Roaring Phoenix: With Guest Kenny Mitchell

EP52: Roaring Phoenix: With Kenny Mitchell

00:00:00 Kenny: I started to notice a trend of people having relationship troubles, financial troubles. We started to see a peak into what post-traumatic stress disorder was going to be in the future. I thought to myself, this is going to snowball one of these days. I do say that we need to become fierce in the early recognition of a mental health decline in those that we love, work with, and most importantly, ourselves. I say that because of the seven years that I had and struggled and nobody came to me and pointed their finger at me and said, You deserve to feel better. You deserve to get yourself up. You've given your life to helping others. 

00:00:00 Kenny: Now don't go out like that. Life is too short to be at war with yourself, mentally, emotionally, physically, and socially and spiritually. We love the strangers more than we love ourselves. And if you start to love yourself just as much than you love the strangers, then you're gonna get through this. Let's get stronger and better. There is light if you walk towards it and you lean on those who have been there and seen some things and want to help you. Let's do this.

00:00:00 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.

00:01:30 Erin: And I'm Erin. I'm a first responder integration coach. 

00:01:35 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.

00:01:53 Erin: 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. Now, if you're ready to proceed, let's begin.

00:02:26 Kenny: I love dogs. I've been bitten on scene before years ago. Dogs scare me, so I'm very cautious of everyone's animal. I sort of run up, can I pet your dog? I'm very cautious of animals and dogs, but yeah, I've been bitten and kind of, scare me a little bit once in a while, but I do love dogs so much, my goodness.

00:02:44 Cinnamon: Yeah. If you don't see Ben and you come up to the door, you may be frightened, but if you look through the glass panel on the side, you're like, oh, never mind. 

00:02:53 Kenny: Oh, wow.

00:02:54 Erin: I don't know. 

00:02:54 Cinnamon: He's just a–

00:02:55 Erin: He's kind of vicious.

00:02:55 Cinnamon: Happy, liquor and greeter, that's all. 

00:02:59 Erin: Well, on that note, a happy liquor, a happy looking and greeting. Here we go. It's funny because we often like, we'll start talking to our guests and then I say, oh, let me hit record. And so the guests don't get to hear all the fun and excitement going on prior to us getting started. So if you're new to the party, we were discussing our incredible guest, Kenny Mitchell. I'm gonna tell you, I'm so excited to have this guy on the show. Cinnamon was talking about how she was like number one fangirl of a previous guest that we had. And I would say I'm probably one of your number one fangirls, Kenny. Did you know you had groupies? Well, do you do, now? 

00:03:42 Kenny: No, I didn't. 

00:03:45 Erin: But I'm just so impressed by the way that you're showing up in this community and for this cause and the differences that you're making out there. And you have this way about you that, like you can look intimidating, like you have this profile pic, which can look kind of intimidating. And then you watch your videos, it's like, oh my gosh, he's like a big teddy bear, look at him. 

00:04:09 Kenny: Exactly. 

00:04:10 Erin: But it's such a welcoming energy that you exude out there. And so much of this is about the ability to create that, we joke about it, that safe space for others to enter and feel like they can ask for the things that they need. And so what we were talking about as we started was your quote that is now on the back of your shirts, that's kind of been your mantra, it sounds like for Operation Yellow Tape, which is your organization and foundation that we'll definitely get into. But you say there are too many of us to ever feel alone. And that is absolutely right. And so can you repeat what you were telling us about why that's important to you and how that includes everybody? 

00:05:00 Kenny: Yeah, that does live on every shirt and everything that I do. And during Tom's funeral, a brother firefighter who took his life just 17 days after meeting me for lunch, I was sitting there and we all had little napkins for our tea and things, and I was jotting things down, and I was having folks sit beside me and talk and they kept making excuses of why this was happening. And I kept writing on this napkin and it just came out that there are too many of us. I was watching moms and dads and cousins and brothers and postal workers and construction workers and everybody in this room. And there's just too many of us to ever feel alone. And we get trapped into this. You don't wear the turnout gear, if you're not a clinician, if you're not a doctor, lawyer, whatever, you can't talk to anybody. 

00:05:50 Kenny: So basically, I just said there are too many of us and I'm so tired of us thinking that there's not and your story may be different, situation may be different, but you can talk to each other. Somebody will find something and feel that connection. And that's where it came from. And it's, like I say, it'll give chills when I see it out because I'm honored, him every time that someone says it and whenever someone wears it. I've been out before and I've seen someone pass me by wearing that shirt and I never approach them. I want so bad to ask them, what's your story? Why do you have that on? But there are too many of us to ever feel alone, encompasses all of us. Everybody, the spouses of us, the friends of us, families of us, you, you are OYT. That's what that means to me. And that's what it means to the folks who support this mission that I am trying to push.

00:06:46 Erin: And I love that you said that you see folks out there in the community with these shirts on and you don't approach them. And I'm actually kind of fascinated by it more than saying that I love it because the first thing I thought was, wow, that'll be, make a really cool, like I'm thinking of like social media, kind of like an interview, if they feel comfortable with it. I just bumped into this guy, like what did you call it out in the wilderness or Operation Yellow Tape? What did you say? 

00:07:12 Kenny: Yeah. Whenever folks buy the t-shirt, they'll send me a picture of them, whether they're in Texas or they're in, wherever they are in the world and I'll tag them if they're okay with it, I'll put their social and I'll put OYT spotted in the wild. Thank you, Texas or whatever. But this guy I saw in the airport, I was heading to Chicago and he walked by me at the airport in Richmond and I was just like, man, I'd love to go up to him and ask him, why do you have that on? I always ask folks that order from me. Before I'll send it to you, I have to know why. I love the story. I want to know your story. Is it for a family member? Is it because you're supporting this program and everyone always has a story. They always have something that's happened in their family or something they're trying to get over and I'm going to do it one day. 

00:08:00 Kenny: I'm going to go up to somebody and ask them. I've only seen it twice, but I just, I don't know. It would be a great social media thing to stand by the person and show the shirt off. I don't want to come across as, look at my sweat, I have to be there in that moment ready to capture it. I don't want it to come across as, look, I saw my shirt at the airport. It's so much more than that. So, yeah. 

00:08:22 Erin: Totally. Yeah, and I see that so much more, of as see proof that we are, there's too many of us to ever feel alone. More about that and less about the swag. 

00:08:33 Cinnamon: But that's really cool. I can't imagine what it would feel like to see somebody wearing an After The Tones Drop. 

00:08:39 Erin: Well, that's not true. We've had people wear After The Tones Drop hats.

00:08:42 Cinnamon: And send us pictures. So–

00:08:44 Erin: It's cool. But let me rewind a little bit, because I got so pumped about how we kind of started the show that I didn't get to really say exactly who you are. Obviously we know you're the founder of Operation Yellow Tape, and we can really lean into what that looks like and how that's changing this culture and this dynamic. But you are also a career firefighter. And you started in 2002 with, Virginia Beach Fire. But then you shifted, right, to Chesterfield. And is that where you are still? 

00:09:15 Kenny: Yes, ma'am. I'm 21 years on a job in Chesterfield County right here. 

00:09:20 Erin: Yeah. 

00:09:20 Kenny: Chesterfield Fire and EMS. 

00:09:22 Erin: Yeah, so knowing what it takes to be a career firefighter and seeing the time and the investment that you're putting into Operation Yellow Tape and making a difference, it's like, do you ever sleep, I wonder? 

00:09:36 Kenny: I do. I have a pretty good balance, I feel, with it all. It's a lot of weekend work and evenings when I'm off and different stuff like that. And a lot of stuff that comes to me, I take a lot of notes. So yeah, I do sleep. I believe in good sleep when I can get it, but I do stay busy. And honestly, it charges me when I speak and I tell my story and I see people afterwards walk up to me and I feel stronger. So as I started this program in 2021, I actually feel stronger. The further I go into it and the later the night gets, the stronger I feel. And when I'm working out and when I'm talking and speaking and when I'm meeting people and they're sharing, I just start to feel stronger. So I can really knock on wood and hope that continues, but I'm kind of a high strong guy anyway, I like to go, go, go. But this is so important to me because that loss was so great to me. And the other losses in my life was so great to me that I feel stronger when I work on it. 

00:10:38 Erin: Yeah. And it's a why, it's what keeps your eyeballs opening up in the morning and saying, all right, let's do this. And sometimes vision and passion is all we need. But I'm glad to hear that you also include that sleep and take care of yourself and that respect, because as we know, not a lot of firefighters are sleeping these days. 

00:10:57 Kenny: No. 

00:10:58 Erin: So it's nice to hear that that's not a problem for you. But in addition to firefighting, Operation Yellow Tape, you also are part of the peer support team in your area. And it looks like you've been doing that since 2009. So you started kind of being a peer support prior to any of these larger events occurring. Is that right? 

00:11:20 Kenny: We've done some research. No one's ever got that date right. Yes. I interviewed for our peer support team in 2009 and in 2009, I'll be honest, didn't start this career until 2002. So at that point, nothing was really going on except for running severe calls and seeing things. However, I started to notice a trend of people having trouble, relationship troubles, financial troubles. We started to see a peek into what post-traumatic stress disorder was going to be in the future. In my eyes, I saw guys that were drinking like crazy, that were on their third marriage. I thought to myself, this is going to snowball. I'm not making this up. This is going to snowball one of these days. And I'm not going to say it out loud right now, because I'm pretty much still brand new at five years on the job, but I want to get on a team that can teach me some knowledge, some ability, some skills and some resources in case I do hit something. 

00:12:14 Kenny: Well, boy did I hit something in 2013 and throughout the rest of my career. But for me, honestly, joining the peer support team was a way for me to equip myself to maybe help those folks that I kept seeing that were struggling. And then I thought, you know what, Kenny, you're going to struggle one day. And maybe, maybe you won't. But maybe you'll have something in your back pocket and a group of folks around you. And our peer support team was very new here in 2009. It's grown to 57 people now. When we started it, I think it was 11 people in ‘09. So yeah, just 2009, I'm very active. I'm proud to say I receive a lot of phone calls, a lot of in-person meetings with people. And I take the peer support team extremely serious and I think it works. And I love being on that team.

00:13:06 Erin: Wow. So you said 57 people, but for 608, is that how many people you said you had with your department? 

00:13:14 Kenny: Yeah, my whole organization here, we run about 52,000 calls a year. We cover 446 square miles. There's 20, 22 fire stations. We have 608 total working for the county, but there's about five, I would say 500 and some uniform firefighters, but 600, the other hundreds are the admin folks and the county workers. So I would guess 550 some uniformed firefighters, but yeah, that's a lot of people to have. And we have 24 one 48 off. The recruits are seeing things. I know a recruit here that was hired last year and the guy had a work in fire, a fatal crash and did CPR twice in his first shift. So things that took me a year and a half to see, my man ran a fatal fire, a fatal crash, did CPR all in one day and he's brand new. He's young. He's doing great. 

00:14:11 Kenny: But my point to that is, we need more of us on a peer support team, including those young bucks and people coming up because the calls are getting more and more, 52,000 calls a year. And in this department, 52,000 in Henrico right beside us, 52,000 down the road. So it's everywhere. And the cars are getting faster. The roads are getting wider. People are more violent than ever. The calls that I have seen, it's a war zone, man. I mean, any fireman and first responder in ECC, they'll tell you, I've seen things in the last 10 years that I never saw at the beginning of my career. It's just because the world we live in now and things are faster and people are stronger and there's more drugs and different things. So yeah, that's a very long answer for, yeah, we have a lot of people and 56 members. 

00:15:01 Cinnamon: As Erin has been talking and I'm kind of jotting some things down. What kind of stood out to me when it came to the way that you speak about mental health is the word choice, the passion that you have behind it. You talk about like, we must become fierce in our early recognition of the decline, the symptoms. And then you talk about how we have to be loud and proud, not only about our recovery, but about our struggles. And we've only been working in this world since 2017. So we're aware that there was a big battle happening before and it was much more difficult to get the buy-in. 

00:15:48 Cinnamon: The way that you use language, it's like not, please, would you be willing to share? It's more of like, balls to the walls, we are busy saving lives and you get to be fierce and loud and proud and make this something that isn't crawling out of the dark underneath the bed, but is normalized to the point where there is no shame, but it's been replaced by pride and confidence. 

00:16:17 Kenny: Yeah. 

00:16:18 Cinnamon: That's different than what we would normally see. So how did you figure out that little secret? 

00:16:25 Kenny: You guys have really done some great homework. I do say that we need to become fierce in the early recognition of a mental health decline and those that we love work with, and most importantly, ourselves. I say that again, because of the seven years that I had and struggled and nobody came to me and pointed a finger at me and said, you deserve to feel better. You've given a lot of your adult life to this profession. It's time to feel better again. And I like that approach because a lot of this profession, I'm sure you too, Alpha. 

00:17:00 Kenny: And sometimes you have to come at people with and let them know that you're serious and you deserve to feel better and we deserve to be fierce and look around and look at each other. How are you acting today compared to two months ago? What's going on different in your life? Be fierce with each other. So I guess my verbiage just comes because I think to myself, Kenny, what would have worked for you as a much younger firefighter? What would you have responded to? Well, I've responded to that, to get yourself up. You deserve to get yourself up. You've given your life to helping others. 

00:17:36 Kenny: Now don't go out like that. Life is too short to be at war with yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically, and socially, and spiritually, and every little thing there is. Let's do this, man. Let's take steps. Ladies, Let's get stronger and better. There is light if you walk towards it and you lean on those who have been there and seen some things and want to help you, there's too much help. 

00:17:58 Cinnamon: You're not just changing the way we're coming to this as like, in the past, it's always been we know that you're the tough guys and we know that things aren't supposed to bother you. We've reinforced that BS. So now we're saying that it's not a question of toughness. But what you're actually like wiping out that whole backstory and flipping the script and saying we keep our community safe. And because we're seeing this stuff to benefit our community members so they don't have to, then the least we can do for ourselves, the least we deserve, is to make sure that we get all of that shaken off and that we can go out and live productive lives. 

00:18:43 Cinnamon: So it feels very different than like that low key, we know how it's been, but now we're trying to change it. You're going full throttle with the, this is what we deserve because of what we do. And I like that because I feel like whenever I talk to people, first responders, like last night I was on the phone for two hours with a guy and I, you know, I'm fucked up, I'm fucked up. And I'm like, you're not giving me breaking news. How did you think you weren't going to be fucked up? 

00:19:19 Kenny: Right. 

00:19:19 Cinnamon: And so to reframe that, like, y'all were mistaken to even think that this wasn't going to affect you because of course it would, and of course you deserve to be well and nobody's hiding any secrets. It's not if you are, it's how fucked up are you? 

00:19:38 Kenny: Right. And I don't think I know, but we do a really poor job at educating. And that's why the HELP acronym is so important to me. That education of the new first responder, the new ECC, the new sheriff, the new, whatever they are, the new person coming in on this job from day one, dismantling the idea that you can't come forward. I don't care that you're six foot and you're 240 pounds and you've bench pressed a thousand pounds, but you see babies across concrete and dead and their mothers screaming, it changes you, man. It changes you for life. I don't care how strong you think you are, around year 12, 13 and 14, it's gonna show its teeth and you have got to come forward. You have got to come forward. 

00:20:21 Kenny: You've done a great job. You have worked hard, you have trained hard, you've missed holidays, Christmases, birthdays, New Year's Eve, everything, man. Ladies, you've missed it all. You have got to come forward and ask for help. This job will 100% change you. I was that guy that in 2002 and three and four, I didn't think it would. I didn't think about it, really until about ‘09 when I started seeing the folks that were around me suffering. But yeah, I want to dismantle all of that. A lot of things happen on the outside of the yellow tape. I speak about that. That's where the divorce is and child custody battles and the fights and watching the parents get older and watching yourself for, the outside of the yellow tape will destroy you as much as working inside of it. 

00:21:02 Kenny: So yeah, I just want to come to people. I want them to be able to step up and just say, I'm struggling. You know, I'm a tough dude who was on the… on this team and I've done this for 20 years, but now I really deserve to feel better. And you do deserve it. And as first responders, we do everything for free. We stand in somebody's living room and replace a grown man's smoke alarm. No, there's no reason why he can't do it himself at 45 years old, but we do that and that's what we do. It's okay. I like being there because we can educate the public, but we get so used to doing everything for free and we treat these strangers better than we treat ourselves. We love the strangers more than we love ourselves. And if you start to love yourself just as much, a little bit more than you love the strangers, then you're gonna get through this. 

00:21:54 Kenny: And that was a problem for me too. I would take people to the hospital and give them resources. You need to do this, you need to do that. Put the heroin needle away. You don't need that stuff from your life. You take this resource, that resource, put them in the ER, jump back in the ambulance. I become the same old depressed, irritated dude I was after Tom's death and after some other things. I didn't love myself as much as I loved the community of strangers that I was serving. 

00:22:18 Erin: Oh my gosh, do you feel like you just went to church? Like there was like, woo, I was just like, okay. That was, little-flutter of the butterfly.

00:22:27 Cinnamon: Powerful. I was just thinking what you're saying sounds like one of our previous guests in terms of that whole idea of if we frame it differently and recognize that you can go out there and preach to the choir and then secretly get back behind closed doors and recognize that you're giving advice with confidence that you should be taking to say you all need help, whether it's with mental health, addiction, whatever, then turn around, get into the medic unit or the truck or whatever, and not think about the fact that you are completely discrediting your own experience and not making that connection between practicing what you preach. 

00:23:22 Kenny: Yeah, and you nailed it a few moments ago when you said to think that this isn't gonna affect you, you're mistaken. You're very, very, very mistaken. The beginning of your career may not be, but I'm sitting here on year 21 and statistics show, I don't know how accurate they are, but they say between years 12 through 14 is when first responders started having some of those issues. Well, here I am when you're 21 and I can vividly remember things in 2002, 2003, 2004. So to think that you can do these jobs and deal with life when outside of the yellow tape and it… not affects you, you're wrong and it's okay that it affects you because this is war type stuff. It's not normal to see someone's insides on the outsides. Let's just be honest. 

00:24:08 Kenny: You know, it's not normal to see some of the things that we see, but we're equipped to do it. We choose to do it. We're damn good at it. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, but in that yellow tape doing that work, but it's going to affect you. Now how you respond to how it affects you is whether it derails your life for good and you hang the helmet on the nail in the garage and you're depressed and you are terribly physically out of shape and you're all over the place or you retire with some pretty rough stuff on your memory, but you feel strong and you continue to move on. But to think it won't change you, it's so inaccurate. 

00:24:43 Cinnamon: Yeah. You know, I've interacted with kind of those two polar opposites, the younger guys. Scenario one, someone comes up, they're in their first year and they're like, I'm foggy, my brain is foggy. And I'll ask them, did you ever see a dead body before you started this job? And they're like, no. And I'm like, then of course you're foggy. You just don't have the luxury to let your jaw drop because everybody is evaluating you, right? And being able to acknowledge, like I am glad to have signed up for what I signed up for, but there was no way that I would have known what all of it entailed. Like I could tell you, I'm gonna go on runs, I'm gonna respond to fires and MVAs and whatever else. But the personal side of how it hits you is what you can't know by simply signing up. 

00:25:36 Cinnamon: And then I've got another young guy over here, scenario two, who's like, eh, it doesn't bother me. And I'm like, it doesn't bother you yet. But you can't talk to them. They cannot hear that they are going to have a different experience after their cup gets full after a few years. So it's always interesting to me who ends up in scenario one and scenario two and I'm never going to be able to break through that scenario too guy, but you can, all of you can do that with each other. 

00:26:10 Kenny: Yeah. I was a graphic designer before this job, 9/11 happened and I became a firefighter. After 9/11, it redirected my life. Well, within two or three weeks into the fire service, one of my first calls was a young woman who hung herself. So besides seeing a grandmother pass away or a few things, that was my first introduction to real death, a person hanging there with mom and dad, trying to cut them down and screaming and hollering and a 40 year- captain. We go back to the station and they start eating their lunch. Like nothing happened. I can remember thinking, do I eat? What did I just see? And that's just, he said, Hey Kenny, welcome to the fire service. We'll get through it. These are things, we just don't fight fire, buddy. We just don't fight fire.

00:26:57 Kenny: So one of my first introductions was like, that guy ain't, no, I'd never seen someone dead before. I'd never seen something like that. A mother screaming, atop for long as I can still hear that screaming. So yeah, getting through number two, it'll be difficult, but we can attempt to get through to him. 

00:27:14 Erin: Yeah, Cinnamon brought up the number two. I actually know a number two who was raised in the fire service generations. And those are the ones that I think are the trickiest too. Well, my dad never talked about his problems. That's just not how we do it. And Cinnamon and I are here like, can we just, let us help you right now, just trust us. And it's impossible. And like she said, it's really important that all of you responders are the ones that are out there doing this initially, especially you being on 21 years, that guy or gal might listen to you like, hey, take care of yourself now. That stubborn one.

00:27:53 Erin: And I'm glad you brought up that you got into this career after 9/11 that catapulted you into, all right, I wanna do something. This is really rough. And the reason why I think that is so important is the trauma that that created on a national, got a global level, that whole experience, just from people watching it even on TV, not even being there present, is a good representation of how naive folks think they are when they say, oh, this won't affect me. It's like, if it can move someone to shift careers and step into this whole new world, just by witnessing it in that capacity, why would being one-on-one and being in that space and real life not affect you? So it's fantastic that you brought that up. 

00:28:42 Erin: The other thing I wanted to touch on too was, you had said from the very beginning of your career, like, ooh, I'm seeing that we could probably, got to get ahead of this now. It was like this, like, real intuitive way of being from jump. But then all of a sudden everything derailed, you said in 2013. And then you said you had seven years of kind of just, I never know the word. So what happened to that man? I mean, you don't have to go into the story in 2013 if you don't want, but how did that change from you being like, we got to get ahead of this now in the beginning to just kind of blending in with the crowd? 

00:29:20 Kenny: Yeah. That's a really good question. It's one I've pondered for years until 2020 when I decided to really get myself some assistance and start thinking about my own mental health, but not to go too in deep with it. In 2013, my daughter's mother unexpectedly passed away from a medical emergency. And myself and a police officer were the first ones to her. And I did CPR on her and did the whole works and to make a long story short, my daughter was seven and she watched me do CPR and all that comes with that. Couldn't get her out of the room. ‘Cause I didn't have any help. Well, police officer was doing what he could do, to help me. 

00:30:04 Kenny: 2013 that changed me. Something changed in a silent type of way. That was the beginning of me not really listening to some of my own. I wasn't teaching really back then. I was on a peer support team. And I knew some of the stuff to look out for, but 2013 is when this guy started to not do the things he loved to do anymore. I was still a great dad. I became an instant single dad. I was still coaching softball. I still made lieutenant. I still did the right things, but I was also making, I was suffering in silence a lot. I was isolating. I was hyper vigilance as you wouldn't believe. I was pushing everybody away. 

00:30:40 Kenny: If you and I made lunch together on Tuesday, I was thinking of every way to get out of it. So what happened was that was the beginning of a mental health setback for me that I did not address from the go. I decided to shut it down. And then you have line of duty deaths that happened. And then we had these calls on top of that. And then outside yellow tape life happens. And then the big bomb with Tom taking his life after me for lunch, eating lunch with me. So to answer your question, what happened to that guy? He didn't take any of his advice. All the classes went to the sidelines. I was afraid of the stigma. I didn't know what the stigma…

00:31:17 Kenny: Now that we're in 2013, I'm seeing that coming out and saying you're struggling. Is it very popular? Here I am a lieutenant. I got a crew that depends on me. I got, family. I got some old school folks in my family who were in wars and they don't talk about this kind of stuff. What is this going to do to my reputation? Will I get promoted again? What's my family going to think? So that's what happened to that guy. He got stuck straight up in the fucking stigma, straight in the stigma. And I let it eat me up and it costs me friendships. It costs me relationships. It costs my health. It costs so much, but in silence, I mean, there were some, I'm sure, from people now will tell you, they saw some things, but I was, I'm telling you, I was masterful at hiding it. I'm masterful at hiding how hurt I was. 

00:32:05 Kenny: So to answer your question, that's what happened to that guy. He just did not, like so many of us, I fell to the pressure of the stigma back in ‘13, ‘14, and ‘15 was really, really high. There wasn't many people talking about this stuff. And I thought, man, I definitely can't bring this kind of stuff up. So it took another catastrophic event in 2020 with Tom taking his life for me to say, enough is enough, and I've got to care about myself more than this, or I'm gonna end up on somebody's wrist. And I can't do that to my daughter. I can't do that to myself. 

00:32:40 Cinnamon: So I'm gonna be bold. Because I think your story is, granted you had some very specific personal things happen outside of the work, but your level of enthusiasm and the way that you're bringing it, because we have this issue with the stigma and there is still this battle that we are in this movement revolution that we're creating where when you are suffering, you go get help. Right? What I have found that is missing is normalizing being proactive. And for you, never being able to predict that you are going to have a personal catastrophic event, what would it have done if somebody in your higher ups in your agency said, hey, whenever we have a critical incident, we're gonna send you to this therapist to dump out that cup, get this brief intervention that will resolve that and then you will keep your cup low content. Right? 

00:33:49 Cinnamon: And so instead of just waiting till you're 12, 14, 20 years in, if it just looked like, hey, we know that this stuff is going to stick and it's going to build up and you can't predict what is going to be the thing that makes your cup overflow and what it's going to look like when your cup overflows. So we're just going to work really hard to be proactive to keep your cup as empty as possible. And that means when something goes down, we are not going to ask you if you're okay, and then drop it. If you... I've heard people say yes, and it gets dropped. I've also heard people have said no, and it's like, well, we just want to see. And then they get dismissed and nothing gets done. 

00:34:28 Cinnamon: So do you think that if it was top down, bottom up, that leadership and your peers were saying, hey, this is what we do. We've normalized that we go get any critical incident taken care of. What would that have changed for you had that been normalized and you had a relatively empty cup when 2013 happened? 

00:34:53 Kenny: I think it would have been all the difference in the world. And I talk now when I talk about the HELP acronym, I truly feel in my fire department I'm blessed because we get a physical every birthday month. In May, I get a full blown physical - blood pressure, A1C, testosterone, the works, but I think you should have to go see a counselor for 30 minutes. I don't care if it's, you have nothing going on in your life or you've had something going on in your life. 

00:35:23 Kenny: I feel part of that physical needs to be, these firefighters and police officers need to go sit in front of a counselor for just 30 minutes. You give me a stress test for 35 minutes, make me blow in this thing, check my lungs for 20, make it part of the exam where I go sit in front of two people or whoever and talk to them because guess what? Had that happened in 2013, yeah, I probably would have said something to somebody professionally in an office somewhere. But again, not to throw anybody under the bus or anything, but it was 2013 and people weren't that proactive. Nowadays, we've had people go through some really horrific things in my fire department in the last two or three years, we're very proactive with them. You know, we know they've lost this person. We know this has happened in their life. 

00:36:12 Kenny: So we're ahead of those things. When we see calls come out in our community, that kind of mimic what they went through, we get in their pocket. How are you feeling? What's going on? So to answer your question for me, you know, it's hard to look back and think 11 years ago, but I think I was begging in so many ways to get help. I was not, well would hurt people, hurt people. When my parents would watch my daughter on the weekends, I would go out and I would probably drink a little bit too much and I would look for that person who was being very disrespectful to people and I would ask them, you've got a problem and they'd say, what? And I'd say, yeah, and now you've got one and a big old thing happens. I'm lucky I haven't lost my job. I'm embarrassed about that, but it's real or my teeth, but I would do that. 

00:37:01 Kenny: And I would do other risky things because I was suffering from a post-traumatic stress injury and a lot of us are doing those things. I see it. I try to intervene with it. I, it's happening today, but yeah, I do wish something like that would have been available and I do wish that organizations and I think maybe some do, I don't know, but I think we need to go see a counselor at our physical. What's it going to hurt? Now I know it's an expense. It's not cheap. I get it, but you don't, have no idea what someone may come out and say. If they just get an opportunity to speak, even though they go, I'm not going to say anything, I've got nothing to talk about with this person. I'm just going to sit in the chair and be silent. 

00:37:40 Kenny: Well, no, you're not. You're probably going to say a little something. They're going to say a little something. You're going to say a little something. They're going to say a little something and you're going to feel better. Trust me. I get this question all the time from people in operation yellow tape. I'm not going to see a counselor because a counselor has not done 21 years in the fire service. They haven't seen what we've done. And I stopped them. Stop. Their job isn't to know what it's like to be under a car, stopping a person from bleeding to death. They have studied the brain. They know why post-traumatic stress happens to some people. What my frontal lobe has going on. They're not there to understand what it's like to crib a car and to fight a fire. 

00:38:18 Kenny: So stop this mess with, I'm not going to a counselor because they don't understand me and my turnout gear. No, they understand the brain and the body and why we respond to stress, why sometimes some folks have no symptoms, some have other symptoms. So I just like to wipe that out from the go. I hear all the time, well guess what? I sat across from this guy for seven hours. We both wore turnout gear. Did we talk to each other? No, he lives on my wrist. So that doesn't work either. We would always talk to each other. So go see a counselor, we'll know how I got on this rant. But that thing fires me up when people say I can't talk to her or him because they don't understand firefighting. They're not supposed to understand firefighting. They understand the brain, the muscle we use the least in our training. 

00:39:03 Erin: Woo. I'm like, mic drop. 

00:39:05 Cinnamon: I know. I'm like, can I get an amen? 

00:39:07 Erin: Yeah. 

00:39:09 Cinnamon: So two things kind of came to mind. You may be pleased to know that the departments that we contract with for their wellness programs, they get to spend an hour and a half with Erin and I once a year, so we don't do a 30 minute thing. We do a, you get 45 with her and 45 with me and we do different things. And it is no joke. Like we are going to have a good grasp on what is going on with you by the time you leave and you're going to have a handful of resources that we've thought might be appropriate to help you. And sometimes we leave with new clients. 

00:39:49 Erin: Yeah, I was gonna say, you wouldn't believe how many people, I would say probably 95%, even the ones that come in, like I'm not saying anything. I mean, they have never met us. And so we can see through the crap and we can also entertain that conversation and play the game with them. But I would say 95% of the folks end up opening up to us. There was, like that small few, and most of them are like, is the door shut? Oh, thank God you're here. I have gotten, they just vomit all of this stuff on us. Like they've been waiting their entire life to get this off their chest with someone who does understand the brain. But it's like, they just need that chance to go behind the door. But it's scary. It is so scary to be like, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go, put myself behind this door and then what happens. Right. 

00:40:36 Kenny: And that is so awesome to hear that. And other departments need to get behind that and find ways to fund that and find ways to make that training or in services available across moving forward. And I'm sure we will in the next five, 10, 15 years, but that is amazing. I love that. I've been thinking about that for six years now, how it would be to go to my physical. Now we do have a little thing we fill out, but man, I like to tell the truth on that thing. And we have a little piece of paper and very, how's your sleep hygiene? Ooh, come on, man. Nobody's being honest about that. They don't want to be. Trust me. I know you guys are professionals. I was masterful at tricking people about how down I was. I knew the words to use. I knew the words not to use. I was masterful. 

00:41:22 Kenny: And I even saw a pretty good counselor at one point and got a really good clearance. I remember getting in my car and going, hmm, hmm, because I was so, I don't know, man, I was so deeply hurt, but so deeply afraid that someone was going to find out how hurt I was and what it affects my career and what I lose friends over. And what am I, you know, I have a good reputation of being a pretty good firefighter, you know, I'm calm on the scene, I'm calm in the chaos, I'm, team player, I don't want to lose that. I don't want you to feel that I'm going to lose it and put you in harm's way.

00:41:55 Kenny: And then another thing that comes out in operation yellow tape is the folks that reach out to me. I have, multiple, multiple, multiple in three years, folks who have attempted to take their life, reach out to OYT and talk to me about that attempt. And they say, man, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt the folks I worked with. You know, so for you guys to think I was going to take the ambulance into a tree or take my mask off or do something like that, I didn't want to hurt y'all. I would never have hurt y'all. I felt my best at work. You know, I felt strong with y'all. It was when I got home that I wanted to die. 

00:42:30 Kenny: So, you know, Kenny, how can we get that word out there? You know, I'm still working on that one. That's sensitive for some people, but they all say the same thing. I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to hurt myself. And I know situations are different and some people do, do things, but for the most part, these folks are hurting and in silence, they're not going to take an ambulance into a tree. They're just begging to be heard and seen and they don't know how.

00:42:53 Cinnamon: So when you talk about the feedback that you get around, they don't do this job or they're not gonna get it. So the way Erin and I present ourselves, part of the reason we do this podcast is because so many people have said to us, well, I've been avoiding therapists, but I'd never really met one. And now that I've met you and realized that therapists can be like you, then that is a game changer. And so by doing this podcast, you're getting to see this side of us that is probably really contradictory to what one imagines when they think of a therapist. 

00:43:33 Cinnamon: And I've had people get mad at me because they've walked in for a session. And I'm like, what's wrong? What's going on? And they're like, son of a bitch. I'm trying to be fine. How do you know that something's wrong with me? And I'm like, because we can read you. This is our job. That is what we are supposed to be able to do. And when I hear somebody say, well, if they don't know how to drag hoes, then they won't understand me. We have a comparison. When it comes to addiction, so many people that are trying to get sober will say, I don't wanna work with a clinician that hasn't struggled with addiction because they won't get it. 

00:44:15 Cinnamon: And I can appreciate that because there are things, even when I have anxiety or depressive episode is a good reminder to be like, oh damn, yeah, this does suck. But nobody, that was schizophrenia, is asking for a schizophrenic therapist. Nobody that's bipolar is asking for a bipolar therapist. In fact, they're saying, please do not be. I need somebody that can help me get out from that. So it just seems bizarre that we have some communities that are adamant that you have to be able to be one of us to get it and then other communities that are like, absolutely clear. I prefer that you not be one of us to be my therapist. 

00:44:55 Cinnamon: And so being able to understand that whatever you see on TV or when you think about Floyd, or if you took a psychology class and undergraduate, that is not a good depiction of what every therapist looks like. And if you do interact with one and don't like it, go find another. Nobody is going to say, oh, I tried white bread and I didn't like it. So I'm never trying bread again. No, you're probably going to look at wheat and rye and sourdough and everything else. It's the same thing. You have to find the person that works for you as they work with you and recognize that, yeah, we are bullshit detectors. 

00:45:33 Cinnamon: So whatever you've been doing for God knows how many years with your families and friends and colleagues and supervisors, it's not going to fly with us because we're trained to smell bullshit.

00:45:44 Kenny: I don't know when I came across your podcast, but I started listening. When did you start it? 

00:45:50 Erin: In May.

00:45:51 Cinnamon: May of 2023. 

00:45:53 Kenny: May. So, okay. So I was right on the heels of listening to you. And part of Operation Yellow Tape’s mission is to provide quality resources. I don't ever do a speech or a workshop where I don't bring up this. I'm not just telling you this because I'm talking here. I bring up this podcast and YouTube because I tell folks, You have this image of counselors and therapists. You've got to meet these two ladies and you got to hear the way they talk. And they dropped the F-bomb here and there and they've got experience and there's, they're just, they're con, but they're fierce and I want you to put some time into their podcast and listen, because this is not what you think therapy and counseling looks like. 

00:46:29 Kenny: And I think it's, I've had some folks reach out and say, yeah, I listen to that podcast, they're on fire. So I agree. When are we going to wake up and realize that we don't talk to each other when we get together? Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. Do you know how much I wanted to tell him that day in April? There was so much on my mind. There was so much on my mind sitting there off Interstate 95, you know, COVID was just getting going. I got things on my mind and he's got things on his mind. So much I wanted to say, but I knew in the back of my mind, well, what if I tell him this and he takes it this way or this way.

00:47:07 Kenny: It's just, it's, we don't, we need you. We need professionals who can see through the shit and understand and understand, is the brain to knuckle, dragger sitting together at a rest stop, is not working. I got proof of it and it's time we wake up. And I think we are, I think we're making amazing progress. I'm seeing progress I haven't seen before, the last three years. It's a lot of work from folks like y'all and some first responders coming up and talking and some leaders coming out and saying they've had some issues, but yeah. You're right. You too are what people, when people think of therapists, you two guys aren't it, but you two guys are it. 

00:47:44 Cinnamon: We're an option. 

00:47:45 Erin: Oh man. 

00:47:47 Kenny: You're right. 

00:47:47 Cinnamon: Listening to you talk about the way that, I'm gonna say it the way that I would normally say it if I wasn't commenting on your comment, the way dudes talk to each other. I don't know if this experience resonates with anybody, but my husband and I have, couple friends. And so the wife and I are like, getting all deep and ugly and like, so how are they dealing with their parent issue or what's going on with this or this? And I may say to my husband, hey, what did so and so say about this? And he's like, we didn't talk about that. And I was like, you were together all day and not once, this is a major crisis that's happening in this person's life and family. And it never came up. He's like, no, we were golfing. We talked about golf.

00:48:38 Cinnamon: And it blows my mind because I know more about their friends than they do, because they don't even know how to ask those questions and they don't know how to disclose those things and break through that conversation and saying, you know, I'm actually having a really hard time. This is where my struggle is. And I can't even count how many times I've asked my husband. So how's this going with this person? Because I know that's how, I don't know. We didn't talk about that. 

00:49:07 Kenny: Yeah. I am, I'm the guy now that people know that talks about this kind of stuff. So when I find myself somewhere, I do bring those things up, but I have friends of mine who will tell me. I know that one of them are going through a divorce and I say, Hey, I heard you and so-and-so went to the beach last week. Is there anything? I don't know. We didn't talk about that. You spent a week with this dude and you guys didn't talk about his relationship. So yeah, you are 100% and I was right there. Believe me, I was that dude who could go away with you for the weekend and know your relationship was failing, know you were drinking too much, and I wouldn't say a word. We would play golf, we would throw some darts, we would talk about whatever, but I was that guy. I don't know why. 

00:49:52 Cinnamon: I don't know how. 

00:49:54 Kenny: I don't either. 

00:49:55 Cinnamon: How do you know? 

00:49:56 Erin: Yes, you do. ‘Cause their why are different. 

00:49:58 Cinnamon: Their–

00:49:59 Erin: Their brains are why… are different. You know why. 

00:50:01 Cinnamon: Which is exactly why it seems so bizarre to be. And you're like, oh yeah, that's kind of the status quo. Yeah. So thank goodness that women exist. 

00:50:13 Kenny: Yes. 

00:50:14 Cinnamon: Or I am a big advocate of just changing how we socialize boys and men. 

00:50:20 Erin: Yeah. And it's happening. It is happening. I will say. 

00:50:24 Kenny: It is.

00:50:26 Erin: We got to start pulling out this information about Operation Yellow Tape because you've touched on it so many times throughout this episode. And obviously, like we're nearing an hour and I want to make sure that we get the ins, the outs, the ups and downs and all the deets we need to know about what we're doing here. 

00:50:42 Cinnamon: And then HELP is?

00:50:44 Kenny: Oh, the acronym HELP, I was asked, Operation Yellow Tape started, like everything in this world started. I walked into this room right here and I turned on my phone and I did something about three years ago that I called Saturday Mental Health Moments. I was so tired of that, prayer hands and the, Oh, we're sorry. He's gone. What did we miss? And I did a little small video and I didn't get an Instagram until 2020. I did a small little video and it created thousands of comments from all over the country. I couldn't believe it. So anyway, it started to grow from there and people were emailing me, asking me questions, not as a therapist. And I was like, counselor, not as a, nothing, but this is a first responder. Hey man, you're talking about hypervigilance and I'm feeling that.

00:51:31 Kenny: So that's kind of where Operation Yellow Tape kind of grew from along with that Tom's funeral, it kind of morphed into, well, you talk about, we all know there's mental health struggles. You mentioned it when we first got on here, Erin, about the story. And it's powerful, but what are we going to do about it? I understand everyone has these stories, but what are we going to do proactively, practices to get better? So to answer your question, I sit down one day. I've journaled my whole career from 2002 until now, I have stacks of journals that read like a book. And I was asked a thousand times, Kenny, what did you do to get yourself to the point where you can talk about this? You started Operation Yellow Tape. 

00:52:16 Kenny: So I sat down one night, it took about three weeks really. And I came up with the HELP back on him. It's Health, Educate, Launch and People. And I go into great detail about the Health. I go into the great detail about the Educate. I go into great detail about the Launch. And I go into the great deal about People. Keeping your life. And it's just the do’s and the don'ts of what I did right, what I did wrong, what I wish I had done, what I wish I wouldn't have done. And I just go through that as I present to people, educating them about the job and the symptoms and launching yourself into getting help and the people you keep around you and the age everybody thinks is about sticking an apple in your mouth, but it is about health. It is about eating great.

00:52:57 Kenny: But it's also about, you know, what kind of music are you listening to? Are you waking up and checking out Fox and CNN and getting pissed off from day one, you know, what keep health at the top of your, are you in a horrible relationship? Are things going terrible? Get out of that somehow. Either fix it or get out of it. So health has to be the top of the spear as you start this career, because when the life ambush as J Redman says happens to you, “When the life ambush hits you, how you have prepared yourself those years, months leading up will be how you come out of this.” If you start off healthy and you've educated the best that you can, you've launched yourself to get some help, you keep people around you who are positive and loyal and dedicated and honest, you will fare better than someone who is not taking care of themselves. 

00:53:47 Kenny: So that's the HELP acronym in a really quick way. And it resonates with everybody, no matter what profession you have, you should take that into consideration when you're leading yourself during your life. 

00:53:59 Cinnamon: This may be obvious, but can you explain what you mean when you say Operation Yellow Tape? We can make a lot of assumptions and conclusions, but I really want to hear from you what your reference point is and what you're getting at by branding this as Operation Yellow Tape. 

00:54:22 Kenny: For me, it was sitting at Tom's funeral. And people are walking around saying that this job is terrible. This is why we're taking our lives. I said, no, it's not just because of that operating inside the yellow tape, meaning inside that zone where those IVs need to be correct. The blood needs to be stopped. The breathing needs to be restored. Operating inside the yellow tape of where you work is difficult. So the outside of the yellow tape is where all of the other problems exist in your life. Like I mentioned earlier, where the… watching your parents get older, watching yourself lose a dog or whatever it might be, just life, man, outside the yellow tape. 

00:55:04 Kenny: So Operation Yellow Tape means where does that yellow tape, your jobs, your yellow tape is what you guys, you do for a living. You're, if you're an accountant, if you're a construction worker, you're yellow tape. This isn't in turnout gear. This isn't in a helmet. Your yellow tape is you, what you're doing at work. But for me, it symbolizes operating inside the yellow tape is my job at work. It's inside that tape where it's dark and it's bloody sometimes and it's sad and it's scary. You have to be good and you have to be precise and you cannot be wrong. You have to get it down perfectly and it's tough inside there. And yes, that does lead to our mental health declines. 

00:55:45 Kenny: But it's the outside of the yellow tape that will hurt us just as much. And most of the times, it's the outside of the yellow tape that brings it all down. I know it was for me. I know it was for him. I know it was for a lot of people in my life. It was that divorce. It was that nasty child custody battle. It was watching my dad die of kids or whatever it might be. Outside the yellow tape will crush you. If you have a job like this where you don't get good sleep, you're not eating the best, your relationships are terrible. You're stuffing your face with tobacco, but whatever it might be, it's not going to go well. So Operation Yellow Tape is just that. 

00:56:18 Kenny: And I also like it because it makes people ask me that question, What's Operation Yellow Tape? And it gives me a good reason to stop them and say, well, here's what it is. And I kind of named it two folds for that reason. 

00:56:30 Cinnamon: We also strongly believe in the things that happen outside the tape before you had tape. So we are very on top of how childhood adversity impacts your ability to do the job and your ability to recover from the exposure from the job. But one thing that I heard in a presentation done by somebody who had struggled after their own… It was their own Mayday call that just happened to get called off because they were able to get out on their own. But this is all going to continue to happen around you while life is going on, right? There's life. 

00:57:13 Cinnamon: And I get a lot of referrals from just being a trauma therapist and having some phenomenal interventions that I get to use. I get a lot of referrals from other therapists that don't necessarily specialize in trauma, and they were like, will you help my client, even if it's just for five sessions? And one thing that I've noticed because I do that is I may have a domestic violence client or a sexual assault victim or a childhood abuse victim, and the difference between them and working with them is we are addressing a situation that is in the past and we can feel relatively confident it won't happen again. 

00:57:59 Cinnamon: You guys are a bit of a challenge because there's a good chance that you are going to get on a truck or in a cruiser the next shift and some bad shit is going to go down that is on top of that pile. And that's the trickiness of you guys. Not only do you have life going on inside and outside of that yellow tape, but you keep going back inside that yellow tape. 

00:58:23 Kenny: Yes. And I speak on that and yes, I spoke to Capital One a few weeks ago and some of those folks at Capital One, yeah, they're going to go through some traumas and some things, but like you just said, like when I do peer support, if doing CPR on the side of a pool or a 70 year old who fell in and drowned is your, is going to crush you, you're going to run that call again. So what proactive practices can you take? Because you're going to see it again. You've got to get out of this job. You've got to change professions or find coping mechanisms and folks who are therapists that you can work with along the way, because you're going to see those car wrecks again. 

00:59:02 Kenny: You're going to hold that hand of someone dying on the way to the hospital. You're going to see that fatal fire. You're going to repeat, like you just said, you're going to repeatedly run 52,000 calls a year. You're going to see it over and over and over and over and over and over again. So what are you going to do about it? If that's the call that hurts you the most, I'd have to find a way to cope with it, mechanisms that are healthy and move through it because you're good. 

00:59:25 Kenny: If you work at 7-Eleven and someone mugs you, that may never happen again in your entire life. Think hopefully not, you know, but if you're a first responder, you're working ECC, if you're a police officer, if you're military, if you work in that world, you will see those things again. You will stop a bleed. You will do that again. So you should. Yeah, I talk about that all the time. You have to have something in your life. So when you do run it again, you can fall back on because you're going to. 

00:59:53 Cinnamon: I think an easy example of how that works in a way that we'd all be okay with is when you have kids, when you have your first child, please go talk to another first responder who is a parent and ask them about that change of how a run can impact you when there's children involved before and after parenthood. Because I think we're all real clear that that's going to make a difference. And I think that that is something that doesn't necessarily give off a sentiment of that weakness or whatever bullshit story we have. That seems like a fair, justifiable thing that we could have a change with.

01:00:42 Cinnamon: So if you are younger in the career, you haven't started your family, we can tell you right now that those runs that involve pediatric emergencies are going to look and feel different and impact you differently after you have kids. So proactively, sometime in that nine months, go talk to someone else in your agency or another first responder that has had kids and let them help you figure out how to navigate that. Would that be a good example? 

01:01:19 Kenny: Yes, it would. I was a firefighter for three and a half years before my daughter was born. And it's an absolute game changer. It's a whole different world when you're doing CPR on a three month old in the back of the ambulance and her little pretty earrings are dangling. And her mom is yelling and dad is yelling and everybody's going nuts and you're doing this and you come home to that exact looking person. Yes. That would be, I never thought of it that way before, but you're getting in front of people before they have those families. That… that's really good. Yeah. Cause it's a game change. No matter what, nobody tells you, the pediatric cause of course, they're going to, you know, even the veterans that come back from the war, they'll all tell you that seeing the children hurt and living in…

01:02:05 Kenny: Even for me, you know, it hasn't always been the traumatic calls that have affected me the most. It's seeing our community living in poverty and seeing people having to choose to buy medication over electricity. It's seeing people would, having to choose between going to the doctor and buying groceries. It's seeing my community living in poverty and looking into the eyes of these kids and I'm checking grandma's blood pressure and they're struggling, man. You can tell they have nothing to eat and 20 plus years of seeing the community on their knees. It changes you and hurts you. So it's kind of all that topic right there, but you are right. I'm getting in front of these men and women before they have children. It's… needs to happen. So important. 

01:02:48 Cinnamon: So what you just mentioned is relevant and we, Erin's really good about giving you the episode number to look it up, but not too long ago, we released an episode on my experience when I first started working with you all and did ride-alongs and things that were completely like not even worthy of dark humor. That if that isn't an environment that you grew up in, you're going to look at that and be like, I didn't know people lived like this. And it's jaw dropping. And for me, I was allowed to drop my jaw because I was just doing a ride-along. But for you to maybe come from a suburban environment and get a job at an urban department, and you're going in and this is nothing that you've ever seen before. 

01:03:43 Cinnamon: I know my first thought as a social worker is, don't we have resources? And my second thought is, Cinnamon, you know better. There are not enough resources. And so when it's just bad, nobody's going to come calling. It has to be morbidly awful. And so people–

01:04:01 Kenny: Right.

01:04:02 Cinnamon: That is their condition, that's how they're going to live. And it's not bad enough for anyone to be invested in fixing it. 

01:04:13 Kenny: Right. And I've been on calls before where a person had literally grown into their water bed, you know, that their infection had been so bad. They had grown into their water bed. So we had to take the water bed apart and take half of the bed with us because they had been left alone so long and they were getting food dropped off. It's, true story. And their skin had become part of that bed where they have a right to live that way. They can choose to live that horrific, of a life. And we were just, is this real? I mean, this person has been laying here for six months and just, infected and sick as can be. And family members are dropping off Burger King here. It's the war zone that we drop our kids off at the bus. 

01:05:00 Kenny: You know, I shop at a food line up here where I've done CPR on the floor four times, and every time I walk past that, oh, I see that happening. So you live in the war zone that you work in and pass streets and you pass intersections and you pass houses. And I… riding with the first responder around is not fun. Oh, I've been there. I've been there. I've been over there. You know, riding with us is probably annoying as can be, but it's everywhere you go, especially when you live in the community like I do, or if you don't, you commute out of it to go places. I mean, it's amazing how people, unfortunately there's not enough resources. And then some again, like what made that person not wanna reach out and call 911 sooner, you know? So. 

01:05:45 Cinnamon: And what about many people's lives would make them even know that it was possible to have your flesh merge with the plastic of a waterbed? You guys figure out that things can happen that we couldn't even fathom. 

01:06:02 Kenny: Yeah. 

01:06:03 Erin: Yeah, seems like it'd be stuff on a horror movie that would be just so far-fetched, it could never happen. And rewinding on something that you had just said, like that person didn't even know to think to call. And I think that it falls along the same lines of maybe what you guys deal with, which is, one, I'm ashamed. It's embarrassing. I don't want to have to admit that I need help. Right? Talk about what that might take to have the courage. I mean, it's gotta get real, real, real bad, what you witnessed before saying like, I can't do this anymore. 

01:06:39 Kenny: You know, I've been in houses before where we call it heavy contents and you just nailed it, Erin, because I've had a person tell me, well, I know my house looks messy, but I'm just trying to create a soft spot for my dad to fall in case he happens to fall. We know that's not true. The house didn't get like that. You didn't have small walkways. It didn't get like that overnight. It happened over 20 years of living like this. And they're just so embarrassed that they really tell us they stand in the hallway and tell us, Oh, I know it looks messy in here, but I'm just trying to create a safe space for my father in case he falls, he'll land on boxes and plastic and it's heartbreaking. 

01:07:19 Kenny: And then we send resources their way and hope, hopefully try to organize their home through a program we have here in the County, but you can't make people live how they don't want to live, but you nailed it, Erin. They're embarrassed. It's the stigma. They don't want to say we've lived this way for 20 years. And this, so I've heard that, so many times from folks, is the house looks messy, but, you know, it's not normally like this. Yes, it is. There's spider webs in the corner with spiders that big and just things. And it's really sad. So it's not always the traumatic calls that people think about when they watch the television and see Chicago fire. 

01:07:57 Kenny: You know, it's so much more, of seeing our community hurting and knowing we don't have enough resources. We seem to be a very wealthy country with plenty, why are so many people hurting and living like that? And that's one of the hardest parts of this job for me is picking a profession where I've seen people just show down and out with nothing. It's just sometimes too much to think about. 

01:08:22 Erin: Yeah. Gosh, Kenny, you have just exceeded my expectations of what this interview was gonna be. I mean, as I said in the very beginning, I've been following you this whole time. I have, comment on the fact that you're everybody's number one cheerleader. You seem to be everywhere. I really admire you and I respect you in what you're doing. And it feels like an extreme honor to be playing this game with you for such a great cause because, yeah, you have hit so many incredible points with this passion and commitment that it's like, nobody could buy what you're selling, you know, because it just feels that legit and from a real place of heart and passion and soul. 

01:09:14 Erin: And what I do wanna say is, I know that you offer some coaching resources, I don't know if that's what I want or if it's group work or what that kind of looks like. I also know that you have your Operation Yellow Tape podcast, which is relatively new. I didn't even know it existed somehow. I missed that part until today. And I'm like, well, if it is anything like this episode, the passion that you deliver, then I better be listening, like nice wake up inspirational morning with Kenny. Is there anything else that you feel like gets to be said that has not been touched on? I am gonna make sure that all of your resources are on our resource page. So your website, your podcast, all of the juicy stuff so that folks know how to find you. But is there anything else that you think needs to be touched on? 

01:10:08 Kenny: Well, I wanna thank y'all as well. I was nervous coming on here. You guys have a really powerful podcast. I've been on several. But I was nervous coming on here. I love what you guys are doing. We're in this together. And I was just so honored when you reached out a few weeks ago or months ago and asked me, I would not have missed this for nothing in the world. What y'all are doing is saving people's lives. So, I mean, we're in this together. So I just am honored to be sitting here. And like I told you, I readjusted my schedule. I was not going to miss being here with you too. Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing amazing work. People are listening.

01:10:45 Kenny: I just want to end with, if you are struggling, give someone a chance to help you. A lot of people struggle in silence and they think no one can relate to them. Give somebody a chance. Let somebody talk to you. They may not be able to understand or have gone through what you've gone through, but give them an opportunity to show up and give you support. Give them an opportunity to point them to folks like this right here. Give someone a chance to help you. Because when you ultimately decide to take your life or something, it destroys families for generations. I'm living it, how hurtful it is. It's a hard way to look at it, but you might as well put a bomb on your back and walk into a room with everyone that you love and blow it up because it really hurts a lot of people. So you can get help. You just got to give somebody a chance. You got to reach out.

01:11:41 Kenny: I'm a lieutenant. I never in a million years thought I'd be sitting here as a leader in an organization saying that I've had mental wellness effects. If I can say it, you can say it. And I'm tough as hell too. So the tough guys listen, the tough ladies listen to me. I just want to say, if you need help, just ask for it. There's so many resources now and people like you too, who care. So reach out and ask for help. You deserve to feel better. You have to love yourself.

01:12:09 Cinnamon: Well, thank you. And I can tell you and Erin will second this, it takes people like you who listen to tell your peers because you all give us any legitimacy that we have. Otherwise, we're just too comedic blondes. It really is so important that you guys share these resources because we're not necessarily going to impact somebody if somebody else doesn't vouch for us to be worth listening to. So thank you so much for that and for sharing, us because that is our passion is to get out as much education, because we only have so many clinical spots a week, right? To see individual counselor for individual counseling, but this allows us to take everything that we know that we're able to help with our individual clients and get it across the airwaves. 

01:13:10 Cinnamon: And we would just be sitting here, hanging out with ourselves, cracking jokes, thinking we're funny. If it wasn't for people like you, sharing it as a resource, that is actually valuable. So thank you.

01:13:22 Kenny: It's probably hard for you guys to see the impact that you're making because you don't always hear from the folks who you impact, but I do, they reach out to me and they ask me, have you ever heard of this podcast? I'm like, smack, I'm going on it. So you may not always hear the folks who you're affecting, but I can promise you. I'm in that circle and I'm seeing behind the curtain more than ever these days. You guys, doing an amazing job. Keep going forward and keep doing what you're doing. I don't mention a lot of podcasts, but every chance I get, I mention yours. I just think that you guys are real. I think you're honest. I think you're authentic. I think you're educated as can be. And I think you care about us. I think you care about us. 

01:14:05 Erin: Man. Yeah, I'm like, oh, I love when I start crying on the–

01:14:10 Cinnamon: She's–

01:14:11 Erin: That's very– 

01:14:12 Cinnamon: She is– 

01:14:13 Erin: I'm the crier. 

01:14:15 Cinnamon: And thank you. Thank you for doing what you're doing and being willing to share your journey because it really is, it takes the strong ones who have been through the shit to acknowledge that it takes way more courage to acknowledge that this is affecting you than to me it's the cowardice that we're so afraid of judgment that we can't say that we're struggling. And if you look at leaders in the movement like you and like a lot of our guests, they are very alpha, very dominant, and they're willing to acknowledge that anybody that says they're not affected by this job is either lying to you or lying to themselves. And we need you and the men and women like you who are willing to say, I'm, badass, and I see a therapist because my job affects me. And my life–  

01:15:16 Erin: Because I'm a badass. 

01:15:17 Cinnamon: Affects me, yeah. Just lead with the badassery. 

01:15:25 Kenny: Thank you all so much. 

01:15:26 Erin: Yeah, our pleasure.

01:15:27 Cinnamon: Thank you.

01:15:28  Erin: Thank you.

01:15:31 Erin: 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 Vens Adams, Yeti, and Sanda for our show's music.