If you are like me then you are stubborn as hell. The first monumental roadblock in your way – is yourself!
Humans, especially First Responders, have this innate ability to always serve outwardly. Oftentimes forgetting or not making any time to serve themselves along the way. We are a selfless bunch. This works against us and to our detriment. We stopped making our own needs a priority a long time ago.
How are you serving yourself and your mental health needs? Your emotional health needs? Your physical needs? Are you getting the right amount of exercise and movement? What does your connection with your own spirituality look like? What kind of food are you consuming?
If you are suffering in one or more of these areas, you are definitely not alone. Many of us may struggle to even define what these look like for ourselves, let alone recognize that we are neglecting them.
How do we know when to get help?
The unfortunate part of this question is that many of us will not act on this question until it is too late. There is no shame in this, but we tend to believe we are doing better than we are until we are proven otherwise.
When we begin our journey as a First Responder many of us leave our support systems for various postings across Canada or abroad. Whether it is friends, family or the people who make up your community, this is one of the largest issues I see. This change in support structure can leave us vulnerable as we begin to tackle an insurmountable amount of stress.
We are met with a demanding career that has an incredibly steep learning curve. Highly dynamic calls for service, workplace stress, long shifts, night work, poor nutrition, and we haven’t even begun to talk about the challenges that life itself presents to us. We also will endure some of the most intense workplace traumatic events that a human can experience.
As we inevitably become consumed with stress, we unfortunately no longer have a support system in place to help us “offload.. We may face isolation, lack of community and connection which ultimately quenches our ability to hold meaningful conversations. We store every call, every emotion, every piece of pain within, never letting it out. Eventually we are forced to completely numb ourselves and shut our emotions off in effort to reduce some of the pain that exists within. We will begin to use unhealthy ways of coping like dark humour, or avoidant types of behaviour like overworking ourselves and always staying “busy”.
What I have learned from my own journey is that there are many things that can help our mental health; however, the most important piece of the puzzle is community, connection, and conversation. Without community, we are alone and unsupported in our experiences. Loneliness can compound stress responses and can impact how we process stressful events as we may not have a trusted source to share our experiences with.. A lack of social connection and a sense of belonging can leave us feeling isolated and unable to promote healthy connection with others so that we can hold ourselves accountable. We need to ensure that our emotional well being is being invested in by people who care and allow us to be our most vulnerable selves.
Reflect on this point and ask yourself some challenging questions. Who is along this journey with you? Who is invested in you? Positive relationships with people will help you have a positive relationship with yourself.
Nathan Kapler is a retired RCMP Officer with over fourteen years of Policing experience. He is a First Responder Mental Health advocate and has aimed his sights on promoting mental well being within all first responder working lines. He runs a successful podcast, Ten Thirty Three – Trauma Talk which has already positively impacted many on the journey of their own mental health!
