PTSI

Words have meaning and power.  We learn from a young age how to use our words, sometimes to hurt, to soothe.  Words are important.  So in our attempt to move forward and advocate for change should we not be very careful with the words we choose.  The diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.  Disorder is defined as- disorder /dis·or·der/ (dis-or´der) a derangement or abnormality of function; a morbid physical or mental state. a derangement or abnormality, so Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would mean an abnormality caused by traumatic stress after the trauma has occurred.  Fair enough, so why is disorder not the way to go.    When it comes to Operational Stress injuries ( injuries that are caused by the stressors at work), is disorder really the appropriate word?

Many groups continue to advocate for a change in the name of this disorder/injury.   I personally feel the change  lends itself to perception and stopping the stigma.  In the tough world of first responders and military, the members themselves need to understand  that they were injured.  That it is not a sign or a weak mind.  I believe words do matter and that people have a far better understanding of a broken leg needing a cast then of Post traumatic Stress needing care.  People ( be it the injured themselves, their bosses or family etc)  don’t understand how two cops can go to the same call and one walks away unscathed ( for now) and the other does not.  How is that any different from a broken leg.  Two people could be in the same care crash and one breaks their leg and the other does not…do we blame weak bones?  Do we know if one has had more trauma to the leg? Maybe a break as a child or sports injury etc?

Words do matter. Post Traumatic Stress is an Operational Stress Injury, I for one, will try my best to use THAT language

Officer needs Assistance

When I speak about my husbands PTSD, I am often met with two questions….1-Does he KNOW you tell people?? Um yes he does and guess what so does he! Why? because he has nothing to be ashamed of.  He was injured at work!  and 2- I thought your husband was RCMP not the in the military? Yes he is a cop……People are often shocked that cops get operational stress injuries, until they stop and think about it.

One of the best tools I have used with friends and family is a clip from a documentary currently being developed by Deborah Ortiz in the United States and her company Dangerous Curves Productions.  Code 9 Officer needs assistance is THE most moving and REAL description I have every seen.  It does not matter what country you are in, or what colour your uniform is, this work depicts the reality of policing.

Deb is an amazingly strong and dedicated woman.  I have had the opportunity to speak to her on the phone a few times, and I am always amazed by her courage, focus and perseverance.  This documentary is a long time in the making but it will be made!!

Anyone in law enforcement, or has a friend or family member in law enforcement needs to see this amazing work.  The opening scene still gives me goose bumps and makes me cry….it speaks the truth!  Every police officer I know that has seen it has told me the same thing…..she nails it.

So even if you are not a cop or don’t know one WATCH THIS! If you are interested in law enforcement as a career PLEASE watch this.  If you are just curious and don’t understand PTSD watch this!

CODE 9-Officer needs Assistance

Thank you Deb for speaking out, for dedicating yourself to telling our stories!

Stories Behind the Red Serge #1

 At Behind the Red Serge, we believe that together we are stronger.  Our readers are not just RCMP members and their families, they are first responders, military personal and more.  When we put our a request for people to share their stories, their journey, one such reader responded.  It takes bravery to share.  Here is his story:

Hi, my name is Rick de Gruyl. I am a former Canadian Forces Military Policeman and volunteer firefighter. In 2008 I became permanently disabled as a result of an injury while battling a forest fire. My injury is permanent and comes with lots of continuous pain. ( Not able to be repaired due to other health problems).
As a result of the injury I have limited weight bearing times while walking, and standing still is limited to a couple minutes. I take Opiads for pain control, 12 to 14 ice pacs a day and lots of elevation and sitting. Due to the opiads I can not legally drive for first 2 hours after consumption, thus driving to possible work not legal or safe for myself or others on the road. We live in a remote area with no jobs, (but lots of cheap homes).
For the past 5 1/2 years, Work Safe NB has been limiting my monthly disability to $505 instead of the $2,200 I made a month prior to volunteer firefighting accident/ disability. This because they say I can work in town, but I refuse to drive impaired by prescribed narcotics/ opiads which they pay for due to chronic pain. As a former policeman and firefighter I have seen the result and impact on families from impaired driving accidents. Most of the time the impaired driver walks away with only a scratch while leaving innocent victims dead or seriously injured. I WILL NOT DO IT! EVEN THOU IT COSTS MY WIFE AND I FINANCIALLY!! It completely violates all I worked for as a policeman and volunteer firefighter, not to mention it is a criminal code of Canada violation.
I survived numerous physical injuries as a Military Policeman carrying out my duties. Knives, guns, broken bottle free for alls in the bars and multiple assailant attacks etc. Just responding to some calls was dangerous and great care was required responding lights and sirens.
As a firefighter and Policeman, I attended attempted suicides, bad accidents, structure fires, forest fires, continual training, weapons calls, shots fired calls, domestics (one of the most unpredictable and dangerous calls you could go to), hand to hand fights and on and on. I was also assigned to a multiple agency under cover operation while just straight out of the Canadian Forces School of Intelligence and Security, (new face, noone knew me). This was a drug operation to gather intell on a biker gang distributing drugs to military personel. This involved working as a bouncer in a biker establishment. Great work out but crappy hours.
As a result of this tasking I feared for my family safety and one night shift I was dispatched full code to shots fired at an my home address. The whole way there and to this very day I thought my family was being killed as a result of my job. Turned out to be a suicide attempt in the nieghboring yard. This call has haunted me to no end but was made worse 30 years later and resulted in suicidal thoughts and my own attempt. At the time I was the Director of Operations for VETS Canada NB, (veterans emergency transition services). We had just finished a brutal week November 2013, (just a month after being established), 4 clients at the same time in NB and dealing with 3 out of province vets who were desperate. 2 of the clients in NB I was working with were suicidal and both have told me months afterwards that they would not be here today if I hadnt spent that week with them getting them help and support they needed. I am the Atlantic Rep for the Pointsman Association and page admin. This is for military personnel and retired guys/ gals. We have a large following worldwide mostly serving and retired police officers and we try to keep our soldiers abroad in touch with events at home so they feel apart of them. Our main purpose is to HONOUR & REMEMBER our fallen brothers and sisters.
After having been mentally worn down fighting with Work Safe NB for past 5 1/2 years about the impaired driving/ getting to work safely and legally thing, then being swamped with 5 suicidal vets in one week, all at the same time several military suicides happened as well as 3 police officer suicides and 2 paramedics and 1 firefighter. All this in the space of 3 months just wore me down to nothing, no feelings, not interaction with my wife and loved ones and military and first responder contacts. I again thought seriously about ending. It was the summer a few months earlier that I loaded the shot gun and aimed at my head, finger on the trigger, millimeters from being done with everything.
Now it is Christmas Day 2013, depressed, havent slept for 3 1/2 weeks, can’t eat much. I take the shot gun out to work shop, fet up with these thoughts constantly, I grab the shells and carefully disasemble them, then I proceed to cut up the shot gun in 3 inch pieces after busting firing pin. I put them in the wood stove melting them, no relief of thoughts, I am getting mad now thinking that cutting it up would make me feel better but nothing. I see my mobility scooter which we bought our selves used 2 years ago. It was broke down for past 2 months, ( couldnt afford to fix it as work safe nb would not buy one for us). Another appeal underway. But the broke down mobility scooter we bought came to a melting point in a ball of fire, this being done out of frustration and inability to think clearly after past 3 1/2 weeks.
I finally reached out for help thru tema.ca to a RCMP doctor whom I met in Halifax months earlier. He directed me to sources of help thru Veterans Affairs and the OSI clinic. I am under initial treatment for ptsd now. Have some good days and still bad days. In time I hope and pray I will be able to handle this with help. Thru out this ordeal my grand sons and wife Marian have been my reason for sticking around. She never left me although I would not have blamed her. Heard of many wives leaving for a whole lot less reason.

I have faced death a few times during weapons calls as a Military Policeman and again as a Volunteer Firefighter. But I never experienced the fear which I now live with from PTSD, the mental anguish is far worse then any physical harm. One particular incident; in 2006 we were training in a live burn scenario to feel the heat to qualify for the practical portion of our level 1 firefighter training. We were in a room in a old house where a fire was burning in a metal barrel. Suddenly the room flashed over, the entire room, walls, flooring, ceiling and contents were now on fire. The tic, (thermal image camera) last reading was 1200 degrees, it then shut down. Fire Chief called evacuate room and radioed backup team to NOT SPRAY WATER. We exited the room following the hose line 30 feet to the outside, zero visability. As I exited the structure I felt extremely hot, I saw several firefighters running towards me. I WAS ON FIRE! and the gear was melting off of my body.
They smothered the fire out and attempted to remove my bunker gear and scba and helmet. It was so hot they tried a few times before being succesful. They could not touch my body for a few minutes as it was very hot, one said the colour of a fire truck. God had saved my physical life once again. The only burn I had was on my left ear were the fire had rolled up under my helmet and burned thru the balaclava. The regulator from the scba was warped and appeared to have taken in super heated gases to my lungs at 2200 degrees. They should have been fried and it was by the grace of God that I walked out of that flashover. I trusted in my training, I believed in the instructors and relied on direction from Fire Chief Daryl Price. But the voice I heard that day was of God, who said; “every thing will be all right, do not fear”.
Physical injury verses mental injury. If I had to choose between the 2? It would be the physical and its physical pain. There is nothing worse then the mental suffering a person with PTSD lives with and relives over and over. There are many more stories about calls as a policeman and firefighter. BUT with organizations like tema.ca there is a new hope for people to accept those of us living with PTSD and not fear us or disbelieve our injury because they can’t see it with eyes.

Dear Rick Mercer

We are looking for a celebrity, some one with integrity and a voice.  With all the work that Rick Mercer ( I am assuming he doesn’t answer his own emails J ) has done for the military and its vets he is a natural choice.  Please speak out! The RCMP need that voice as do the spouses and children.  How many of our finest have to die by their own hand before this is an issue.  We have a commissioner who makes the crazy sign by his head while speaking about PTSD.  Look into it, read the stories…we are a subculture in this country crying out.  Yet many Canadians don’t want to recognize this!  Why? 1- Many have skewed visions of police and the past few years the RCMP have not done well in the media and 2- to recognize that our police are traumatized we must be able to admit there is trauma in our neighbourhoods…many people would rather live in their pink bubble.

I started slowly reaching out desperate to find others like me, or someone to help.  Watching my husband slowly slip away was terrifying.  I am one of the lucky ones, he got better…he is in remission so to speak.  Im lucky,  I am an educated woman.  I have a vast background working with youth at risk, and I am a child of a soldier…I know what PTSD is and I was still overcome and terrified.  Can you imagine what would happen to a family where the spouse didn’t have the skill set I did, If I felt so lost.

I started Behind the Red Serge as a place where people could find solidarity and information.  No one should feel alone in this and no one should feel like they did something wrong.  Please take a look at our facebook site, my blog anything.

Stop the Stigma

Over the last few years of running Behind the Red Serge,I have been both disappointed and amazed.  Change is happening slowly…

When I first set out it was really a move of a desperate woman who felt like she was drowning.  I was losing my husband, my best friend to an invisible enemy.  He became distant, angry and cold.  Some days I could see the man I married waging a war inside his head, desperately trying to surface.  I KNEW something was wrong but when I reached out to others many laughed and told me its a part of the job.  He just needs to MOUNTIE UP!  Now I know my husband, he is a strong man and if he could have Mountie’d up he would have.

Slowly very slowly this attitude is shifting, I have to admit NOT fast enough, however I am going to look at the positive…its shifting.  I believe this is due to people, people like you and I , who refuse to be quiet, who refuse to be embarrassed.  My husband was not weak, or lazy or any of the other hateful things thought of PTSD.  He was injured.  He went to work, did his job and was not adequately prepared or trained to keep his mind healthy.

PTSD is an operational stress injury.  It floors me and continues to disappoint me that many people especially in leadership positions refuse to see what can be done in this area to be PROACTIVE.

Simple steps as providing the following;

1-TRAINING at DEPOT

Members are trained in many different ways to keep themselves physically safe yet mentally they are not prepared.  The have classes to understand their benefits, yet no one discusses what to do IF they start exhibiting the signs & symptoms of an operational stress injury. My husband went through a long time ago, so I am depending on the information I have received from others but to my knowledge this has not changed dramatically

2-Debriefs after critical incidents.

Now some will say this happens…I can tell you for absolute fact it does NOT always happen. 1-Staffing shortages of properly trained people  is a huge issue, 2- there are some areas, regardless what the common person wants to believe, that have many critical incidents in a week, or month. However this is something that must be made a priority

3- EXIT interviews once transferred out of high risk areas.  My husband was transferred to a new detachment before it was evident he was injured.  He was in a new detachment, with new management who had no idea who he was.  They did not know his work ethic nor his personality to see that he was declining.  The saw a member that was not performing, and that was it.    It amazes me to this day that there was an assumption that he was just useless instead of a senior member with vast experience that was injured.  He came from an area that is VERY well know to management, an area that has a very high percentage of members  being diagnosed with PTSD…yet it continues to come as a surprise to leadership…..

4-ONGOING TRAINING– There are courses that are already developed and running.  Psychological First aid is a perfect example,  not only would this training benefit the members in recognizing signs & symptoms in themselves and colleagues, it would actually assist them in doing there job with the public. They would have the skills to work with and deescalate PEOPLE with mental health concerns!

ASK the members.  There are members who have been diagnosed with operational stress injuries that have successfully stayed at work or returned to work.  TALK TO THEM!  What worked, what resources were they provided?  What areas do THEY feel were lacking in their journey?

ASK the spouses!  I am not a member, I am not a police officer nor do I work in the first responder field in any way. I don’t work for the RCMP. I realize that a lot of jobs do not recognize spouses.  However, in this career, there is a lot of expectation put on spouses and families.  Although we are not the ones that signed up for this we support our loved ones in this career.  We move, we often live far from our family support systems and in some cases in isolation.  We are the ones that often are the first to recognize a change in our spouse.  We need to know what to expect.  At depot they take us all into a room and discuss the effects of shift work yet they do not provide information about PTSD.

These are simple suggestions to me.  I don’t understand why it seems so complicated.  There is a growing concern in regards to operational stress injuries in this field of work.  People have lost their careers, their families and in some cases their lives.  The RCMP leadership can not hide their collective heads in the sand.  We publicly mourn the loss of officers killed in the line of duty yet as a society we remain quiet on the sidelines when these officers suffer from operational stress injuries.

Thank you to all the brave members, their spouses and colleagues who are standing up and saying THIS IS NOT OK!  We do not have to do this alone!  Together we are stronger!  KNow the signs and symptoms-watch out for each other