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| By The Station House Retreat Staff |
The first responder community
has made a great effort to address the effects that a critical incident can
have on first responders. Critical Incident Stress teams have been set up by
departments across the country and, ideally, work with first responders when
they experience a traumatic event. If an officer observes a suicide or a
firefighter has to respond to a deadly car wreck, their departments are going
to make sure that they talk with someone, and that is appropriate. But there is
another very real danger I’ll refer to as the cumulative effect.
It is not necessarily that one
big disaster that is going to take you down. It may be the cumulative effect of
the stuff that builds up day after day whether it is: arresting the bad guys
and watching them released; having to deal with the worst in societal populations;
false alarms; inadequate resources; going home knowing that no matter how good
of a job you do, there will be more bad things for you to deal with tomorrow.
When the cumulative effect goes unmanaged it is understandable that an
individual will look to self-sooth, often with drugs and alcohol. This
unhealthy form of self-soothing ads to the unmanageability of life as things
begins to spin out of control.
As a therapist, I can relate to
the cumulative effect. Day in and day out we admit new groups of client into
treatment. Some come and go and, at times, it feels like a revolving door. It
sometimes seems never ending, and that wears. I treat individuals for addiction
and they relapse and I must accept that as part of the process. Similarly, a
police officer may arrest a person and find them back on the streets a couple
months later. The revolving door can be frustrating and that is emotionally
exhausting, and frustrating. Exhaustion and frustration are fuel for any
addiction.
In treatment, I teach my clients to check-in with themselves
daily. A twelve step program encourages a daily inventory. As a clinician, I am
encouraged to be mindful of “compassion fatigue”. The common thread here is
self-care. To remain sober and to live a happy, healthy life we need to
practice self-care. We all need to be mindful of the cumulative effects of
day-to-day stress. We need to find healthy ways to self-sooth that do not
include alcohol or other drugs.
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