Why is it so hard for first responders to come forward and ask for help when they need it?

Question

Thomas O'Connor · Answer

Patrick, having first responders actually reach out and get help has been a difficult process for many, many years. Hopefully it's getting better with some internal efforts by agencies to take better care of their people. Over the decades in law enforcement, we went from kind of just internalizing all the stresses to potentially over-drinking, abuses of other types. These are all negatives. And now we're starting to see more people that are talking to their coworkers, having employee assistance groups that they can go to. I know a good friend of mine, Keith Shibley, is very active in talking about the issues that he had and how those led to alcohol abuse and how he turned that around and made a positive out of it. So these are important things because your wellness is top of the mark. If you don't stay healthy, you can't be good for your job, you can't be good for the community, you can't be good for your family, and most of all, you can't be good for yourself. So take care of yourselves, ask for help. Law enforcement and military suicides are way up and we don't want to have any more of those. Ask for help before you need it.

Donald Soranno · Answer

Why is it so hard for first responders to come forward and ask for help when they need it? Amazing, amazing question. And this is a question that needs to put out more to the community. It is okay to come forward and ask for help. There's this old stereotype that, you know, if you come forward and if you're having issues at work, if something's bothering you, you know, you've lost the edge. You're weak. You're not supposed to show emotion. In law enforcement, we wear the body armor to protect us from external forces. Well, we also put up a shield to protect us from the trauma that we see, the negativity, just the horrible stuff in the world. The problem is a lot of times that body armor will come off, but that shield never comes off. You keep everything inside because you don't want to show that you're having a tough time with that call that you were just on or you're going through a tough time in your marriage or your family or your friends or just personal. And it's okay not to be okay. And we need to let our first responder community know that it's okay to say something. You want to talk to your brothers and sisters. Seek out what's the peer support group that your agency has. If they don't have one, reach out to another agency to see if they can refer you to somebody. There's a lot of places out there here on any question. There's a lot of great places that they can provide support. So that's what we're all about is breaking down that stigma, breaking down that wall of first responders can't ask for help. You can. It is okay. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you any less of an officer. So my brothers and sisters out there, it's okay. Ask help if you need it.

Shawn LaMar · Answer

Why is it so hard for first responders to come forward and ask for help when they need it? It's a great question. I think the short of it is most of us don't know we need it until it's too late, until we're past that point and then we're dealing with PTSD or PTSI. We're not able to process that first call in the day, that horrible first call, because we're moving on to the next call and starting it all over again. We get back to the firehouses. We joke around about it or we process things differently by joking, by giving each other a hard time, things like that. But we also live in the world, whether you're fire, EMS, or law enforcement, that we're the toughest ones out there and we can handle anything, but we're still human. Things are getting better and a lot more people are reaching out for help, which is a good thing, and we're making long strides to make that help available. But it's still a work in process, baby steps.

Dave Robertson · Answer

Why is it so hard for first responders to come forward when they need help? I think there's a couple answers there. One of them is you end up going down into a kind of a dark rabbit hole with PTSD or PTSD and it can often happen in increments. So you kind of don't see it coming until eventually you're well in the throes of PTSD. And so you haven't sought help along that way, which is why we push to call fast after you've experienced some traumatic events. Reach out right away. I think another reason is while we are making great strides as first responders to start reaching out, we're normalizing it. You're living the hangover of big tough cops, big tough firemen. You saw something bad, you experienced something bad, you just sucked it up. You swallowed it down. You joked about it and that was kind of it. And then you went out and you did it again. We're getting away from that, like I said, but we're living that hangover basically. Just a lot of people out there in first response still think it's 1954 and you just need to be quiet about what you've seen.

Robert Verhelst · Answer

It's a great question of why we don't ask for help. I think a lot of it was originally like a stigma. I think a lot of us thought that it was something that was weak inside of us that was really driving us for this and that we didn't want to ask for help because of the fear of ramifications, the fear of looking weak, and just kind of this is normal. I think that's changed a little bit. I think there's still some of that left in there, but I think it's changed a little bit in that understanding that it's not normal for each person and it's going to be the mental strain and struggles on each person is going to be different, no different than physical injuries. I think that has changed over the time too, is where you had something that happened and you just kind of sucked it up and went forward. So I think it just came from the culture and it was what it was and now as we continue to create, we're not really changing the culture, we're creating a new culture of awareness of that it's okay to ask for help, that it's okay to be not full. And so I think it's getting better, still has a long way to go, but getting better is better than nothing.

Dena Ali · Answer

Day one on the job as first responders, we are placed in a position where we have to prove ourselves and we have to prove to the people around us that we're fit for duty, that we're capable, that we're going to have their back and that they can trust us. So it's a natural human condition to struggle, to go through rough patches, to have lows. But in our world sometimes I think there's a line I remember early in my career when I was a police officer, somebody made a comment, they said, some people are meant to be the police, some people are meant to call the police. And I took that to heart. I felt really and truly that now that I was a first responder, that I had stepped over this invisible line into being that person that, you know, helps. And I didn't realize that we're not just helpers or people that need help, that we can be both, that you can be a helper, you can be an outstanding first responder, but you're human. And at some point in your life, especially in a long career, you're going to need help. So I think we're at this point now where we understand this. We see our brothers and sisters dying by suicide. We hear about people having PTSD. And what we have to do is we just have to model the behaviors that we want them to exhibit. So that means when we're struggling, we should ask for help and model that it's okay not to be okay.

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"Why is it so hard for first responders to come forward and ask for help when they need it?"