As first responders or former first responders, our “normal” is all messed up. What we think we “should” be able to handle and when we think we “should” be fine is not normative. Everything first responders experience is outside the spectrum of most individual’s “normal” so anything that is a struggle to process should be understood as almost unbearable.
The old way of doing business was to “suck it up” “we’ve got calls pending”, but if you do that, what happens when the calls stop, when you go home, when the job ends? While you are functioning and accomplishing your job, the humanity in you also experiences all that you take in and you can only deny your humanity for so long before it catches up with you.
Traumatic incidents and grief events are like waves in the ocean; sometimes you can bob over one and other times you have to dive into it and let it roll over you and you through it. The temptation to ignore it, distract yourself and just turn your back to it has to be avoided. The truth is, if you turn our back on it, just like the ocean, a big unexpected wave can hit and overpower you. Before you know it, you are underwater and don’t know which way is up.
We are destructible, we have vulnerabilities and we can die . . . Whether physically or emotionally, whether a little at a time or all at once. We need to process what affects us. The images, the feelings, the sounds, the smells . . . so they don’t get trapped in our bodies and eat away at us like rust. Process it (whatever your “it” is) . . . The sooner the better. Expose the wound and find healing through the pain.
There is a move within the first responder community toward “talking about it is normal” and “talking is healthy”. Today if someone asks if you need to talk with someone, chances are it’s not because they think you can’t handle it, it’s because they know what you just went through sucked and you should not have had to go through it . . . but you did.
Allow your feelings to pass though you; shock, denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, acceptance, finding meaning and back again. It will take a while before normalcy returns, and that is okay. Schedule time to grieve or time to process so that you can suit up and go back out there. Do it for your relationships. Do it so you don’t forget how to feel. Do it to retire a whole person. Your life is worth it.