Hotline Caller: Not Wrong, Just Different

EP25: Hotline Caller: Not Wrong, Just Different

00:00:00 Cinnamon: The day we get to respond to one of our hotline calls, which we’re always excited, when our hotline lights up, so to speak.

00:00:14 Caller: After many years in the fire service, doing CPR countless times, dealing with death almost every shift, you know, having hundreds of traumatic and gruesome runs and accidents and being around death all the time. I found that in my personal life, the idea of death and dying has little effect on my emotions, even including the thought of me dying or my family or those close to me to the point I didn't feel much grief, even at funerals, for people that I knew personally or that I was very close with.

00:00:48 Erin: The first thing that stands out to me is this judgment…

00:00:51 Cinnamon: The shoulding.

00:00:53 Erin: Yeah. This judgment of emotions.

00:00:56 Cinnamon: It just may not look like what we think grief is going to look like or happen in the time frame that we expect it to happen. If I'm not crying at the funeral, that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling grief or that I won't feel grief.

00:01:18 Cinnamon: It's the first responder, the first to get the call, the first on scene, greeted by God knows what, pushed beyond the limits that they don't even set. Then what happens? You're listening to After The Tones Drop. We're your hosts. I'm Cinnamon, a first responder trauma therapist who founded our practice after seeing the need for specialized care following a local line of duty death.

00:01:44 Erin: And I'm Erin. I'm a first responder integration coach.

00:01:48 Cinnamon: We help first responders receive transformational training, therapy, and coaching.

00:01:54 Erin: Now we come to you to explore demystify and destigmatize, mental health and wellness for first responders.

00:02:02 Cinnamon: Our show brings you stories from real first responders, the tools they've learned, the changes they've made, and the lives they now get to live.

00:02:19 VO: A quick heads up before we start, we want to acknowledge that some of the content we discuss on our show can be triggering for some listeners. Some of our episodes may touch upon themes like traumatic experiences, PTSD, suicide, and line of duty deaths. We understand that these topics are sensitive and might evoke difficult emotions. If you are currently struggling with your mental health or have experienced traumatic events recently, listen with caution.

00:02:46 VO: You may consider taking periodic breaks or skipping the episode altogether. We want to thank you for joining us today. Your dedication to serving our community is inspiring, and we're here to support you in any way that we can. Now, if you're ready to proceed, let's begin.

00:03:05 Cinnamon: Today we get to respond to one of our hotline calls, which we're always excited when our hotline lights up, so to speak. And today we actually get to talk about something that I feel like we talk about pretty frequently in the counseling room. And it has to do with what we would call desensitization or compassion fatigue. Erin?

00:03:29 Erin: Yeah. In regards to this particular call, with this compassion fatigue, with this idea of desensitization, comes the inability to feel emotions, to feel the good, to feel the bad. And that's another common thing that we hear about a lot when we talk to our clients is that, I just can't feel and why is this like this? Why don't I feel love towards my wife? Or why don't I feel sadness when something tragic has happened in my own personal life? And that's kind of what is happening with our hotline caller. What he seems to be expressing in his call is, is this normal? 

00:04:06 Erin: And so, Cinnamon and I talk often about what's normal versus typical based on our life experiences, based on what we're up against every day, based on the patterns that we experienced. I feel like something that we get to hit on is what desensitization is. What does that actually mean, to be desensitized? First and foremost, there's being desensitized to these horrific things that are going on around you. I get that desensitization and compassion fatigue fall in the same category, but they still are two separate things. If you have compassion fatigue, you're likely suffering from a certain level of desensitization. Does that make sense?

00:04:47 Cinnamon: Yes. Okay. Yes. So desensitization is not something that we actively choose to do. It is a unconscious, subconscious psychological process where our brains are figuring out how to manage any kind of reaction when we're seeing very similar things over and over. And it can make us look insensitive or callous. And that doesn't mean that we're a bad person. It means that we've went through this psychological process. And I think about some of the folks that have been on this job for 10, 15, 20 plus years, and when you ask them, how do you keep doing this?

00:05:36 Cinnamon: It really comes down to figuring out how to balance that desensitization with the cognition of this is a terrible thing that's happened, but it's not eliciting those same feelings. And I've talked to a lot of folks who have been doing this job for a long time, and I'm always curious, what is their particular strategy? And I've heard things like faith and spirituality, like it was this person's day.

00:06:06 Erin: Or they're in a better place. I know they're in a better place.

00:06:59 Cinnamon: Okay. That literally makes my skin crawl.

00:06:12 Erin: But that's what they say.

00:06:13 Cinnamon: Well, yes, they do. But I do think that there's a difference between when we say that to someone who is grieving in a what is that line called? A receiving line.

00:06:26 Erin: I'm not saying that I'm saying that to them. I'm saying that some people actually believe that when they lose someone, they are saying…

00:06:34 Cinnamon: They're in a better place.

00:06:35 Erin: I know they're in a better place.

00:06:37 Cinnamon: Okay. I was introduced to the concept scope of experience, and I think that is a great way to frame this particular caller's… their experience is that when you've seen all of these things, when you've done CPR countless times, when you've seen these car accidents, or even when you come up on a suicide, that after so many, it doesn't register the same way. And so how they respond is obviously going to be different than if you or I stumbled upon somebody who had died by suicide in the woods. And so how do we have that conversation to talk about what that means while acknowledging that it is like turning the Titanic around?

00:07:29 Erin: Yeah.

00:07:30 Cinnamon: So, Erin, do you want to play the call for us?

00:07:32 Erin: Yeah. And before I do play the call, I just want to say it's that conflict of this idea of, well, we should, because society says feel a certain way about certain experiences. But because I'm up against what I'm up against every single day, I have a hard time feeling the emotions that society states I should be feeling in these moments. And so I wanted to mention that, but, yeah, let me play it.

00:08:00 Caller: After many years in the fire service, doing CPR countless times, dealing with death almost every shift, having hundreds of traumatic and gruesome runs and accidents and being around death all the time. I found that in my personal life, the idea of death and dying has little effect on my emotions, even including the thought of me dying or my family or those close to me. Is this a normal thing? To the point I didn't feel much grief even at funerals, for people that I knew personally or that I was very close with.

00:08:37 Erin: The first thing that stands out to me is this judgment is…

00:08:40 Cinnamon: Is shoulding.

00:08:41 Erin: Yeah. This judgment of emotions. Even when it's somebody that's family member that's close to me, I feel numb to it. I can't show my emotions. I'm not, quote unquote, grieving or mourning properly.

00:08:57 Cinnamon: That's what I heard, was the I am not feeling grief. My thought was, the hell you aren't. It just may not look like what we think grief is going to look like or happen in the time frame that we expect it to happen. If I'm not crying at the funeral, that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling grief or that I won't feel grief.

00:09:24 Erin: Right. It doesn't mean that you're not affected. And it goes back to this idea that because of the job, it is natural to put things in your rucksack. Like Tim Sears said in episodes nine and ten, when it comes to something like this, it is a go to mechanism to put our reactions, our stress, whatever that thing is, into our rucksack and save it for a rainy day. And so an experience of loss, even when it's with somebody close to us, it would be ridiculous to think that we could compartmentalize in such a way that we could be like, this one's, one to grieve, this one's one to put in our rucksack. Let's navigate this. I mean, that is impossible to do because our brain can't differentiate necessarily, like, oh, yeah, this is appropriate, and this is not appropriate when we're so used to just putting things on the back shelf over and over and over again.

00:10:26 1stRC AD: Hey there, listener. It's me, Erin. I'm here to share a great opportunity with you. You know life can throw us some serious curveballs and sometimes we need a little extra help dealing with all the craziness. That’s why I’m thrilled and excited to tell you about First Responder Conferences that focus on mental health and wellness. First Responder Conferences presents a multifaceted two-day seminar and networking event for improving first responder mental health and wellness.

00:10:55 Erin: Through discussions on the current issues constantly faced by first responders, these conferences will provide awareness, resources, and tools to combat post-traumatic stress, depression, suicide, addiction, stress, and overall wellness. These conferences are not your typical snooze fest department training. They are engaging, impactful, and full of valuable topics and resources. First RC brings in experts and fellow first responders who have been through it all, and they create an environment of understanding and compassion. At these conferences, you'll hear everything from stress management techniques to coping strategies that can help you stay resilient. We’re breaking down the stigma around mental health, people. There’s no shame in seeking help or talking about what you’re going through. In fact, it’s a sign of strength and self-awareness. These conferences are creating a safe space for first responders to open up, share their experiences, and learn from one another. 

00:11:54 Erin: And you know what else? These conferences aren't just for first responders, they're also for the families. Because let's face it, they're the backbone of support. By including families in this journey, we’re building stronger, more resilient communities.  So whether you're a first responder, a family member, or just someone who cares about the well-being of our local heroes, I encourage you to check out these incredible conferences at 1strc.org. That's the number one strc.org. Let's get rid of the stigma, let's talk about mental health, and let's support our first responders like never before. Join me and Cinnamon, along with many other incredible folks at first responder conferences, and let's make a difference together. Stay strong, stay healthy, and be safe. Remember, you're not alone in this journey. Let's do this.

00:12:53 Cinnamon: You're talking about the rucksack, and it made me think if I've had to condition myself to switching things off to be able to continue to do my job, right? Like the overwhelm of empathy that we could see happen. If our folks don't find a healthy or unhealthy way of putting those things away, it might be after that first run that you're like, “Oh, hell no, this is not for me. I can't do this.” So we figured out adaption styles and I keep going back to the funeral that the caller mentions, and this past weekend, my husband and another couple and I, we all went kayaking in the Muskingum River. And I know you think I'm going on a tangent Erin, but I swear to God, this actually is going to tie in. Just wait. And on the Muskingum River, from Zanesville to Marietta, there are these 180-year-old locks. There's eleven of them. 

00:13:54 Cinnamon: And we read about them, we saw them, but it wasn't until we were actually in one that we saw what they call the lockmaster. Like the guy that comes out from wherever when you get to the lock that lets you through. I mean, he was turning this 182-year-old crank with all of his might, like putting his full body force into it to move the silt and the mud and the water out of the way for these locked doors to open and close. And it wasn't like he just had to do it once. He had to do it twice, right? The back lock or the back doors and the front doors. And so when I think about if I have shut down that piece of feeling, all of the empathy of registering the depth of the tragedy on these runs, like, this person just lost their child. This person just lost their soulmate, whatever that is. If I felt the weight of that, it would make it so hard. So I shut that off. And then if it feels like the work of that lockmaster to crank open just so I can feel pain, like the pain of the loss of my loved one, why the fuck would I do that? 

00:15:09 Erin: Exactly.

00:15:10 Cinnamon: That doesn't make sense. If I have figured out how to avoid pain, why wouldn't I also apply it to when I would feel pain the most? 

00:15:20 Erin: Yeah. Good job. Okay, I see what you… 

00:15:23 Cinnamon: See? I pulled it back around.

00:15:25 Erin: Yeah, that definitely is a really cool way to consider how we compartmentalize, how we protect ourselves, especially when it's the loss of someone that is close to us. We definitely don't want to feel that pain. That is horrific. 

00:15:41 Cinnamon: And it's not like this light switch that we turn off and on with a flick. It really is that laborious cranking moving through all that mud to get to the other side. And then, if I’m on a 24-48 schedule or even a 40 hours schedule with 8 hours, my HR department may give me three days off. Three days of 8 hours is one shift, and then I'm right back at work, and I'm right back feeling all of the things that I've put that locked door in place for. And so there's not that time for that bereavement. I mean, we're kind of honing in on one part of his call to kind of explain why it makes sense that he's experiencing what he's experiencing because I heard the shoulding. Like, I should do this, I should do that. And I remember a long time ago when I was working with another trauma therapist, she used to always say, “Stop shoulding on yourself”. 

00:16:44 Erin: Yeah, I've heard that. 

00:16:46 Cinnamon: And it makes sense because it's a self-judgment. Like, I should have done this. Now I can also judge you, Erin, right? You should have done that, right? But regardless if I'm directing my finger at someone else or back at myself, it's still that judgment.

00:17:04 Erin: And you just hit a good point. A really powerful point is that, pressure that society puts on us of how we should grieve. It's like, well, you just lost your child in a tragic way. Why aren't you crying? Why aren't you locking yourself in a closet? Why aren't you going off the grid? I personally see you just going on business as usual. And then there's this entire story of how I would feel this way if this happened to me, but you're not doing it right, and what the heck is that? And it's not putting into the whole situation the different factors of what grief is, the stages of what grief are. And a giant part of what grief is about the denial. There's a big part where we are in denial.

00:17:54 Erin: And so it's like if I just pretend and I use this all the time with my clients, I say, “Listen, just because you don't go and check your mail every day and check the mailbox does not mean there isn't a bill in there racking up interest. It's just you avoiding that interest.” And so that is exactly what this denial is doing. It racks up the interest and it waits. And so we can't pass judgment on individuals and how they grieve or process, because for some folks, they haven't even hit them yet. They're definitely not to the acceptance part.

00:18:29 Cinnamon: Like, it doesn't feel real. 

00:18:30 Erin: Yeah, exactly. And so it can take a long time for it to catch up. So when you're so used to being like, I need to be in this frame of mind to check off the boxes of my job, I have certain tasks that must happen. It's like I'm clearing the scene, I'm making sure that folks can get in and out safely. We're making sure that all of the protocol is handled, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You are in business as usual, and there is a task at hand. But when it comes to personal loss, there is no business as usual. And so it can look all kinds of ways.

00:19:09 Cinnamon: We get to use that whole normal versus typical. Like the person who works at the credit union or bags your groceries or runs the car wash or even works in corporate America. They may not have the same necessity in their job to numb and put in a rucksack. So if I'm one of those people and I'm looking at a first responder at a funeral and I'm like, “Wow, that person isn't doing it right, or they're looking at me and saying, ‘wow, look at her grieve. That's what it looks like”. No, you can't. That's like comparing apples and oranges to make those feelings and that expression of those feelings as this is the right way and this is the wrong way, and when in actuality, these are the ways that work for both of us. 

00:20:04 Erin: Yeah. 

00:20:05 Cinnamon: And it makes sense. Now, again, we kind of talk about why would we switch that back on but here's the flip side. And you and I both have personal experience on this front, so I want to use this as an example. We may see our first responders being numb to certain tragedy, like, if Grandpa Joe dies, they may be like, “That's sad, but it's part of life, and they may overhear somebody say, ‘Oh, Grandma Jane is going to have to live the rest of her life without Grandpa Joe. And in their mind, they're like, ‘That's not a tragedy. Watching your four-year-old die of cancer, now that's a tragedy.”

00:20:42 Cinnamon: Having to go find your adult child in a bathtub with a self-inflicted wound, now that's a tragedy, right? So it goes back to that scope of experience. But we also see that extreme of if a first responder's 16-year-old daughter has their new 19-year-old boyfriend show up on his motorcycle and he's got no helmet for her, I don't think a helmet would have been the thing that made the difference. But hell is going to freeze over before they let that happen. Before they let their daughter get on that bike. Because regardless of what the odds are of something bad happening, they know exactly how bad it is when it does. They've cleaned up those people. They've responded to those calls. They've seen family come on scene. They are not going to knowingly subject their family to the possibility of that. So that tells me, "No, you are not numb, not completely, because you are having a very big response."

00:21:53 VO: Hey there to all you fearless folks who've been tuning in to After the Tones Drop. You know, we've been dishing out some real-deal mental health wisdom for our first responders and we need your help to keep it rolling. So here's the deal. Take a minute and do us a favor by leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. And listen, we're not expecting a novel here, just a few lines about what you're appreciating about the show, whether it's our interviews, perhaps the educational aspect, or just our goofy humor and metaphors and your feedback, it's like the gasoline in our engine fueling us to bring you more of the good stuff. So let's keep that siren wailing and those reviews pouring in. Thanks, we appreciate you.

00:22:38 Erin: And we've talked about that before. The first responders see something tragic, maybe with a water incident or something, and then they go home and they're completely panicked about their child in the bath and the spouse doesn't understand. And so in those moments, that is 100% an emotional reaction. That is not, I'm numb to this. It doesn't feel like this linear processing. It feels like it comes out of the middle of nowhere and that intrusion of it all, then it feels wrong, or off, or inappropriate. And so when we can't tap into that same level emotion when it comes to death and loss, it's like, well, "Why is it this way for this experience? But here I am watching Grandpa Joe pass away and I feel nothing." I mean, they're just two totally different things.

00:23:26 Cinnamon: Yeah, Grandpa Joe has lived a long, happy life, has lots of families surrounding him. That is, again, back to that scope of experience that doesn't look like an actual tragedy. When you've seen all of these things that most of us don't see, right? If we saw all that shit, we might also say, this is a lightweight tragedy. I'm not going to get that upset. This is a natural part of life, whereas having some of those things I don't want to keep going down a rabbit hole of terrible things and trigger people. But we know the comparative piece, and I think it starts with acknowledging part of what starts folks on this path makes sense. There's what we would call compassion satisfaction. That it's that positive, pleasurable experience that we get from helping others, that it's beneficial to us.

00:24:23 Cinnamon: But then we start running into compassion stress where we're like, "okay, we can either feel our way right out of this job, or we figure out how to put it in the rucksack so we can go on all these runs over and over all these calls." And eventually, when you are inundated with that day in and day out, there is a very good chance that you might, in an effort to be able to continue to do your job, start getting so numb that now we're looking at compassion fatigue, and we're distracting ourselves with the logistics on the scene rather than the tragedy. So we put the tragedy in our back pocket, but what we're feeling is counted out or negated by me saying, "okay, I'm commanding this. I need this medic over here. I need this police officer over here. Somebody needs to take care of this. I'm managing a radio traffic." When you get into all of that, you're more able to put what happened out of your mind for the moment.

00:25:31 Cinnamon: And then it looks like all of a sudden when it's afterwards, it's over, and you're like, "Why is this bothering me so much?" It's a way to cope, to get the job done so everything makes sense based on what they have to do. And it also can just be like, "Yeah, bad things happen. We see it every day." This is what life looks like when you're privy to this, when you're the people that get called, when all the bad shit happens. This is what you know is happening every day for some families, some people, and it's just life. And because we don't have that scope of experience, we can't necessarily wrap our heads around that. And I think it's important to not just put everybody in this category that's figured out how to do this in, like there's something wrong with them. I think that there can be some desensitization that we make peace with of, "Yeah, bad things happen, and it's a tragedy, and I feel for that family." But I'm not getting sucked into it. And I'm also not this cold-hearted asshole who is super dismissive.

00:26:47 Erin: Yeah, what you're talking about right now reminds me of a few things that Jason, our very first guest, was saying when he had experienced challenging run. And he was obsessing and he was like, starting to follow this family. And he was saying, "But this didn't bother me, not even the slightest." But the next thing we know, he's going down these rabbit holes of who's the family members? Who's the sister, who's the mom? What's everybody doing? How's everybody feeling? Blah, blah, blah. What's the community saying about the kid that died?

00:27:13 Cinnamon: Right.

00:26:14 Erin: Right. "Oh, he was a really good person." And so that right there proves that even in those moments of being in the business-as-usual mindset, that there's still that level of sadness and feeling for others, and it affecting you. And going back to when it's a parallel situation. We've heard of tragedies with children, which seem to be the hardest ones to hear, and the particular person we're talking to just gave birth to a child, and the next day they're on this horrific run with this child. And then all of a sudden, that whole relationship with how they handle that particular run affects them differently.

00:27:52 Cinnamon: Yeah. We do see a pretty significant change in response after a birth of a child. It's that onset of a completely different understanding of the world. And now you have an empathy that you couldn't have had before having your own child for the parent who loses somebody and it's just like a punch in the gut.

00:28:16 Erin: Yeah. When I firmly believe this and I talk to my husband about it all the time, nothing makes you think more about death than birth because-

00:28:25 Cinnamon: Got them this far. But what if they die?

00:28:27 Erin: Well and all of a sudden it's like they're here and I might lose them. That fear of loss. So it's in there. It's always in there.

00:28:36 Cinnamon: It's like embedded into that. Bringing someone into the world automatically incites the fear of something else. Taking them out.

00:28:45 Erin: Exactly. Just because we don't sit there and obsess over it doesn't mean we don't have emotion, or compassion, or empathy, or sadness, or any of those things underneath it all because it's there.

00:28:57 Cinnamon: That's kind of a perfect lead into one of the last things I wanted to make sure I mentioned, which is something that we can use to counter this. Especially if you are recognizing you feel the need to find something to counter or your family has identified maybe some of that coldness and you want to work on it. There's always that self-compassion, which means that we have to get out of the way of the judgment and the shoulding and the critique. And I find that the concept of self-compassion can create a fear that being gentle with yourself can lead to complacency, or it can undermine their drive for success. Like, the way we beat ourselves up when something doesn't go right or what we might call self-examination after. Did we do everything right? And I think that there's a time and a place for that. This is not it.

00:29:58 Cinnamon: This is where we actually can use compassion. And not that I did it wrong or not even defending ourselves to other people, but recognizing, "Yeah, this is one of the costs of doing this job." And I get to think about what it means on a micro scale for me and my family at Grandpa Joe's funeral, as well as a macro scale of how I even register what's happening in the world around me. But being able to say there is a time and a place for that self-critique that may look a little bit harsher, this is not it. And it's not going to take your edge. You can still have your edge at work or in the softball league while in this moment of providing yourself that self-compassion to say, "Okay, I'm doing it differently, I'm not doing it wrong, or if I don't like how I'm doing it, let's figure this out."

00:30:55 Erin: I like that. That feels like an ice icing on top. I'm doing it differently. I'm not doing it wrong.

00:31:02 Cinnamon: I thought you might.

00:31:03 Erin: Yeah. Very good.

00:31:04 Cinnamon: And I think that there's so many places even in my life where I've had to rework how I think I'm not doing it wrong, I'm doing it differently. And my stars, that's a game changer, especially for those of us who may have some attention deficit or dysregulation. We tend to take the long way around the mountain. And that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means it's different.

00:31:34 Erin: Yeah. We want to thank our caller, as usual, for giving us this topic to ponder on and to potentially use as a resource to help others that might be coming up against this same thing. And this is where the rubber meets the road. We got to hear from you guys in order to be able to speak your language and be clear on the things that are important to you or that you think about. Because I'm certain that, as I always say, if this caller is thinking that, then someone else is thinking it, too. So thank you, caller.

00:32:08 VO: Thank you for joining us for today's episode of After the Tones Drop. Today's show has been brought to you by Whole House Counseling. As a note, After the Tones Drop is for informational purposes only and does not constitute for medical or psychological advice. It is not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please contact a local mental health professional in your area if you are in need of any assistance. You can also visit afterthetonesdrop.com and click on our resources tab for an abundance of helpful information. And we would like to give a very special thank you and shout-out to Venz Adams, Yeti and Sanda for our show's music.