Transcript
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Our biggest obstacle after we realized that we were jacked up was we didn't have anywhere to go. The resources for us, I don't think standard therapy always works with military police fire. So we didn't have resources. So I thank you guys for being there being our resource. Each one of us have to take a look in the mirror and realize that we are humans are flawed, be vulnerable, be honest, share with each other, take pressure off of the people that are around us. For me, the biggest thing I do is listen, be somebody that people feel comfortable coming to and talking to in a safe place, you know that I think everybody should have a safe place they can come and just share anything to and not feel judged, not feel ridiculed, or feel embarrassed.
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So those those are huge thing for me. Education for awareness.
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It's the first responder the first to get the call. The first unseen, 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.
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And I'm Erin. I'm a first responder integration coach.
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We help first responders receive transformational training, therapy and coaching.
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Now we come to you to explore, demystify and destigmatize mental health and wellness for first responders.
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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.
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Before we jump in to the show today, we wanted to be mindful of the mental and emotional well being of our listeners, we'd like to warn you that some individuals may find the content of some of our episodes alarming. Please be prepared to hear content regarding PTSD, suicide, and other content, which listeners may find troubling. We made it episode one. It's been a long time coming. We've been making promises for over a year now.
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And we are so excited to finally be getting this started. So today is a big one. And we're happy that all of you are here.
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And we're looking forward to being on this journey with you.
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So cinnamon, what do you got to say about all this?
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I'm really excited. I actually just spoke to somebody this morning. That was like we heard about the podcast. And we can't wait. So I hope we live up to the hype that we've been creating for the last year and a half. Yeah,
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don't blow it.
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Yeah, Do not screw this up,
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Aaron. So our, it seemed appropriate for our inaugural episode, our very first one to highlight one individual in particular, actually, this, our first guest was a no brainer. Like, I don't think even from the day one when we started talking about doing this podcast that there was never any confusion about who would be our first guest. And his name is Jason Callahan. And he is a firefighter here in the Greater Cincinnati area. I'll let him fill in those details.
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Just a couple of things I want to highlight about Jason and why he was our no brainer. first guest is when we started this journey. And I didn't know really any firefighters beyond my senior history high school teacher who was a volunteer in my hometown. I got pulled into a meeting with Lieutenant Callahan. And he was the first person I met on the very first day of what has become this journey of getting to know firefighters and police officers, dispatchers, everybody else and figuring out that they have special needs when it comes to mental health and the kind of care that they deserve. And so Jason, we've kind of done this together from day one. Like, there hasn't been a day when I was involved that you weren't right by my side and you going around and telling people Oh, she's nice. She's legit, like, go ahead and feel free to talk to her. Honestly, it's probably has a lot to do with why we're even here today. So I thank you for this opportunity to introduce you to whoever is listening. And I'm gonna now turn it over to you and let you kind of talk a little bit about yourself and your journey when it comes to first responder mental health.
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Well, that was a pretty legit introduction, I don't know that I deserve all that. But I am thankful that I am your first guest. And hopefully not the last time, I hope I set the bar really, really high. So I guess I will start at the beginning.
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But I've been a firefighter now for 20 years, at NOVA with the City of Hamilton. I volunteered for a year before that. And then worked part time a year. And in that time, so my background outside of the fire department was raised by a very religious strict Baptist Marine Corps member. And so I grew up kind of stiff. And when I came to the fire service, that's that's what I came in under. My my, I was raised in a home where, you know, you don't really show emotion, much, and nothing against my upbringing, it was, you know, awesome. And that was the way that my parents knew to raise me. So I came in with that kind of mentality. And it doesn't take long in the fire service for that to be reinforced by everybody that's around you, especially when I came on. Mental Health was not even on our radar. And I tell everybody, what, you know, initially went to school, they give you one paragraph, it's just one paragraph about mental health. I think it says something like you will see bad stuff, if you need help talk to somebody as i Okay. So that, you know that my upbringing at my home, my upbringing in the fire service, and in my upbringing in church, you know, I was taught that, you know, if you go to church and read your Bible, and you pray that everything is just okay. And it was never said, but I felt like, you know, depression or emotions, feelings, I felt like that was weakness and a sign of lack of obedience to everything I've been taught to do. So I press through. And really I don't I don't think the first 513 years I had many issues I saw, you know what everybody sees nothing, nothing out of the ordinary. It never really affected me, I always felt like I had a good way of disconnecting from it. At least I thought that that was my my feeling. Then in December of 2015, we had a line of duty death. And the member who died was actually part of my crew. I was off today. Because I was off, he was sitting in my seat for the shift. One, one o'clock in the morning, he perished in a house fire. And I got the call about four in the morning. And it just really turned my life upside down. So you know, I won't go into a whole lot of detail about that. But just kind of my, my journey in that time.
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For the first three days, we had, we had to plan a funeral in three days, because he passed away on the 28th. And we buried him on the 31st. So we were extremely busy for those three days. And that's that that probably helped us initially, to be mission minded. We had a job to do, and we just got it done.
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And I mean, we I was on the honor guard for the for the funeral. But I was not on the Honor Guard in general. So I didn't know how to step I didn't know how to walk, I didn't know how to hold carry. So we practiced for three days, carrying an empty casket, carrying it up the stairs, we went to Princeton pike and carried it in the church, we went to the cemetery and carried it off the truck to where it was going to be. On top of that we were guarding his body. I spoke at the funeral. So I was preparing for that. I did probably 15 interviews with every news organization in this area. So just very busy. I remember the day of the funeral, just been extremely nervous about, you know, the gravity of standing up not not so much standing up in front of people.
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That doesn't bother me, but I wanted to honor you know, Patrick, the best I could say this big, huge speech prepared.
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They had it on the podium for me already when I got up there. And I remember walking up almost shaking, which I don't get that way very often. But I started talking and I couldn't even see what I had written. So for about 10 minutes, I just spoke from my heart and felt like it was the best thing for the situations.
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Actually, somebody actually gave me the notes that I take and I was gonna talk on and they're like you didn't say any of that.
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Oh my God, it was crazy. But I remember when I got done, I walked back over and got in line and I felt relief, I felt, you know, better. And for whatever reason I associated that with, the word I'd always heard was closure. So I'm taking okay, this is I'm feeling better.
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After the funeral was over, everybody laughed, and we took him off to pat off the truck, put him in the back of a Hurst.
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And for the first time since he fell to that floor, none of us were with him. We we had stayed with him the whole time. That was the first time that he was away from us. And I remember again, feeling a sense of relief. So I went home that night. And it was the 31st of December. So every 31st of December, I go to church. So I was in church, and I gave a sermon that night, like nothing had happened that day. And for the next probably four months, I got extremely busy, just trenched, myself and work and unlife and didn't give myself any any opportunity to grieve or to feel. And I remember, you know, we'd sit and talk, and we still do, you know, seven years later, but obviously, a lot more than I would hear like anger.
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And people, I would hear pain, and people are here, all these emotions. And I remember probably about June 2016, thinking, like what's wrong with these people? Like I don't, it's been six months, I feel nothing at all. I wasn't mad, I was just whatever. Took a month or two.
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Until that started concerning me. Because I realized I couldn't, no, I couldn't I feel like sadness. I couldn't feel happiness either. So as you can imagine, that puts strain on my relationship with my children on the relationship with my wife, or my relationship with really, everyone around me. So about August, I knew something was wrong. I didn't know we didn't really have outlets to talk to anybody. And the people I worked with, they were all hurting, too. So it's like the people that are closest to me, I can't talk to I can't talk to my church friends, because that's weakness. I can't talk to people at work because they're dealing with stuff too. So I remember sitting one day, I pulled up pulled off the road. And I was sitting there watching some of those old videos, like the interviews that gentleman and all the news outlets have done.
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Just trying to cry, I tried my best to cry. And I felt nothing.
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I felt nothing at all. So September was the memorial. And in Colorado, so my wife and I talked and said, it was a good idea for me to go. So I went hoping to feel something hoping to feel sad, or it just didn't happen. And that's kind of where my life began to spin out of control. I got caught in a lot of things. And you know, that was contrary to who I had always been. So people thought I was blown off steam. And maybe there was a part of me that was, but I was just I was out of control.
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And the only time that I would not be concerned about where I was was when I was doing those things. So we flew back in on that Sunday, and I decided not to go home. And I stayed away from a home for three months.
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For the first two months. That people I worked with, thought it was awesome. You know, they're like, this is the funnest I've ever seen you you've always been boring. Now you're fun. So there was like this connection that I had with these people that I worked with, that I've never had. So that was great. About two months in the people that I work with realized something was not right. And they rallied around me. Our union president Tony Harris, hooked me up with a counselor. And I started seeing seeing him and took about a month and some other things that happened to really get my attention back on who I wanted to be December of 2016. I came back home. I've continued to see my counselor I've seen we see a marriage counselor, we did every week for a while. Then I went to every two weeks, then every month and every quarter. And we'll probably continue that the rest of our life. So after all that happened, I got the opportunity to kind of give back and be appear. And I didn't know what it entailed. I didn't realize that there were way more people having issues, same issues that I did. I went up to Columbus for a class and I met some amazing people that I realized were having some of the same issues that I was and at that point, I still wasn't great. You know, I was still probably not that I'm great now, but I still processing a whole lot of stuff. And I met a lady from Toledo fire department that had faced a similar situation and I think hers was a little little over a little past ours, or I think theirs was in like June of 2015 or April. And you know, she's still struggling, she was still struggling. And that. I mean, I hated to see her struggling, but I remember breathing, like a sigh of relief, like, Okay, it's alright, it's okay that I'm here. I've worked with her, as well as those other peers, I guess it was a year or two after Patrick died was when the, the trial for the two men that set the arson happened. And we knew at this point, we knew we had mental health, mental health issues in our department. So to safeguard that, I got a call and asked if I was interested in meeting some random counselor from CBH. And I'm like, well, I'll go, I don't know how well, you know, people will receive a Licensed Clinical Professional, you know, but I went and that's where I met cinnamon. And it was, it was me and the subsidy guys. And I remember hearing her talk, and I'm like, Man, this isn't the Met some counselors now. But this this, this is different. And from there, she said, I'm gonna come to the trial, and I'm gonna be there every single day of the trial.
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And she was she was there every single day. And I think at first, you know, sometimes she just stood over in the corner and was just present. And then she made connections with, you know, our members and the relationships that I know she still has today. Then she came to trainings with us, she rode with us, she eats at the firehouse with us. And from there, we've just, she has just taken off. I take this much credit for any of that. It was just perfect timing. She loves us loves what we do. And I think anybody that knows her knows that. I'm sorry that I rambled that long. But that's just a quick synopsis of my little journey. Oh, that was beautiful.
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I, there's so
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much, there's so much I want to I want to say, one of the things that I feel like was the miracle of all of this was that by the time I met you, you were for the most part squared away. So you didn't need a clinician. Because I think, had had we had that relationship, we wouldn't get to do stuff like this, right? We've been, I mean, I came in and set Hamber of 17.
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And we've been doing this to some degree together ever since and, and that, I mean, ultimately, it wouldn't be appropriate if I was if you were my client to have this kind of professional dynamic, but, um, but you know, I had only lived in Cincinnati for like a year when I met you. And so you've very quickly like became one of my best friends here. And, and so I don't have to be a clinician, I can just bump you upside that small, shiny head when you do stupid stuff.
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I will add this to through the relationship that we've made us kind of brought me into your circle, I did that for you, because I trusted you and still do and would do anything that you ever needed, you know that. But you brought me into your world as well. You know, I've got to meet your family, I've got to meet your best friends. I've got to be part of them. And watch, you know, you and Aaron, come together. And Aaron, I'd heard 1000 things about her before that I met her the first time. And one thing that I will say that I heard was that she is no nonsense. She will just tell you hold you accountable. And I love that.
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And then we met last year and instant connection, and awesome to see that you've brought me into your family too.
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And I didn't know this, but when you get involved in the first responder communities, and I learned this with fire, so not to take away from police but I did not realize that I was walking into a family. I didn't understand how I was going to be a brother and a brotherhood when I was a girl. But then I realized like it's a neutral term for like, you're a part of and and I think that that kindness and in inclusivity and like wanting to, you know, make sure I knew what I was seeing knew what I was talking about knew who people were. And you know what rankmath People asked me a lot. How did you pick first responders as a specialty to work with? And my answer is never changed, I did not pick them, they picked me.
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If they had not picked me, I would not have had the option to pick them. Because you don't pick them without their consent.
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They're going to tell you whether or not they trust you, they're going to tell you whether or not you're useful.
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They're going to tell you whether or not you're liked. And so I never have felt like I chose this. It was a little bit serendipitous, if that's the right word. But there's never been a day that I haven't thought about Patrick, because to me, Patrick, is how I got here. And I like to think about, I do believe he's watching all of this from somewhere. And I think he would be so incredibly proud what the effort to honor him has created for so many other people and the fact that he has been saving lives for the past seven years, even though he's gone. Absolutely.
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I wanted to circle this back around. And this is along the same lines as family as this idea of it's a brotherhood, and it is a family.
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And something that you said when you were talking was that you were feeling all of these things in this kind of way. And you had no idea that everybody else around you was struggling. And I find that interesting that we can be part of this family and have absolutely no clue. And so I guess my question is, how does this get missed? And I see that as being kind of the common thing that people are struggling and suffering silently, and it's getting overlooked.
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So what do you think about that? I think because we, because of our profession, in our profession has been kind of blown up. Like we're superhuman, you know, we're not normal, you know, the saying people, you run into fires while people are running out. That's just society teaches us that. So we put on this persona of the same thing.
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And I tell the story, and actually told the story with the guy sitting there. And I didn't know that he was in the room when I told it. But I remember when I first came on, we had had a pretty significant run. And guy was sitting the table kind of talking about it. And obviously, but you know, now I look back, I'm like, Oh, he was bothered by it. And one of the guys went into his locker and grabbed out a application for Wendy's and brought it and put it on the table in front of them and said, you know, if you can't hack it, then Wendy's is always hired. And everybody laughed, you know, but that's, that's the culture that was built. Back then maybe we were with, you know, we had excuse we had that as to blame. But we don't have that anymore. With the awareness that's coming around, that after a bad run, we'll come back and just our warped minds will will make little remarks joke with each other kind of our dark humor. And that's okay. But, you know, now we come back and we talk about it. Now, if, if there's a bad run, today, I'm gonna get a call from the chief and the chief is gonna say, hey, I need you to check in with this person, this person, this person, and you know that we have to be accountable for each other. I feel like, you know, we would say I would give my life for you, when I certainly would, you know, that's not just a cliche, I would. And I think the people that I work with the men and the women would do the same thing for me. But I don't want to have to get my life. So I want to try to prevent them from suffering, and live the best life that they can. All right.
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And that's beautiful. And if only there was someone like you in every department, because, you know, the way I hear it is like you guys were kind of like the trailblazers, especially for the tri state area on on changing the dynamic and changing this, this whole stigma around it. And so it's unusual, because it's, it's not the typical thing. And what we're seeing slowly and surely that dynamic is shifting, people are starting to talk about it a little bit more. What do you think it would take to change that dynamic? Does it is it going to take a line of duty death? Like what's it gonna take for things to look different all across the board?
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Like education is huge.
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And I that's kind of been my goal is to educate people. So I have a whole PowerPoint presentation with pictures from Colorado of, you know, kind of where I was what I was before where I got to, and I'll go in and I'll share my story and be vulnerable. And I think people have to If you're not, if you're not honest, there's a quote from the Bible it says confess your your faults, your failures or your troubles to other people.
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And I think when we're honest and just share, hey, I'm struggling, I'm not perfect, I've got issues, then we'll realize that there's a lot of people around us in the same situation. And then there's strength in numbers we can gather around each other. So I think education is huge. That was a big part when cinnamon came in and just taught us about stress. Like it's not, it doesn't mean you're weak. And I remember specifically her saying that it doesn't mean you're weak. Don't think weak was the word?
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And how many times do they say? No,
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every every presentation that you gave?
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Yeah, strong.
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possibly come up with with weak?
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Yeah,
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I think at one point, you said, you're up to seven. I had said the P word seven times.
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But that was, I mean, that's what I heard over and over is, don't be a kitty cat. And so my thing is bad. Just being in the clinical world, I would love to be able to be like a basketball or a football team or have just like a roster, where I could like show it. Of course, that would be like breaking confidentiality, and HIPAA and everything. And I never would.
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But it's that idea of you all new, cool, has in some way, shape or form admitted that they are not just like, okay, or handling at all, there would be no stigma, the stigma is not coming from us in the community, you have labeled us superheroes.
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Like, as soon as we started talking about this, civilians were like, Oh, well, shit, that makes perfect sense. This is?
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Why would we think that they wouldn't have a hard time with this, we would have our time.
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But that internal stigma of I am worried about what other people will think of me. And if you could see that those people are perhaps already getting counseling, maybe there wouldn't be that problem. And I know that they wouldn't eliminate it every time because I've actually heard people say, well, it's okay for them to go. And I don't think it means that they're weak. But if I know, I think it means that I'm weak, so that you hit the nail on the head. As far as I'm concerned, it's the vulnerability, I have to be willing to be vulnerable and tell my truth. Because what I have found during this over the last five years, is that the strongest people I've met, are the ones who are willing to take the risk to, I always visualize it, open up your trench coat, and see what people say, I'm telling you that I've got a chink in my armor. And now it's up to you what you do with it.
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Are you going to be the person that respects me and says, Man, I think that's great for you? Or are you going to be the one that mocks me? Or turns it into gossip? Or pokes fun? You know, oh, Jason's going to see a shrink. Vulnerability is always stronger than telling everyone you're okay.
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And it also doesn't mean that you're weak.
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By being vulnerable. It does not mean you're weak. It's such a superpower. Oh, yeah.
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Opposite. Yeah, thank you for using the W word and not appear when
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he Oh, he's easily triggered by the P word.
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He's like,
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he's like, I gotta go preach on Sunday.
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That it, and that's another area, you know, when I when I started seeing the stigma at work, then I now have to address the stigma outside of work, too. I mean, society has a stigma. But the church world does as well. And you know, I'm a pastor now. And I can either just pretend like it's not going on and nobody, that I get a church with a struggling or I can say, hey, I'm struggling. If you're struggling, it's okay.
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It's not weakness. It's not.
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It's just part of life. The vulnerability, that's a scary thing. But when I realized that it was so much healing for me, it it makes it so much easier, because every time I tell my story, not that it validates where I was, because it doesn't, by no means but makes me realize that it's okay, I am human. I'm a human being. And I still struggle. I still like I said, I will see a counselor for the rest of my life. I want to every every other month rotation my wife will not let me get off of it. My doctor said he would graduate me if she would let me but she's not. I mean, I'm gonna go to the rest of my life because I have With constant issues, I have constant battles.
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And it's okay. But I have to go through it by myself. I don't have to hide it. You know, I can just be me. And that's free.
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That takes stress off.
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Yeah, it does.
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And the thing is, you have constant issues and constant things going on not because you're a firefighter first responder, it's because you're a human being. And that's the thing, you are no different than the rest of us. And so that is the conversation. Like, of course, you're gonna have these feelings and emotions and pain and concerns because you're a human being, and you're supposed to. So it's interesting to watch some of the clients come in, and then all sudden, they're crying, and they're like, Well, what's this coming? face? Oh, those are tears and what you're experiencing are feelings, you know, and to have to go, like rewind that far back to say this is normal, and encouraged, in fact, is fascinating.
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Aaron, you kind of touched on it, the idea that you, first responders don't have some biological rigging, that's different. But before we can get folks to realize that though the same, we have to realize that there, we have to help them realize that they're different, right like that. There are some conditions that make make you think you're tolerating this in a fine way, and that it will, you know, yeah, I see that. But it doesn't bother me. And I think a lot of it is you're in this little bubble, right?
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Where, if I talk about how somebody sleeps, they're like, Well, yeah, I sleep like shit.
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And I rarely get a full night's sleep. But the reality is, is so does everybody else in my bubble. And so talking about what's like normal versus what's typical, and trying to get relief from those mental health issues, without acknowledging that there are some differences, to be able to get to that point where you can say, there are the similarities that that make you not so special in the way that this is not affecting you the way that would affect us. And I hear a lot of folks say, Well, I don't go home and tell my family even had one person say to me, well, as my therapist, not only do I not want to tell you, I don't want to you know, I don't want to tell my family, and then I also don't want to tell you, because it's bad enough that I know what I had to see. And it's breaking that habit of like, guess what, you are not here to take care of me. Right? Like if and I've even said like if you arrived at an address, and there's a house on fire, and the owners came out and said, Hey, guys, it's real hot in there.
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You know, like, I don't think you should go into like, get hurt. You know, I don't think that would go on for quite a while and you probably like push them to the ground or gently move them out of the way. And then you go to your job, right.
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And so sometimes it feels like I get to gently move you all out of the way to let me do my job, because there is that protective nature. Jason, you also said it when you were in that the the monologue that you didn't believe that it had affected you yet. Do you remember that time that we were with your wife? And I asked you in front of her, you know about it affecting you? And you're like, yeah, it just doesn't. And her face changed?
00:33:35.160 --> 00:33:53.910
Like, who is this man? And what world is he living in? So can you kind of talk a little bit about the things that you didn't think were indicators that anything was bothering you? Or that your job was having an impact?
00:33:56.250 --> 00:34:29.969
Yeah, so I'm taking this specific incident. And I'm sure you will remember when I started talking about it, we had a pretty significant run a pretty big tragedy. Young person, and we respond to the call while I was there, I don't remember feeling any certain way. Like I wasn't sad or emotional or anything like that. Like, I think we think that's what is going to happen. Well, I'm not sad, so I'm okay. When I got back to the firehouse, about an hour later, you called me and this was pretty soon after we had developed our relationship.
00:34:30.239 --> 00:36:13.440
You called me like, Hey, I heard you had a bad run. And I think I said something like, yeah, it was okay, what is bad, but it's alright. And you're like, you're okay, you're not? Yeah, I'm fine. You're like, Okay, I'll check back in with you. And I remember that night laying in bed, grabbed my phone back then I had Facebook on Facebook anymore, but I saw the journal news article about this incident. And it had the kid's name in it. So I went to Facebook and I saw done his name. And I started reading all these comments about, you know how sad that people were. And from there, like, I went over and I got on his mom's Facebook, I got on his sister's Facebook, and I'm like, following this the story about this kid. And again, I'm not sad, not not that I don't care. I don't want to sound like that I, you know, I have compassion for this for this family. But I wasn't connected, that that was a sign that I was being affected. So you call me I think it was like two days later, and you're like, you still felt okay. I'm like, yeah. You asked me Have you thought about it? I mean, a little bit, but not anything bad. And you said well explained. And I told you just what I just what I shared that I've done on Facebook. And and you're like, so you really don't think that that run affected you. And that's when it kind of clicked for me. It's not always this overwhelming feeling, but it was adding to that cumulative stress that just builds up and builds up. And then I can look back and see. I've been on 1000s of runs probably just like that.
00:36:09.599 --> 00:36:14.909
That didn't bother me, but really did.
00:36:15.719 --> 00:36:24.809
So can you talk a little bit about checking the perimeter and where your kids were allowed to sleep and where they weren't allowed to sleep when I first met you?
00:36:26.969 --> 00:38:00.809
Yeah. So years ago, we lived in a as a four bedroom house. Two bedrooms upstairs, two bedrooms on the main floor, I guess a bedroom in the basement, but it wasn't considered a bedroom. We have three kids. And we all slept on the same floor. I would not let them sleep upstairs. We tried once. And they stayed up there for like a week, maybe. And I could not sleep, I'd wake up every 30 minutes and I go upstairs, check on make sure they were breathing, make sure everything was okay. I would go up and unplug. Every lamp, every TV, every electronic that was up there just couldn't function with him upstairs that far away from me. It's probably stemming back from we had a loss of some kids and a fire on the second floor. And I found them going through the window. And so I guess that was just my way of saying, I'm not gonna let this happen. So I'm set there for a week and then brought them back downstairs and made them all asleep at one, one bedroom. Just couldn't tolerate it. Yeah, I did. Eventually, I bought those ladders that you put in the window. And I taught them how to do it. And they were like, how do I know to really work? So I took it out of the box. And on Christmas Day, I climbed out of my second storey window on this little child's ladder. All the way to the bottom. My neighbors probably thought I was crazy.
00:38:01.199 --> 00:38:03.090
But yeah.
00:38:03.898 --> 00:38:10.378
So are they one time only use? No, no, no, you just full? I've looked into her for
00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:13.590
oh, you have to have him?
00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:13.590
You have to Yeah, yeah,
00:38:13.710 --> 00:38:48.869
I have the same i I'm not a firefighter. And that is my biggest fear is my children dying in a fire. And I don't know what that is. And I'm the same way. So I've made sure like I've greased window. And I've like, showed my kids how to properly like break window if they need to i My kids are on the main floor where they can climb out and just get out and I'm on the top floor. And I'm like, I will drop out the window onto a bush if I have to. But that the inability and the fear of not being able to get to your children. And absolutely Oh my gosh. Well, now I know that I can get one that actually is reusable. Yeah, they hook
00:38:48.869 --> 00:38:50.820
that up, right. And when I take a picture and send it to
00:38:50.969 --> 00:38:53.909
thank you so you know what it is? Yeah, I'll be the one climbing down not
00:38:55.230 --> 00:42:24.420
there was something that you mentioned and that you talked about the that particular fire where there was a loss of life and the victims or children, you had told me that story, just as friends sitting around, I feel like used to do a lot more because I don't know you got busy with that side hustle of a church. But I remember you telling me about the pressure against your hand when you pushed on a window. And it didn't give. And I found out later it was a bunk bed, and how that impacted the way that you thought future fires. But that you had almost like a flashback when you had a fire after that, and push on a window and you're like, I know what this problem is. And I'm going to solve it a different way rather than wasting the time that you felt like you did trying to figure out what was going on the first time. So I knew that story. And I knew that it involved the bunk beds, and it stuck with me. Like how deeply that One incident changed. One that gave you a sense of a flashback. And two, it allowed you to do what we would like to see, which is we learn, we learn how to do it better. And that's what I thought as a clinician, as a friend, I was taking away from that. But I talked to you about this particular situation and how it affected me. And it was like a, whoa, I did not expect that. I went to fire Ops 101, up in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, where our fire academy is. And for those of you that don't know, fire Ops 101 is basically an opportunity for statewide like, decision makers to have an opportunity to play firefighter paramedic for the day. And I don't make decisions like that. But I got invited nonetheless. And at one point, I was like, Okay, this is far enough up the ladder, like I get the gist, I had to find a live fire that day, we'll go into that a whole different time because that was a thing. But one of the components that we got to experience was search and rescue, we had the advantage of being able to go into the residence before they put the smoke out, right. So like, that's a little cheater thing that you don't get to have when you are going into a fire, but they let us walk through before the smoke was released. And I remember walking down a hall and going into this bedroom. And the first thing I saw in that bedroom was bunk beds, and they were pushed up against the window. And before I even could think what came out of my mouth was Oh, shit. Like, I have never fought a fire, I have never gotten search and rescue. But as soon as I saw that I had a visceral experience, like we are screwed. And it kinda like took me aback, because I would never have predicted just from hearing your story, that kind of visual would affect me. But it really made me aware on a different level, how this is going to affect you. Like if I have this much distance from it, and I have that visceral mental emotional response, you guys are going into fires every day. And when you're in one city, a lot of times the architecture is the same, or the layout of the house is the same. And there's probably a lot of oshit moments.
00:42:24.449 --> 00:43:50.849
Absolutely. Yeah, what is it like? Yeah, I mean, there's situations that you find yourself and you do take and try to learn from that. The the difficulty in the incident you're talking about when I had my flashback, the situation was not even close to as severe as the first incident, you know, there were no kids, nothing like that. But it caused me to ramp up my emotions and my, like urgency. And that's that's the danger of not processing through some of that stuff. Because then it could lead to a, a, you know, I'm ramping up my emotions and my urgency for no reason. And then I could find myself in a worse spot. And that, to me, that is a huge reason why it's so important to process all this stuff that we go through and see. Not that we'll ever forget it. But that it's we don't have that reaction to things like that. Be. And I mean, I can tell you countless stories of you know, one scene looks like another scene. And it just ramps things up in your own mind. Hey, I've seen this before. This is what happened last time, when we have to be able to disconnect from that and say, okay, everything's not always the same, and still take the same path where we're thinking clearer, and things of that nature.
00:43:52.619 --> 00:43:57.150
Yeah, absolutely.
00:43:52.619 --> 00:44:18.690
Well, I want to be mindful of your time, and we can sit here and talk for hours. And you are full of goodness and kindness and generosity and an incredible human being. And so we thank you for being here for being who you are in this fire service world.
00:44:13.289 --> 00:44:32.940
So for sure, you're going to be like one of those reoccurring guests. You know, the big O people will know you just like oh, it's Jason again. Yeah, I'm gonna tune in. Because there's just so much wealth that you can offer. Humans, first responders.
00:44:28.590 --> 00:44:52.440
I know they're the same, even though you guys don't think that you are. But it's important that we keep the conversation going and you have such an incredible message. Let me ask you besides education, one thing that you could see just changing the face of all of this. What do you think that one thing might be?
00:44:50.039 --> 00:45:00.750
And I know I kind of touched on that before, but I want to hear it from you because I have a theory. And I'll share my theory with you. But I'm curious to hear You mean like
00:45:00.750 --> 00:45:03.510
change the landscape of the stigma and all that
00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:05.820
Belka? Exactly.
00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:57.780
I think as besides education, that that is huge to me. And then each one of us have to take a look in the mirror, and realize that we are humans are flawed because of that, because we're humans, and be vulnerable, be honest, share with each other, take pressure off of the people that are around us. For me, the biggest thing I do is listen, I just listen to people, be somebody that people feel comfortable coming to and talking to, in a safe place, you know, that I think everybody should have a safe place, they can come and just share anything to and not feel judged, not feel ridiculed laughter embarrassed. Those are huge things for me. And education, more awareness, I'm trying to think of what you're gonna say, I want to I want to say what you're gonna say.
00:45:58.409 --> 00:46:27.059
Actually, you basically said, the exact thing I've been saying, which is, you guys got to be there for each other, you know, like, stop making it wrong and start making it okay. And what I'm watching happening and cinnamon will say the same thing is like, what gets people in, in talking about this? Is their buddy saying, Hey, man, it's not that bad. I'm doing it, you know, like, not feeling the shame about it, man.
00:46:27.059 --> 00:46:30.269
Like, it's actually pretty awesome to let this stuff go.
00:46:30.449 --> 00:46:51.000
So, you know, you guys are the biggest advocates for it. Like we can preach all day. And people are like, Oh, no, I'm crazy. Clinicians, you know, like, that's what I see is, you trust each other so much. So it's like, don't keep it a secret. It's not a skeleton in your closet. And you guys gotta be the ones that help each other get here. Absolutely without. I appreciate you,
00:46:51.119 --> 00:48:27.480
I appreciate you. And when we first started this journey, that our biggest obstacle after we realized that we were jacked up, was we didn't have anywhere to go, the resources for us. I don't think standard therapy always works with military police fire. So we didn't have resources. So I thank you guys for being that for being our resource for being somebody that we can call anytime. And I don't see you guys professionally, like I see my counselor, but I have no doubt that if I needed to call a friend if I was struggling, that I could call and, and you would be there for me as a as a friend as another human. And that's huge. So thank you, thank you both. You gave me a good introduction and a good close there. And I couldn't I couldn't say words to I was gonna say I'm not emotional. I am emotional. I just don't typically cry. But you guys, if I was a crier, I would be crying right now. As you guys are, you guys are awesome. Thank just for what you continue to do. And like I said earlier, you know, I met cinnamon. She won me over quickly. And I saw what everybody costume and costume and costume and and as soon as I met you, same thing. Now, you had her backing, which automatically made me kind of.
00:48:20.309 --> 00:48:38.940
Yeah. But that's I mean, that's how this works. And we all help each other and the vouching system. Batching system. Yes.
00:48:30.989 --> 00:48:48.389
Yes. So and I will always be that for most of you. And I know you will meet too. So it's the Brotherhood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:43.800 --> 00:48:48.389
Yeah. Yeah. And
00:48:48.389 --> 00:48:56.010
that, and that's thing, something I want to mention is, you know, unfortunately, there are a lot of culturally competent, first responder clinicians out there.
00:48:56.309 --> 00:49:19.019
It's, there's way too many of you and not enough of us. And that's, you know, part of our vision is changing that dynamic and getting other clinicians trained and have an understanding as to how to work specifically with your demographic, because it is different. It's a different breed. And it's a lot of fun, especially if you'd like to cuss, which I know you don't.
00:49:15.210 --> 00:49:51.510
But what I will say is, you know, something that after the tone strop is offering and has and wants to use as a resource for everyone is, is a confidential hotline. So ideally, it will be a place that you guys can say, hey, I don't want people to know, but I'm willing to leave a message on this hotline, talking about what's going on with me and get some feedback from, you know, the hosts of after the tones drop, who are also clinicians, you know, play said, or even share their success story on that hotline. But all that matters is a place to start generating conversation.
00:49:52.199 --> 00:49:56.280
A safe space, a safe space, I was just thinking that yeah, like
00:49:56.280 --> 00:50:22.079
nobody's got to know. And you know, the ID Is that we can share these messages with our listeners. And they can say like, oh, man, that's my story. That's me. You know, I'm not alone. So that's the best we can do. Because we can't multiply ourselves right off the bat, that'll take time. But offering that hotline to you guys as a place to, like, at least start mind dump and get it out, you know.
00:50:22.829 --> 00:50:23.340
So
00:50:25.260 --> 00:52:43.440
I do think that that's the idea. When Aaron came up with like, let's have a hotline, where people can call in, we can change their voice, they can be anonymous, however, we need to do it. Because, you know, when people are showing up for individual counseling sessions, it's not like there's avenue for national access, where you can see others people going in and seeing clinicians and so we can to. So our goal here is just really to let other first responders know, like, you're not the only one. I haven't came across a completely unique issue yet. Right? Like, everybody has got work, and everybody's got a life, and one complicates the other. And it's nice to be able to have a space where you can talk to somebody who knows the lingo. Who knows, if you say, oh, yeah, I'm know I'm on this rig, whatever. I'm Pat, we are past that point of going. Okay, what's the reg? Or just a note to therapists, like? Who wants to do this work? Worse question ever. So what's the worst thing you've ever seen? Like, that just feels like nails on a chalkboard, right? Like, it might look like rapport building, but at the end of the day, like, no, no, this is this is not a time for curiosity. And to make sure that if you are a clinician listening, and you do have a shingle hanging, and you do say that you work with first responders, please go to the lengths necessary to truly understand that culture, that culturally competent thing not like I have one firefighter or police officers, or now I serve all of you like I can serve them all I do that, like it's definitely a specialized niche that we are trying to bring more clinicians in. Because like, and said, there's so many of you, there's so few of us. And I think we have done over the last several years. Great job in breaking down that stigma.
00:52:39.150 --> 00:53:04.829
However, with that being said, that was like step one, and then it's like, okay, what, step two, okay, maybe it's education, right? And so we're figuring out how to do that. But then step three is, oh, shit. Now they all want to go to therapy, and who are they gonna go see? And, you know, I we get phone calls daily, for people wanting help.
00:53:04.860 --> 00:53:10.349
And, you know, it's frustrating to not be able to help everyone.
00:53:11.309 --> 00:53:42.659
So we do, it's really important to get more folks who can see this being part of their future, their clinical, their clinical future, their career. And I've worked in I've been a trauma therapist for a long time. I've worked with a lot of different populations. And this is the one that stuck, I'm not going anywhere. This is by far my favorite population to work with. And it also allows me to cuss a lot like Erin said,
00:53:43.949 --> 00:53:48.389
No holding back.
00:53:43.949 --> 00:54:00.719
Yeah. Well, Jason, again, thank you so much for your time, and to be on this journey with you and have you in our corner and we are such a big advocate. So we really appreciate everything you're doing and yeah, so thank you for being here.
00:54:00.838 --> 00:54:02.699
Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me.
00:54:03.929 --> 00:54:12.539
For sure, yes. And we'll, we'll get your next guest appearance on the calendar soon.
00:54:07.230 --> 00:54:15.719
All right. If not before then definitely December 28. Perfect.
00:54:18.989 --> 00:55:02.460
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of after the tone straw. Today's show has been brought to you by whole house counseling. As a note, after the tone strop 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're in need of any assistance. You can also visit after the tone strop.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 Venice Adams yet In sonda for our shows music
