There is a lot of talk in our profession about what leaders can do better to support their staff with mental health. Peer Support, Therapy, Training and Awareness to name a few, is at an all-time high. This is a vastly different landscape from when I started in 1996. I am lucky enough to work for an agency who has been making mental wellness a priority for a decade or more. I know there a ton of other agencies out there who are doing the same, and well…some that aren’t. Regardless of what the agency heads are doing, the majority of the rank and file knows what needs to be done. So why do so many of us still struggle? What are you doing to be part of the solution?
Talk to a cop anywhere and ask them what the biggest hurdle is to getting help. The word “help” alone is considered an ugly word here in cop world, almost as bad as “quiet.” I guarantee you will hear the word stigma in a majority of the responses. The definition of stigma is, “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” It was one of the main reasons I took so long to get the help I needed. To that point, I wasn’t even the one who got the help for myself. It was my hidden behavior that erupted onto the forefront of my life. I had to be forced into helping myself, and for a long time I wasn’t a willing participant.
I can remember back to a time years before sobriety and a feeble attempt to dry out. I took the night off so I could stay home and drink. I was sitting on my carport in the early evening hours, drinking myself numb, and trying to maintain a one beer to one cigarette ratio. I was listening to my favorite drinker’s musical anthology along with the radio traffic from my handheld. This always helped keep my busy brain preoccupied and maybe escape a little from the reality of the hell I was living in. I was a supervisor and I really did care about my people, I couldn’t physically be there for them all the time. I still wanted to stay in touch and know that they were okay. It was such a gut wrenching internal struggle.
I hit a moment of brief clarity in the midst of an alcohol fueled pity party. I built up a ton of courage, because well I was drunk, and a drunken state of mind had always allowed me to suppress the general and social anxiety I possess. The worry of what other people thought, usually went out the window after about a 6-pack. I grabbed the phone and I dialed one of my peers. He was a cool guy tactical cop who had done a lot in his career. I considered him a friend and knew that if I could tell him what was going on, he would know exactly how to help me out discreetly without judgement. I had practiced what I was going to say 1,000 times over.
The phone rang and went to voicemail. I hadn’t planned for that and it rattled me. There was no way I was leaving recorded evidence of what I was about to say, so I hung up fast. When he called me back in the morning I was already sober…ish and I was instantly racked with fear and guilt as soon as I saw his name pop up. I answered and quickly made up a story of needing someone’s phone number from him.
So why do we consider needing help with one of the hardest times in our lives as a stigma. This alpha style profession that’s full of adrenalin and testosterone with the chance of death always around the corner builds unique individuals. Everyone who walks around in a uniform and who has other people’s lives in their hands becomes super self-critical. We are charged with helping others and when we are the ones who need help, it causes a glitch in our operating system. We start to believe the image that others have of us, we are robots who aren’t allowed to have feelings. If we have to help ourselves, how can we help others?
To reset our balance, we become hyper-critical of those we serve with. It’s a built in defense mechanism to prevent those pitfalls from becoming our own. That hyper-critical evaluation of others than turns to outward criticism. If I can call others out when they screw up, then no one will believe that I am capable of being that stupid or incompetent. Wrong, we are not robots, we are human, and all humans have feelings and make mistakes, even the best trained and well prepared.
We start to eat our own. We call them out in a way that is neither productive nor helpful at all. It is usually mean spirited and out of place. Before the advent of social media it was usually behind the back parking lot talk. Now it’s out in the world for everyone to see. A good example of this is the recent assassination attempt on Former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. I have served as an Incident Commander for a Trump Campaign Rally. It didn’t take me long to realize there were some serious leadership failures that led to this debacle.
Before long however, without all of the facts, social media cops began verbal assaults on the Secret Service Agents that were on the ground that day. The conversation became about gender roles in law enforcement, the physical appearance of agents, the mannerisms of the agents from individual still shots of a tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving situation. We became exactly like the people that aggravate us the most, the Monday morning arm chair quarterbacks who have the luxury of time, and knowledge of the end result. The comments were focused on tearing down the line staff on a personal level. It outweighed the amount of conversations about leadership failures and tactics.
Is it any wonder we are afraid to reach out to our peers when the deck is stacked against us? Shortly after Butler, Pennsylvania two more social media stories developed that stuck out in my mind. An On-Duty Police Officer and Firefighter both arrested for DUI in agency vehicles in separate parts of the Country. I have a sneaking suspicion that their problems didn’t pop up overnight. I think it would be safe to say that they were both probably struggling for a while. Do you think maybe they were afraid to ask for help because they didn’t want to be eaten by their own?
We are good at calling out mistakes on tactics and pointing out physical fitness flaws, but when it comes to calling out the signs and symptoms of depression or substance abuse we miss the mark. We need to build an environment for our peers that makes them feel comfortable calling out for help when they are down and out. This starts by turning these mean spirited attacks on tactical slip-ups into productive, meaningful conversations. These should be crafted as courageous conversations that point out the mistake, why it was a mistake, what it could cause and how to fix it for the future. I’m not for one minute saying that a good ol ass chewin isn’t still a necessary and effective strategy, but follow it up later with the conversation that builds them up. We can give them all the tools they need to succeed, and if they can’t rise to the occasion after that, it rests solely with them.
To be part of the solution, we can adopt this style in the profession and be able to reach some of those that are struggling, sooner rather than later. They will understand that a screw up isn’t guaranteed ostracization. We can do better at reaching out when we see our brothers and sisters struggling and just maybe that will aide in avoiding future incidents like DUI On Duty…. and worse.
