If you Google post traumatic stress disorder in first responders, you will get 419,000 hits. Suicide rates among first responders is nearly 10 times higher than the general population. While depression and post traumatic stress disorder are more than 5 times higher. The only group experiencing higher rates are our military combat veterans. Our public safety responders (police, fire, EMS, and Emergency Department staff) are hurting with no one rushing to their side to provide help and support.
We first responders have an innate desire to rescue, save lives, and protect humanity. We run into burning buildings. We go to abandoned places to revive heroin addicts (repeatedly). We comfort the sick, injured, or dying and many times We are the last comforting voice a dying soul may hear. We run towards shootings or disaster to protect the innocent, all of the innocent. We are the light for desperate people in a dark, violent, and hate-filled world striving to preserve life, or stand between evil and you. Why do we persist when humanity, threatens us, shoots us, sues us, screams at us, returns to their heroin, kills or abuses children, wives, or neighbors, prohibits us from saving lives, fight us when we try to render aid, or ambushes us when they call for help. NOW...there are calls to eliminate one arm of public safety, while they cry and whine for public safety to save and protect them. Oh the hypocrisy of the ignorant minds,yet we will follow our calling and protect even them.
But many of my brother and sister first responders can’t cope. They turn to drugs or alcohol, self-destructive behaviors, abusive behavior, excessive risk-taking, and suicide. I too, feel the painful affects of 30 years in the field; avoiding people, places, things, increased alertness, anger, irritability, difficulty sleeping or concentrating. I’ve even had rather strong bouts of deep sadness for periods of time. My wife even asked once out of her abundance of kindness and concern,”You always get so irritated, so quick as if you’re angry at the world. What happened to you? You’re not the same outgoing, happy person I married.”
She was right! She met me only 6 years into my career and the insidious decay of my humanity and empathy had not shown itself. But as time passed, the wounds got deeper, hitting my core. The wounds changed who I was as a dad and a husband. The wounds inhibited me from allowing others to get too close. They created a continual melancholy and isolation in my soul, even in the midst of the joys of family and life. I have been fortunate to have had many outlets that eased the symptoms and a wonderful wife that has tolerated me when many would not. But, I still feel the scars. One of those outlets has been creating art.
How do I or how can you use art to cope with the insidious misery we experienced? What I found was that creating opened my eyes and soul to seeing beauty in all creation, including humanity. When doing art, especially landscapes, I needed to change my perspective and look to all that was good around me, watching a young person assist an elderly woman at a gas pump, or strangers helping a crying lost child find his parents, watching a sunrise or sunset. Now, I know that sound cliche, but it was vital to pull me out of the pain, anger, and sadness. I had to choose to stop and look outward, not inward. I have to deny the negativity deeply rooted in the experiences, and seek the light to overcome that darkness. I fail at it sometimes, but I persevere. Art was my relief, the pressure valve to release the steam that builds because of this pressure cooker world we live. I managed to hold on to a shred of my humanity through the peace of creating art...But How can that work??
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