Immediately following this tragedy, I was escorted
back to the firehouse by a police officer where I awaited the arrival of my
comrades in arms who were still at the hospital sifting through the dust, so to
speak. Once they returned to quarters, the department activated a critical
incident stress debriefing team from Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. The
debriefing included not only the firefighters involved, but also our command
staff, dispatchers, and police officers. We spent approximately one hour
reminiscing, crying, and just trying to make sense out of what just happened.
Once the debriefing was over, I was relieved of duty
and sent home for the remainder of the evening at about 1230 in the morning. I entered
my house quietly to find my wife fast asleep, so I just sat at the edge of the
bed and stared into the darkness with the sounds of silence. And so began a
five-year journey of torment. Our crew returned to duty three days later on the
day of "Little Dicky's" wake. Prior to the service, our crew
responded to a patient who had died about four days earlier. Additionally, we
responded for one of our regular patients who also committed suicide by taking
pills. My mind went into overdrive and I didn't know what to do. We received no
other aftercare provided by the department, we just moved on. Or so I thought.
For years, I began to harbor ill will towards my
department and my attitude became very poor. I don't know how many times I can
tell you that I spent countless hours in the Chief's office for coaching and
counseling sessions, was told I needed to screw my head on right and lose the
bad attitude. I became very anti-establishment as well. In addition to my poor
attitude, I had disturbed sleeping patterns where I would re-live the incident
over and over and over again in my mind. I did not eat very well during this
time and my weight ballooned from 170 pounds to 186. I also carried around an
extreme guilt complex because I felt that I should have recognized the
impending suicide. I should have done more to prevent this tragedy from
happening. Little did I know that I was suffering from PTSD.
By now my readers are probably wondering how I overcame
the PTSD. There were three distinct events that occurred during that five-year
period that helped me to come out of the darkness. During the same time, I was
taking fire officer classes at Moraine Valley Community College. One of the
instructors was also a former supervisor as well as friend of Little Dicky at a
different department. He allowed myself and another firefighter (who also
responded to that call), to tell this same story to the class when the subject
of suicide and depression was covered in the curriculum (first event). This was
a very cathartic experience for me.
A couple of years after this first event, my wife
and I attended a combination communion and graduation party for two of our
fallen comrade's children. I had the opportunity to speak to his mother and
father who assured me that I should have no guilt over the death of their son.
You see, Little Dicky suffered from clinical depression since he was in high
school. His father told me "We always knew the possibility that day would
one day come"(event two). I soon began to realize that no matter how hard
I would have tried, there may have been nothing I would have been able to do to
reverse that destiny.
The third event, which is not even an event at all,
forms the base of my triangle of healing. I consider my wife my best friend in
the whole wide world, and if not for her patient love and understanding I would
have left the fire service shortly after that one cold and lonely night. I will
be forever eternally grateful to her. However, this was a great burden for her
to shoulder and she should have had access to resources in order to not only
help me, but also to help her understand what I was going through.
In retrospect, I now realize that my anger towards
my department was misdirected. At that time, the way events like this one were
handled were to just suck it up and move on. I really believe that if anybody
would've asked me why I had such a bad attitude, it would have
triggered me into saying that I was having a hard time dealing with Little
Dicky's death. It's just hard sometimes when you are swirling into a bottomless
pit, for one to be able to ask for more help other than just the critical
incident stress debriefing. Therefore, I say to you my readers, do not try to
handle either PTSD or any form of stress on your own. It is not a sign of
weakness to ask for help.
I conclude this post with the following three-minute
video that discusses the signs and symptoms of PTSD. Once again, never travel
this road alone.
Yours
in health,
Tim
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