Bulletproof Spirit, Revised Edition

The First Responder's Essential Resource for Protecting and Healing Mind and Heart

Dan Willis

• Publisher: New World Library
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781608686322
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mental Health & Wellbeing

Suicide, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and many more emotional and stress-related problems plague the first-responder community. Hundreds of thousands of these brave public servants have unwittingly become victims of the professions they once loved. However, the suffering that results from a professional life of sacrifice and service can be prevented and mitigated. As a thirty-year law-enforcement veteran, retired police captain, and police academy instructor, Dan Willis has witnessed the damage of emotional trauma and has made it his personal mission to safeguard and enhance the wellness and wholeness of police officers, firefighters, EMTs, emergency-room personnel, and soldiers. Bulletproof Spirit offers field-tested expertise designed to be used by all first responders — and their families — to heal themselves and continue serving with compassion and strength.

Chapter One

THE WARNING SIGNS AND SELF-AWARENESS

---

He who has health, has hope;

and he who has hope, has everything.

— THOMAS CARLYLE

La Mesa, 1986. It’s the end of another busy three-till-eleven-PM police shift punctuated by numerous calls from all over the city, requiring endless accompanying reports. Officer Troy wants nothing more than to go home and fall into bed. With just five minutes left till he clocks out, he drives toward the city gas pumps to refuel his police car. The area is isolated at this time of night, the few surrounding businesses closed and dark. He sees a car parked by itself in a dark alcove near an alley. In the faint yellow streetlight, he automatically notes that its windows are steamed up, making it impossible to see inside. Just some teenagers making out, he thinks, driving past. He will never know exactly why, but a nagging sense that something is out of place — that something is wrong — makes him stop, turn around, park, and approach the car on foot.

He shines his flashlight directly into the rear window on the driver’s side, trying to see through the haze on the steamy glass. Squinting, he can barely make out a silver shimmer in the weak beam. His heart races as he realizes that the shimmer is a large knife blade — one being held to the throat of a partially nude woman. She is lying on her side in the back seat with her hands tied behind her back. He has stumbled upon a brutal rape.

Troy draws his handgun and yells at the man to drop the knife. His repeated orders are drowned out by the shrill screams of the victim. Her assailant jumps into the driver’s seat and jams a key into the ignition. Troy tries frantically to pull the locked door open. Keeping his handgun pointed directly at the rapist’s head, he uses his flashlight to pound against the driver’s window in a futile attempt to shatter the glass. “Don’t start the car or I’ll shoot! Hands up in the air! Get out of the car now or I WILL SHOOT!”

The engine turns over, and as the car is slammed into drive, Troy knows he has no choice. He fires one shot directly into the man’s left temple. The rapist slumps over as shattered glass and blood spatter the officer’s face and uniform. Momentarily blinded, he wipes his face and then moves to try to assist the battered young woman in the back seat. She is completely hysterical, screaming and fighting and pushing him away as he tries to reassure her and assess her injuries. When backup arrives, with lights flashing and sirens screaming, Officer Troy looks like he’s been through a war.

The entire confrontation lasted for less than thirty seconds. In thirty seconds Officer Troy saved one life and took another. The police academy never taught him just how life changing a few seconds on the job can be. As is the case for many first responders in life-threatening situations, these few seconds will adversely affect the rest of his life. From this night on, he will be plagued by sleepless nights, nightmares during the few hours he can sleep, and periodic anxiety attacks. In no time at all, Troy seemed to develop a classic case of (undiagnosed) post-traumatic stress disorder. His life will become defined by this one moment, and Troy will feel imprisoned by the helpless feeling of not knowing how to heal.

Officer Troy’s spirit was vulnerable because he never had emotional-survival training. In contrast, an officer at an adjacent agency has been involved in seven shootings, five of them fatal. Although he experienced some difficult issues related to these shootings, he has fared far better because he has had training and learned wellness practices that prepared and protected his spirit.

I was a young police officer new on the job when Officer Troy’s shooting occurred. The department reacted by conducting the required investigation but offered little in support and assistance to Troy, who inwardly was struggling. It was quickly established that the dead man had been released from prison just one week earlier and had abducted the young woman. The investigators ruled that the shooting was justified, and everyone just moved on.

Troy was cleared of any wrongdoing and, in fact, had done excellent work with his heroic action of saving a life. As soon as that was established, his fellow officers and superiors tended to act as though the shooting had never happened. No one meant to be uncaring or cruel by leaving Troy on his own to just get on with it; episodes such as this shooting were, unfortunately, part of the job, and it was thought best to try to simply move on as quickly as possible. Officer Troy did not know how to constructively process such a traumatic incident and put it into the proper perspective.

He was tormented by vivid images of that night and panic attacks that eventually became almost crippling. I watched Troy go from being a well-liked, friendly, and dynamic part of the force to becoming negative, bitter, and angry toward the police department. He would bad-mouth every directive, every new initiative from management, with contempt. His trauma experiences affected not only his work, but his personal life as well.

The superiors in my agency might have tried to prevent this kind of outcome, but what should they — and we, his fellow officers — have done? At that time no one in my police department had any knowledge of how to support and care for the spirit of an officer involved in such a critical incident. And the soul-poisoning incidents that the average emergency first responder witnesses over the course of a career are many and varied. As a rookie officer, I had no idea of the kind of evil I would witness over the next decades. I would eventually learn that the first step was to become aware of the warning signs in my behavior and to recognize how the job was affecting me and what I could proactively do to shield my spirit, work through trauma, and maintain wellness.

The First Component of Wellness: Understanding the Nine Warning Signs

There are numerous specific warning signs that should alert you, as an emergency first responder, and your family members to the fact that you are becoming a victim of your profession. These warning signs and associated problems never simply go away on their own. Instead, they progressively, insidiously, worsen over time if not corrected. You need to become self-aware, realize when you are displaying these danger signs, and then choose to proactively address the problem in a constructive way, before it becomes too late and the problem irreparably harms the quality of your personal and professional life.

Any one of these warning signs is a serious indication that you are having difficulty processing the acute stress and trauma of the job. These warning signs do not typically occur in a progression; any or all can occur if you have not worked to bulletproof your spirit.

1. Isolation

---

Over time there is a natural tendency, in all first-responder jobs, for the individual to become increasingly isolated. This involves withdrawing — preferring the company of work colleagues or being alone to associating with other friends, family, and their related activities. You develop the tendency to disengage, not wanting to make decisions away from work, and preferring not to be involved with others — even spouses and children. Eventually, you can become distant and reclusive. Close work bonds are desirable, but you need the counterbalance of other friends more than you need anyone else. Hanging out exclusively with first-responder colleagues tends to reinforce any negative aspects of the profession’s worldview. “Outside” friends will help keep you from developing a victim mentality (feeling victimized by work, by society, the agency, and so on) and also from thinking everyone is a criminal. As we isolate ourselves, we increasingly become disconnected from others, uncaring, disengaged with life, and disinterested. As we become so affected, we tend to have problems maintaining close, personal relationships and relating with others.

2. Irritability

---

When affected, you will develop a shorter-than-usual fuse, fly off the handle for seemingly insignificant reasons, respond to questions in one-word sentences, usually say you are “fine” just to stop any further conversation, and keep everyone near you walking on eggshells for fear of how you will react. You may seem to be on edge, restless, and agitated. This occurs because the daily traumas of our professions tend to erode our resiliency, the ability to cope and to respond to things calmly and rationally. It is essential to let your life partner know how important it is for him or her to tell you how you may be changing. It is your job to listen to them and create an atmosphere where they will feel comfortable giving you much-needed feedback. This will help you to keep from damaging your relationship. Chapter 10 explains in detail how a life partner plays a vital role in the emotional survival of a first responder.

3. Difficulty Sleeping

---

Having difficulty consistently getting a good night’s sleep — either because of sleep interruptions several times each night or because you are only capable of sleeping for a few hours — is a sign that you are not effectively processing stress.

4. Anger

---

When seriously affected, you begin to develop a pattern of taking out your stress and frustration on others, often those you care about most. You will tend to try to create a buffer around yourself, a safe zone where people will just leave you alone. You’ll use anger to control others, to keep them at a distance, and to avoid taking a real look at yourself to examine what is actually going on inside.

5. Emotional Numbness, Apathy, Disengagement with Life

---

Becoming emotionally numb is inevitable, at least initially, and you’ll need to consistently work to prevent it from overwhelming you. The job will naturally tend to make you want to shut down emotionally as a way to no longer feel the frustration, stress, pressures, and emotional pain of the job. However, this inevitably leads to seriously damaged relationships at home.

6. Lack of Communication

---

As you increasingly withdraw, you will tend to make the mistake of keeping everything inside. This becomes serious because, as your communication skills diminish, you will refuse to talk about how work is affecting you. Feelings of depression, anxiety, helplessness, anger, fear, and other negative emotions will then intensify.

7. Cynicism, Distrust, and Loss of Work Satisfaction

---

If any of the previously mentioned warning signs appear and are not addressed, you will likely become highly dissatisfied at work, extremely cynical, and distrustful of everyone in the world. This cynicism and negative outlook will send you into a downward spiral that eventually affects every aspect of your life.

8. Depression

---

Ignoring any of these warning signs eventually can lead to clinical depression. Left untreated, this may worsen and become potentially severe depression, resulting in substance abuse, broken families and lives, and a host of other debilitating problems, up to and including suicide.

9. Drinking as a Perceived Need and Other Addictive/Compulsive Behaviors

---

Drinking, or compulsively consuming other substances, because of a perceived need or by habit is a major warning sign. Alcohol abuse among US police officers is about double that of the general population, with 23 percent of them seriously abusing alcohol. The military is even worse, with one study showing that 39 percent of veterans screened positive for probable alcohol abuse. Studies of firefighters demonstrate that 29 percent of active-duty firefighters have possible or probable problems with alcohol abuse. Drinking because of a need or habit tends to only intensify already serious problems and emotional issues, and it delays the resolution of real problems. If you are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (chapter 7) and you drink, the chances of killing yourself increase tenfold. Alcohol consumption is one of the most damaging behaviors for first responders.

At least 20 percent of first responders will experience at least one serious addiction at some point in their career — to drinking, prescription pills or illegal drugs, gambling, sex, pornography, or many other maladaptive behaviors. If your brain becomes injured by the daily traumas of your job (PTSD), you become prone to develop an addiction. Any compulsive behavior is a major red flag of unreleased and damaging traumas.

All these warning signs present a sharp contrast to the outlook of the idealistic, positive, and enthusiastic officer who graduated from the police academy with high hopes; the firefighter who joined his engine company bursting with pride and a desire to serve; or the soldier who dreams of protecting her country. Any of these symptoms can and will become debilitating enough to change a first responder into someone their family no longer recognizes, unless they do the work to bulletproof their spirit to survive emotionally by adhering to the concepts described in this book.

The Second Component of Welln...