my advantage because other people need to hear it.

1527
01:30:41,180 --> 01:30:42,700
Other big guys need to hear it.

1528
01:30:42,700 --> 01:30:45,740
Other normal size women need to hear it, whatever it is.

1529
01:30:45,740 --> 01:30:48,860
Everyone needs to hear this and all the other speakers and all the other advocates and all

1530
01:30:48,860 --> 01:30:52,420
the other podcasts and everyone else who talks about this needs to keep talking about it

1531
01:30:52,420 --> 01:30:56,660
because we're building what we talked about earlier of normalizing this conversation where

1532
01:30:56,660 --> 01:30:58,180
people will be like, okay, I need help.

1533
01:30:58,180 --> 01:30:59,900
I can reach out.

1534
01:30:59,900 --> 01:31:02,780
And that is for me, that is that beacon of hope.

1535
01:31:02,780 --> 01:31:03,820
And that is not just me.

1536
01:31:03,820 --> 01:31:05,100
I'm not just the beacon of hope.

1537
01:31:05,100 --> 01:31:07,780
We're collectively doing this as a community.

1538
01:31:07,780 --> 01:31:13,020
You me, people like Mike's to grew people like, you know, Travis house, all these people

1539
01:31:13,020 --> 01:31:18,420
who are out there being like, I sucked at life at one point and this is why, and talking

1540
01:31:18,420 --> 01:31:22,620
about it, we are all that beacon of hope that the people out there that are still in the

1541
01:31:22,620 --> 01:31:25,940
suck are looking towards.

1542
01:31:25,940 --> 01:31:28,940
And we need to keep doing this and growing this community of people who are willing to

1543
01:31:28,940 --> 01:31:31,900
get out there and talk about this because it's working.

1544
01:31:31,900 --> 01:31:36,020
It's very slow because the fire service or the, you know, first first respond to world

1545
01:31:36,020 --> 01:31:39,780
and we're pretty, pretty slow with our progression.

1546
01:31:39,780 --> 01:31:42,140
But but it's working.

1547
01:31:42,140 --> 01:31:44,940
You know, now what about the other side of it?

1548
01:31:44,940 --> 01:31:49,060
I've heard so many people say that when they were able to start helping people and obviously

1549
01:31:49,060 --> 01:31:50,340
you don't want to do that too soon.

1550
01:31:50,340 --> 01:31:55,740
You need to be at a certain point before you start doing exactly what you're talking about.

1551
01:31:55,740 --> 01:32:00,220
But so many of them have said that in itself was also healing for them.

1552
01:32:00,220 --> 01:32:07,540
Yes, the whole journey has been very cathartic when it comes to putting my stuff out there

1553
01:32:07,540 --> 01:32:09,220
and being able to help people.

1554
01:32:09,220 --> 01:32:13,700
The biggest thing that was cathartic was right in the book, getting putting written words

1555
01:32:13,700 --> 01:32:16,180
to what I had been through and sharing them.

1556
01:32:16,180 --> 01:32:18,820
What was was hugely cathartic.

1557
01:32:18,820 --> 01:32:20,820
It was one of the one of the biggest things.

1558
01:32:20,820 --> 01:32:25,620
And there is there's that moment where, you know, once you hit a couple phone calls where

1559
01:32:25,620 --> 01:32:29,500
people are like, you know, thanks for talking me off the edge or thanks for just sharing

1560
01:32:29,500 --> 01:32:33,340
what you should whatever it is, doesn't have to be anything, you know, super dramatic.

1561
01:32:33,340 --> 01:32:38,820
Once you get a few of those, even like the first one or two where people like, thanks,

1562
01:32:38,820 --> 01:32:39,820
man.

1563
01:32:39,820 --> 01:32:44,380
I tell you, it just it drives you to want to keep doing better for yourself.

1564
01:32:44,380 --> 01:32:46,660
The self care that hey, this is why I meditate.

1565
01:32:46,660 --> 01:32:48,860
This is why I continue to go to therapy.

1566
01:32:48,860 --> 01:32:50,380
This is why I eat well.

1567
01:32:50,380 --> 01:32:52,400
This is why I push myself to sleep every night.

1568
01:32:52,400 --> 01:32:56,580
This is why I try when I'm in public, which is hard for me because I am not someone who

1569
01:32:56,580 --> 01:33:01,940
smiles a lot, I try to smile at the random person in the grocery store or whatever it

1570
01:33:01,940 --> 01:33:04,820
is, because all these things matter.

1571
01:33:04,820 --> 01:33:09,060
And when you have these conversations, when you're trying to advocate and trying to help

1572
01:33:09,060 --> 01:33:12,060
and you and you hear these things, you hear the.

1573
01:33:12,060 --> 01:33:15,820
You can't help but drive that and put that back into your own self care and your own

1574
01:33:15,820 --> 01:33:16,820
healing.

1575
01:33:16,820 --> 01:33:18,660
It just I feel it happens naturally.

1576
01:33:18,660 --> 01:33:24,700
Also, if you think about purpose, you know, that's what sent us into uniform in the first

1577
01:33:24,700 --> 01:33:29,700
place, but you get a lot of people that, you know, that they retire or they get fired or,

1578
01:33:29,700 --> 01:33:33,980
you know, they just step away from the profession because, you know, they're being worked 80

1579
01:33:33,980 --> 01:33:38,780
plus hours a week and they value their own health, whatever it is.

1580
01:33:38,780 --> 01:33:43,540
And that identity becomes very dangerous if you just see yourself as a firefighter.

1581
01:33:43,540 --> 01:33:45,140
And we were never just a firefighter.

1582
01:33:45,140 --> 01:33:48,660
You were a human being that cared enough to put on a uniform.

1583
01:33:48,660 --> 01:33:50,480
But the mission stays the same.

1584
01:33:50,480 --> 01:33:54,180
So what I see is commonalities of a lot of these people, the transition out of first

1585
01:33:54,180 --> 01:33:59,980
responders and military professions that are speaking about this, for example, is I think

1586
01:33:59,980 --> 01:34:01,220
it's putting that purpose back.

1587
01:34:01,220 --> 01:34:03,260
But, oh, I'm still trying to save lives.

1588
01:34:03,260 --> 01:34:04,660
I'm still trying to improve lives.

1589
01:34:04,660 --> 01:34:08,180
I'm still trying to help relationships, whatever I did in uniform.

1590
01:34:08,180 --> 01:34:10,760
But it's just a different, different costume now.

1591
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:13,620
So it show it kind of again, the helmet was just a helmet.

1592
01:34:13,620 --> 01:34:19,860
You know, I'm still able to to move the needle on the community's well-being from, you know,

1593
01:34:19,860 --> 01:34:21,860
writing a book or sitting behind a microphone.

1594
01:34:21,860 --> 01:34:28,020
So I think refinding that purpose as part of the post-traumatic growth is a powerful

1595
01:34:28,020 --> 01:34:29,300
tool.

1596
01:34:29,300 --> 01:34:31,220
I think it's also redefining what that purpose is.

1597
01:34:31,220 --> 01:34:37,660
I think we put we put this, you know, whatever it is, perspective on what our purpose is

1598
01:34:37,660 --> 01:34:42,380
when we when we're younger, that, you know, where our purpose is to help people by being

1599
01:34:42,380 --> 01:34:44,640
a firefighter.

1600
01:34:44,640 --> 01:34:45,640
Maybe it isn't.

1601
01:34:45,640 --> 01:34:47,140
Maybe it's you're going to be a firefighter and you're going to help people because you

1602
01:34:47,140 --> 01:34:53,260
can have a side job building wheelchair ramps, you know, whatever it is.

1603
01:34:53,260 --> 01:34:59,540
Redefining what that purpose can look like can be huge because I know I never had any

1604
01:34:59,540 --> 01:35:03,500
not desire, but no idea that this is how I was going to help people.

1605
01:35:03,500 --> 01:35:06,420
This is going to be my current contribution to humanity.

1606
01:35:06,420 --> 01:35:10,220
I never thought that I never thought that my traumas in my past and the shit that I

1607
01:35:10,220 --> 01:35:12,140
had survived was going to help people.

1608
01:35:12,140 --> 01:35:14,660
I thought it was going to be a death of me.

1609
01:35:14,660 --> 01:35:16,660
And it hasn't been.

1610
01:35:16,660 --> 01:35:19,500
And I have been able to take the purpose of what I thought was going to be riding the

1611
01:35:19,500 --> 01:35:24,660
firetruck off to the hero shit and taking it and be like, OK, so it doesn't have to

1612
01:35:24,660 --> 01:35:25,660
be hero shit.

1613
01:35:25,660 --> 01:35:27,060
There's no keep flapping in the breeze.

1614
01:35:27,060 --> 01:35:30,860
We're helping people by using what we've been through.

1615
01:35:30,860 --> 01:35:31,900
We're sharing the wealth.

1616
01:35:31,900 --> 01:35:34,660
We're sharing the how to we're given the guide.

1617
01:35:34,660 --> 01:35:37,740
You know, we're lighting the path, whatever you want to do.

1618
01:35:37,740 --> 01:35:41,220
And we have to kind of redefine what that purpose may be because we have this maybe

1619
01:35:41,220 --> 01:35:44,060
false idea of what that is at a younger age.

1620
01:35:44,060 --> 01:35:47,260
And sometimes life changes what that purpose is going to be.

1621
01:35:47,260 --> 01:35:49,180
And all you got to do is just redefine it.

1622
01:35:49,180 --> 01:35:50,700
There's always a purpose there.

1623
01:35:50,700 --> 01:35:51,700
Yeah.

1624
01:35:51,700 --> 01:35:55,300
Well, I even see that in in as we touched on earlier.

1625
01:35:55,300 --> 01:35:56,740
Oh, I've got to wear this helmet.

1626
01:35:56,740 --> 01:35:58,140
I need to look this certain way.

1627
01:35:58,140 --> 01:35:59,600
And like, we'll time out.

1628
01:35:59,600 --> 01:36:00,600
Take a step back.

1629
01:36:00,600 --> 01:36:01,600
Think about that.

1630
01:36:01,600 --> 01:36:03,240
You need to look a certain way.

1631
01:36:03,240 --> 01:36:08,500
Is that service or is that about you now and your bushy mustache and your leather helmet?

1632
01:36:08,500 --> 01:36:09,500
You know what I mean?

1633
01:36:09,500 --> 01:36:10,500
Where is that line?

1634
01:36:10,500 --> 01:36:12,660
You know, it's like that kind of social media thing.

1635
01:36:12,660 --> 01:36:16,780
Oh, I'm going to film myself giving this homeless guy five dollars so I can get a hundred dollars

1636
01:36:16,780 --> 01:36:17,900
on the Internet.

1637
01:36:17,900 --> 01:36:18,900
Is that service?

1638
01:36:18,900 --> 01:36:19,900
No, it's not.

1639
01:36:19,900 --> 01:36:22,020
It's it's taken advantage of someone's situation.

1640
01:36:22,020 --> 01:36:25,220
But if you put your phone down, never record it and go give someone five dollars so they

1641
01:36:25,220 --> 01:36:27,100
can get something to eat.

1642
01:36:27,100 --> 01:36:28,400
Totally different conversation.

1643
01:36:28,400 --> 01:36:33,480
So I think it's it's it's a dangerous place to lean into that identity.

1644
01:36:33,480 --> 01:36:37,540
And if you feel the need to tell everyone what a hero you are, maybe maybe there's some

1645
01:36:37,540 --> 01:36:40,140
work that needs to be done there, too.

1646
01:36:40,140 --> 01:36:42,620
Ego is a tricky thing.

1647
01:36:42,620 --> 01:36:43,620
It is.

1648
01:36:43,620 --> 01:36:44,620
And we all have it.

1649
01:36:44,620 --> 01:36:47,020
And at some point you need to take it and you need to kind of put it on the back shelf

1650
01:36:47,020 --> 01:36:50,540
so you can do what is the right thing without ego influencing it.

1651
01:36:50,540 --> 01:36:51,540
Absolutely.

1652
01:36:51,540 --> 01:36:53,300
Well, you mentioned the book already.

1653
01:36:53,300 --> 01:36:58,580
Talk to me about the film and you know what that journey was like for you.

1654
01:36:58,580 --> 01:37:01,740
So that's a pretty interesting series of events.

1655
01:37:01,740 --> 01:37:06,900
Back in the end of twenty twenty one, I had me and my another first responder that was

1656
01:37:06,900 --> 01:37:09,520
we were running a peer support group.

1657
01:37:09,520 --> 01:37:13,180
We had both just experienced a collection of like six first responders suicides in our

1658
01:37:13,180 --> 01:37:15,420
area and we were like, what the fuck?

1659
01:37:15,420 --> 01:37:16,420
Like we need to do something.

1660
01:37:16,420 --> 01:37:20,940
So I reached out to a friend that I went to high school with who ended up out in Hollywood.

1661
01:37:20,940 --> 01:37:22,260
He had gotten to the football.

1662
01:37:22,260 --> 01:37:25,020
He was a coach at UCLA for a while, but he had gotten into some minor acting.

1663
01:37:25,020 --> 01:37:26,540
I'm like, hey, maybe this guy can help me.

1664
01:37:26,540 --> 01:37:28,140
Maybe we can like make an infomercial.

1665
01:37:28,140 --> 01:37:29,300
I don't know.

1666
01:37:29,300 --> 01:37:33,380
Like something that's like, hey, you know, if you're a firefighter, I don't know.

1667
01:37:33,380 --> 01:37:35,140
I had a very small idea at first.

1668
01:37:35,140 --> 01:37:37,260
So I reached out to this this this guy is named Scott.

1669
01:37:37,260 --> 01:37:38,260
And I'm like, hey, listen.

1670
01:37:38,260 --> 01:37:42,500
So we end up on a phone call and he's like, hey, you know, I've been following you on

1671
01:37:42,500 --> 01:37:43,500
Facebook for a while.

1672
01:37:43,500 --> 01:37:44,780
Haven't you been through a bunch of shit?

1673
01:37:44,780 --> 01:37:47,460
And I'm like, yeah, some.

1674
01:37:47,460 --> 01:37:50,860
And he's like, what are your thoughts?

1675
01:37:50,860 --> 01:37:51,860
And you're writing a book.

1676
01:37:51,860 --> 01:37:52,860
And I'm like, yeah, trying to.

1677
01:37:52,860 --> 01:37:57,020
And he's like, what are your thoughts on like putting together a film?

1678
01:37:57,020 --> 01:37:59,820
And I'm like, well, I don't act.

1679
01:37:59,820 --> 01:38:04,340
And he's like, no, I mean, like a story, like a documentary or something.

1680
01:38:04,340 --> 01:38:09,780
So I went from this idea of making like a 30 second commercial trying to get firefighters

1681
01:38:09,780 --> 01:38:13,180
to, you know, acknowledge mental health.

1682
01:38:13,180 --> 01:38:20,900
Excuse me to creating a feature length documentary centered around my life, interviewing 12 of

1683
01:38:20,900 --> 01:38:25,180
the people from different parts of my life with them sharing their perspective.

1684
01:38:25,180 --> 01:38:27,100
We had law enforcement.

1685
01:38:27,100 --> 01:38:28,900
We had EMTs, firefighters.

1686
01:38:28,900 --> 01:38:31,580
We had a bunch of different military backgrounds in it.

1687
01:38:31,580 --> 01:38:34,020
We had spouses.

1688
01:38:34,020 --> 01:38:35,840
My wife was also in the film.

1689
01:38:35,840 --> 01:38:39,140
And we just we just tore the bandaid off.

1690
01:38:39,140 --> 01:38:41,300
You know, and excuse me.

1691
01:38:41,300 --> 01:38:47,460
And we just bluntly told what happens with unresolved trauma in the first responder world,

1692
01:38:47,460 --> 01:38:53,060
the drinking, the drug and the infidelity, the the the whatever the suicide attempts,

1693
01:38:53,060 --> 01:38:58,580
all of it, all the things that people try to put makeup on and make look pretty.

1694
01:38:58,580 --> 01:39:00,580
We just told it like it was.

1695
01:39:00,580 --> 01:39:05,940
And we ended up getting it to, you know, a distributor and get it out on streaming apps

1696
01:39:05,940 --> 01:39:08,420
and got a lot of people to watch it.

1697
01:39:08,420 --> 01:39:13,460
And honestly, the biggest thing for me was just the experience of being there with all

1698
01:39:13,460 --> 01:39:17,420
these people from different parts of my life that I have so much respect for, for a bunch

1699
01:39:17,420 --> 01:39:18,940
of different reasons up until that point.

1700
01:39:18,940 --> 01:39:23,300
But now so many more reasons and hearing them share.

1701
01:39:23,300 --> 01:39:28,940
You know, stuff about this this fight them in, you know, trying to help others realize

1702
01:39:28,940 --> 01:39:29,940
they're not alone.

1703
01:39:29,940 --> 01:39:34,860
And then now being part of it and trying to break this down and being part of this amazing

1704
01:39:34,860 --> 01:39:41,900
project, it was just such a really cool experience that a lot of people don't get in life to

1705
01:39:41,900 --> 01:39:48,460
a make a movie, but be make a movie about their life and then and then see a movie about

1706
01:39:48,460 --> 01:39:52,700
what they're trying to do these days, a movie that's hopefully going to, you know, allow

1707
01:39:52,700 --> 01:39:54,860
more people to not feel so alone.

1708
01:39:54,860 --> 01:39:59,540
And for me, from what I've heard, I know that is helping a lot of people who have seen this

1709
01:39:59,540 --> 01:40:04,540
that they know they're not alone and that a lot of us struggle.

1710
01:40:04,540 --> 01:40:09,520
You mentioned the catharsis from writing with I'm just thinking all these different people

1711
01:40:09,520 --> 01:40:12,980
from all these different elements of your life, you know, being asked questions, maybe

1712
01:40:12,980 --> 01:40:16,800
certain things coming out that you hadn't heard them say before.

1713
01:40:16,800 --> 01:40:22,060
What was the catharsis element of the moviemaking experience?

1714
01:40:22,060 --> 01:40:30,020
It was it was mind blowing in the sense that the things that some of the people shared,

1715
01:40:30,020 --> 01:40:35,260
I mean, I had handpicked everyone who was interviewed, you know, and I had handpicked

1716
01:40:35,260 --> 01:40:40,540
the locations we filmed that and.

1717
01:40:40,540 --> 01:40:45,580
The the biggest thing, the biggest thing was hearing what I didn't expect.

1718
01:40:45,580 --> 01:40:49,820
I mean, I knew these I picked these people for a reason.

1719
01:40:49,820 --> 01:40:56,020
But they went so far above expectations with what they shared and how they shared that

1720
01:40:56,020 --> 01:41:00,780
I was like, wow, like this is already helping people.

1721
01:41:00,780 --> 01:41:02,380
It's already it's already helping all of us.

1722
01:41:02,380 --> 01:41:08,040
And just like cast and crew, if you will, there was like 10 people who ended up reaching

1723
01:41:08,040 --> 01:41:11,620
out for help in the cast and crew, like who started seeing therapists, who started doing

1724
01:41:11,620 --> 01:41:12,940
more.

1725
01:41:12,940 --> 01:41:16,760
And they were all like, wow, just being in this in this moment in front of the camera

1726
01:41:16,760 --> 01:41:20,380
and sharing this, I realized I needed to get more help and I started doing this or whatever.

1727
01:41:20,380 --> 01:41:25,700
And me and my wife are going to couples, whatever it is in that.

1728
01:41:25,700 --> 01:41:27,060
That was just like, wow, this is this.

1729
01:41:27,060 --> 01:41:28,260
This is the why.

1730
01:41:28,260 --> 01:41:29,260
This is why.

1731
01:41:29,260 --> 01:41:32,180
Even if this even if 10, 10 people end up watching this movie when it gets released,

1732
01:41:32,180 --> 01:41:33,180
I don't care.

1733
01:41:33,180 --> 01:41:34,180
This is why.

1734
01:41:34,180 --> 01:41:42,300
And it just gave me such a deeper drive to do to do more and to do just reach more people.

1735
01:41:42,300 --> 01:41:43,380
Beautiful.

1736
01:41:43,380 --> 01:41:49,180
So tell people what the documentary is called and where they can watch that particular film.

1737
01:41:49,180 --> 01:41:51,680
So the documentary is First Responders in Crisis.

1738
01:41:51,680 --> 01:41:55,380
It's on most of the bigger streaming apps and like, you know, Comcast and Spectrum TV

1739
01:41:55,380 --> 01:41:56,380
and whatnot.

1740
01:41:56,380 --> 01:41:57,780
It's free on Tubi.

1741
01:41:57,780 --> 01:41:58,940
It's free on YouTube.

1742
01:41:58,940 --> 01:42:01,940
It's also on Hulu.

1743
01:42:01,940 --> 01:42:03,980
And you can get it at most of those sites.

1744
01:42:03,980 --> 01:42:04,980
It's a shorter.

1745
01:42:04,980 --> 01:42:06,740
It's a feature like documentary at 71 minutes.

1746
01:42:06,740 --> 01:42:07,740
It is very raw.

1747
01:42:07,740 --> 01:42:12,360
It is at times hard to to watch in one sitting, I've been told.

1748
01:42:12,360 --> 01:42:14,420
But it is it is the truth.

1749
01:42:14,420 --> 01:42:18,940
And it's it's gotten I've gotten quite a bit of feedback on it and people have said it's

1750
01:42:18,940 --> 01:42:19,940
helped them.

1751
01:42:19,940 --> 01:42:24,140
So I recommend anyone first responder and beyond to watch, especially spouses.

1752
01:42:24,140 --> 01:42:25,140
Beautiful.

1753
01:42:25,140 --> 01:42:26,140
And then what about the book?

1754
01:42:26,140 --> 01:42:28,340
Where can people find that?

1755
01:42:28,340 --> 01:42:35,340
So the book is out on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Walmart online is currently in paperback

1756
01:42:35,340 --> 01:42:39,500
and the Kindle.

1757
01:42:39,500 --> 01:42:45,740
There is hope to do an audio book, as you know, I have audio books are I mean, I talk

1758
01:42:45,740 --> 01:42:48,780
all the time and I've been told I have a good voice for it, but it wasn't it wasn't initially

1759
01:42:48,780 --> 01:42:49,780
on my radar.

1760
01:42:49,780 --> 01:42:52,460
But I have an approach to do it because a lot of people these days, apparently listen

1761
01:42:52,460 --> 01:42:53,460
to audio books.

1762
01:42:53,460 --> 01:42:54,460
It's a thing.

1763
01:42:54,460 --> 01:42:55,460
I don't do it.

1764
01:42:55,460 --> 01:43:02,700
But there is hopes in 2025, probably early on in 2025 to get an audio version out as

1765
01:43:02,700 --> 01:43:07,740
well on those, you know, get Amazon and all those different platforms.

1766
01:43:07,740 --> 01:43:12,700
I read my first one, which was a nonfiction and it was kind of almost like short stories

1767
01:43:12,700 --> 01:43:13,700
from my career.

1768
01:43:13,700 --> 01:43:15,980
It's not a biography and each chapter there's a takeaway.

1769
01:43:15,980 --> 01:43:20,580
So then it goes to sleep deprivation or, you know, obesity, whatever the topic is.

1770
01:43:20,580 --> 01:43:25,100
The second one I just wrote is a really like almost like a historical fiction.

1771
01:43:25,100 --> 01:43:28,300
The character, the main characters are fictional, but everything you're witnessing is pretty

1772
01:43:28,300 --> 01:43:30,740
much true.

1773
01:43:30,740 --> 01:43:34,820
And what I didn't realize is just, you know, when you are reading these stories, and I'm

1774
01:43:34,820 --> 01:43:38,860
sure it'd be the same with you, there is so much value because the listener ultimately

1775
01:43:38,860 --> 01:43:44,220
is going to hear the emotion in your voice, but it's really fucking hard to actually do.

1776
01:43:44,220 --> 01:43:46,020
And you talk about imposter syndrome the whole time.

1777
01:43:46,020 --> 01:43:48,860
I'm just thinking I sound like an absolute twat reading.

1778
01:43:48,860 --> 01:43:53,380
No one's been glad to do accents in the story in the second one.

1779
01:43:53,380 --> 01:43:58,380
French and Polish and, you know, male, female, young, old.

1780
01:43:58,380 --> 01:44:02,220
But like you said, you know, it's you're putting out in these different formats.

1781
01:44:02,220 --> 01:44:06,460
So if someone digests audio books, and Mitch, you know, a lot of people have since I put

1782
01:44:06,460 --> 01:44:12,700
it out and he went out on right before New Year's Day, you know, like a few hours before

1783
01:44:12,700 --> 01:44:17,500
then fantastic, you know, so to me it was even though it was like pulling teeth doing

1784
01:44:17,500 --> 01:44:21,660
it, like you said, now it gets that story to the people that wouldn't hear it if it

1785
01:44:21,660 --> 01:44:26,380
was just on paper, but now they're going to listen to it on their drive and they'll actually

1786
01:44:26,380 --> 01:44:27,380
be able to digest it.

1787
01:44:27,380 --> 01:44:32,420
And I, you know, Josh Brolin just released his book and he said it was it was brutal

1788
01:44:32,420 --> 01:44:36,180
and he was in a funk for a few weeks after he narrated his own book.

1789
01:44:36,180 --> 01:44:40,780
So you know, when you write it down as cathartic, I would almost argue that when you then read

1790
01:44:40,780 --> 01:44:44,300
it, it has the opposite effect, but it's good.

1791
01:44:44,300 --> 01:44:45,300
You're still getting it out.

1792
01:44:45,300 --> 01:44:49,460
But you know, you're you're really having to relive it when when you're narrating it.

1793
01:44:49,460 --> 01:44:52,540
So so yeah, pick the right time when you're feeling good.

1794
01:44:52,540 --> 01:44:53,940
It will absolutely be worth it.

1795
01:44:53,940 --> 01:44:59,500
And you know, it is I don't think people listening realize just how hard it is to narrate something

1796
01:44:59,500 --> 01:45:01,460
so raw that you've written yourself.

1797
01:45:01,460 --> 01:45:03,220
Yeah, for sure.

1798
01:45:03,220 --> 01:45:04,220
And that is the plan.

1799
01:45:04,220 --> 01:45:08,620
And that's talking to other people, you know, yourself included, who have narrated their

1800
01:45:08,620 --> 01:45:09,620
books.

1801
01:45:09,620 --> 01:45:12,580
It's it's a task that you have to be in the right spot for.

1802
01:45:12,580 --> 01:45:14,060
And because the emotions get the better of you.

1803
01:45:14,060 --> 01:45:18,300
But it also includes it also makes us so the emotions are part of that audio version.

1804
01:45:18,300 --> 01:45:20,100
I think that's that's that's important.

1805
01:45:20,100 --> 01:45:21,100
Absolutely.

1806
01:45:21,100 --> 01:45:23,660
Well, we've talked about your book and your film.

1807
01:45:23,660 --> 01:45:25,300
Most of the closing questions.

1808
01:45:25,300 --> 01:45:28,960
Is there a book written by someone else that you love to recommend?

1809
01:45:28,960 --> 01:45:32,940
It can be related to our discussion or completely unrelated.

1810
01:45:32,940 --> 01:45:36,740
So one of the books that got me on to my journey of using mindfulness and meditation, which

1811
01:45:36,740 --> 01:45:43,460
I swear by is breaking the habit of being yourself, which is by a Dr. Joe Dispenza.

1812
01:45:43,460 --> 01:45:46,860
And he basically breaks down how to meditate and why it works.

1813
01:45:46,860 --> 01:45:48,420
And for me, I'm a logical thinker.

1814
01:45:48,420 --> 01:45:49,780
I like to know how things work.

1815
01:45:49,780 --> 01:45:53,580
And once I read that book, which was also recommended to me by the person, the three

1816
01:45:53,580 --> 01:45:59,900
tour marine, once I read this book, I was like, OK, now I understand how this can work.

1817
01:45:59,900 --> 01:46:04,580
So that would be my first book recommendation for anyone trying to like find like a holistic

1818
01:46:04,580 --> 01:46:11,900
approach to, you know, grounding themselves in healing, you know, trying to process their

1819
01:46:11,900 --> 01:46:16,140
trauma would be learning how to be mindful and learning how meditation works.

1820
01:46:16,140 --> 01:46:17,140
Beautiful.

1821
01:46:17,140 --> 01:46:21,620
And what about other movies and documentaries?

1822
01:46:21,620 --> 01:46:27,700
So one of the other documentaries that I always try to push is the PTSD 911 by Conrad Weaver,

1823
01:46:27,700 --> 01:46:28,700
which is gone.

1824
01:46:28,700 --> 01:46:29,700
They've got it.

1825
01:46:29,700 --> 01:46:32,580
They've brought it nationally around to different conferences and what not and shown to a lot

1826
01:46:32,580 --> 01:46:36,180
of responders.

1827
01:46:36,180 --> 01:46:41,300
It is it is also a very powerful and straight documentary.

1828
01:46:41,300 --> 01:46:47,580
The other one that I was actually part of and was interviewed on was residual and that's

1829
01:46:47,580 --> 01:46:49,460
by Doug Haynes.

1830
01:46:49,460 --> 01:46:50,460
That's also out there.

1831
01:46:50,460 --> 01:46:55,140
You can find that pretty much anywhere on the on the interweb.

1832
01:46:55,140 --> 01:46:57,420
And that's another good collection of different speakers.

1833
01:46:57,420 --> 01:47:01,460
You got Mike screws and that Chris Moore's and that and myself and along with about 20

1834
01:47:01,460 --> 01:47:03,580
other first responders.

1835
01:47:03,580 --> 01:47:08,300
And again, another another raw look at first responder both in the end, it's not just trauma

1836
01:47:08,300 --> 01:47:11,700
and PTSD, it's moral injury, compassion, fatigue, burnout.

1837
01:47:11,700 --> 01:47:12,700
It's all discussed in this.

1838
01:47:12,700 --> 01:47:16,500
And I think it's all really important to to look at.

1839
01:47:16,500 --> 01:47:17,500
Beautiful.

1840
01:47:17,500 --> 01:47:18,500
I'm actually interviewing Conrad.

1841
01:47:18,500 --> 01:47:20,460
I'm just on his show and I'm interviewing him.

1842
01:47:20,460 --> 01:47:22,420
I think it's the next week or the week after.

1843
01:47:22,420 --> 01:47:24,700
So I'm going to be watching the movie right before.

1844
01:47:24,700 --> 01:47:26,180
So it's fresh in my mind.

1845
01:47:26,180 --> 01:47:27,180
Yeah, great guy.

1846
01:47:27,180 --> 01:47:28,980
I've been on a show twice.

1847
01:47:28,980 --> 01:47:34,500
Really, really just a amazing guy who was wasn't our first responder, who's doing so

1848
01:47:34,500 --> 01:47:39,100
much for the first responder community and mental health and as a whole.

1849
01:47:39,100 --> 01:47:41,540
Just that'll be that'll be a great show for sure.

1850
01:47:41,540 --> 01:47:42,540
Absolutely.

1851
01:47:42,540 --> 01:47:45,700
Well, speaking of great people, is there a person that you recommend to come on this

1852
01:47:45,700 --> 01:47:50,860
podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military or associated professions of the

1853
01:47:50,860 --> 01:47:51,860
world?

1854
01:47:51,860 --> 01:47:57,100
I would honestly recommend and I will talk to him for you would be the gentleman Steve

1855
01:47:57,100 --> 01:48:00,620
Holmes, who got me into meditation.

1856
01:48:00,620 --> 01:48:03,000
He is a three tour, like I said, a three tour Marine.

1857
01:48:03,000 --> 01:48:07,220
He is currently a lieutenant on a fight up on my neck of the woods.

1858
01:48:07,220 --> 01:48:13,500
He's been on the job about 15 years and he is just an amazing, resilient human being

1859
01:48:13,500 --> 01:48:17,460
who just cares so much for human life and the healing journey.

1860
01:48:17,460 --> 01:48:21,020
He would be just an amazing person to have on your show.

1861
01:48:21,020 --> 01:48:22,020
Beautiful.

1862
01:48:22,020 --> 01:48:23,020
Let's make it happen.

1863
01:48:23,020 --> 01:48:24,020
I'd love to have him on.

1864
01:48:24,020 --> 01:48:25,020
Thank you.

1865
01:48:25,020 --> 01:48:26,020
Absolutely.

1866
01:48:26,020 --> 01:48:27,020
All right.

1867
01:48:27,020 --> 01:48:29,420
Well, then the very last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you.

1868
01:48:29,420 --> 01:48:33,540
What do you do to decompress these days?

1869
01:48:33,540 --> 01:48:36,180
The biggest thing is taking me time.

1870
01:48:36,180 --> 01:48:38,700
And a lot of people think you have to do something.

1871
01:48:38,700 --> 01:48:39,700
You have to read.

1872
01:48:39,700 --> 01:48:40,700
You have to go to the gym.

1873
01:48:40,700 --> 01:48:42,820
You have to do whatever you have to do breath work.

1874
01:48:42,820 --> 01:48:46,860
The biggest thing for me that I realized I value is the quiet.

1875
01:48:46,860 --> 01:48:50,540
I love the quiet and I never thought I could because I couldn't deal with the quiet before.

1876
01:48:50,540 --> 01:48:51,620
I always had to have music on.

1877
01:48:51,620 --> 01:48:53,620
I always had to have some commotion.

1878
01:48:53,620 --> 01:48:58,060
So the biggest thing I do to decompress is I find a time, a space, which when a young

1879
01:48:58,060 --> 01:49:03,500
child tends to be later at night, I find quiet.

1880
01:49:03,500 --> 01:49:09,260
It doesn't have to be completely quiet, but just nothing going on.

1881
01:49:09,260 --> 01:49:10,860
There's no task to be done.

1882
01:49:10,860 --> 01:49:12,140
There's no expectation.

1883
01:49:12,140 --> 01:49:13,140
Just the quiet.

1884
01:49:13,140 --> 01:49:15,820
Maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's an hour.

1885
01:49:15,820 --> 01:49:18,540
And my go to is my chair by my big window in the front of my house.

1886
01:49:18,540 --> 01:49:21,780
And I just sit there and I do nothing.

1887
01:49:21,780 --> 01:49:24,620
It's simple.

1888
01:49:24,620 --> 01:49:25,620
Love it.

1889
01:49:25,620 --> 01:49:29,460
And I think that's the main barometer, I think if you can't sit and be quiet, that tells

1890
01:49:29,460 --> 01:49:34,340
you that your mind is very busy because I found that normally I'm driving and obviously

1891
01:49:34,340 --> 01:49:37,900
I'm prepping for a podcast and things like Zitri today on the way to Jujitsu.

1892
01:49:37,900 --> 01:49:43,340
I was listening to you on that podcast I mentioned, but the ability to also do that drive without

1893
01:49:43,340 --> 01:49:46,540
music, without a podcast and be okay.

1894
01:49:46,540 --> 01:49:49,220
I think that's a huge barometer of where you are mentally.

1895
01:49:49,220 --> 01:49:54,700
If you've constantly got to have something so you're thinking or reading or listening

1896
01:49:54,700 --> 01:49:59,260
and you don't have to, then I think that's a big red flag as well.

1897
01:49:59,260 --> 01:50:04,900
But maybe putting headspace on your phone or whatever meditation or breath work that

1898
01:50:04,900 --> 01:50:08,100
you would lean into and even Newcom, amazing technology.

1899
01:50:08,100 --> 01:50:14,340
And if you ever heard of that, any of those just to down regulate because as you said,

1900
01:50:14,340 --> 01:50:15,340
it works.

1901
01:50:15,340 --> 01:50:16,340
Meditation works.

1902
01:50:16,340 --> 01:50:21,260
And it's amazing how two weeks of headspace, for example, and then you're like, oh, I just

1903
01:50:21,260 --> 01:50:24,620
sat here with my coffee for 30 minutes and I didn't actually do anything.

1904
01:50:24,620 --> 01:50:28,180
I just listened to the birds and watched my dog take a shit in the garden and it was amazing.

1905
01:50:28,180 --> 01:50:29,180
Yeah, right.

1906
01:50:29,180 --> 01:50:31,820
And it's a test of your self control as well.

1907
01:50:31,820 --> 01:50:36,580
If you can decide consciously decidedly, I'm just going to sit here.

1908
01:50:36,580 --> 01:50:41,660
You'd be amazed how much you can build self control over and that can translate into like

1909
01:50:41,660 --> 01:50:44,500
control of your emotions, control of your reactions, whatever.

1910
01:50:44,500 --> 01:50:49,540
If you can sit and do nothing, start small, you'd be amazed what that could do to the

1911
01:50:49,540 --> 01:50:51,140
rest of your life.

1912
01:50:51,140 --> 01:50:52,140
Absolutely.

1913
01:50:52,140 --> 01:50:53,140
All right.

1914
01:50:53,140 --> 01:50:56,620
And for people listening, we talked about where to find the book and the film.

1915
01:50:56,620 --> 01:51:00,820
Where else can people find you either online or on social media?

1916
01:51:00,820 --> 01:51:06,980
So I'm all over all the socials, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever it is now,

1917
01:51:06,980 --> 01:51:07,980
and Instagram.

1918
01:51:07,980 --> 01:51:09,860
I have a website which is currently down.

1919
01:51:09,860 --> 01:51:15,620
Unfortunately, back in July, my web guy died suddenly and he took all the passwords with

1920
01:51:15,620 --> 01:51:16,620
them.

1921
01:51:16,620 --> 01:51:20,740
So we're in the process of trying to get my website up, which has a pretty amazing blog.

1922
01:51:20,740 --> 01:51:25,980
But also the big thing on my website was a resources tab, resources and modalities for

1923
01:51:25,980 --> 01:51:27,620
both first responders and general public.

1924
01:51:27,620 --> 01:51:36,300
So that website tentatively will still be KeithHanks.com if I still am able to own that

1925
01:51:36,300 --> 01:51:37,300
website.

1926
01:51:37,300 --> 01:51:39,580
So we're trying to get that back up and running because the biggest thing is the resources

1927
01:51:39,580 --> 01:51:44,220
and having people have access to the healthy modalities that everyone deserves.

1928
01:51:44,220 --> 01:51:45,220
Brilliant.

1929
01:51:45,220 --> 01:51:47,060
Well, Keith, I want to thank you so much.

1930
01:51:47,060 --> 01:51:51,980
I mean, like I've said to a lot of people on the show, when people are going back and

1931
01:51:51,980 --> 01:51:55,900
revisiting some of this, obviously it's pulling the bandaid off a little bit, but there's

1932
01:51:55,900 --> 01:52:02,160
just so much power for other people to listen to someone's courageous vulnerability, talking

1933
01:52:02,160 --> 01:52:07,180
about their struggles, being open as a man to talk about sexual abuse, and then infuse

1934
01:52:07,180 --> 01:52:10,780
the hope of healing, of post-traumatic growth.

1935
01:52:10,780 --> 01:52:14,540
So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1936
01:52:14,540 --> 01:52:16,220
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1937
01:52:16,220 --> 01:52:17,540
Yeah, man, it was a pleasure.

1938
01:52:17,540 --> 01:52:18,820
It was an awesome conversation.

1939
01:52:18,820 --> 01:52:20,380
I really enjoyed talking with you today.

1940
01:52:20,380 --> 01:52:21,380
And thanks for letting me share.

1941
01:52:21,380 --> 01:52:46,580
I'm going to be good.