Advice From Rock Bottom
“I just want there to be something good that comes from this whole ordeal. I want there to be some silver lining in this cloud,” she said, her eyes tearing up from emotion. I had just listened to a gut-wrenching story from a fellow paramedic. She has been through hell and is still slowly making her way back.
What this poor lady has endured is perhaps the worst thing I could imagine happening to a paramedic. It’s an awful story and one that needs to be told, but it’s not my story to tell. It needs to be heard directly from the one who experienced it. It’s an event that could happen to any one of us, one that I am deeply touched for having heard myself.
So why bring this up if I am not going to tell you the story? After listening to someone who has seen the bottom and has been courageously clawing her way back up, I realized I could learn a thing or two from her. So I asked her what advice she would give if she could go back in time and prepare herself. The answers were profound.
1: Have a plan
“Don’t waste your time on the things that don’t work. After the incident, I couldn’t make myself do anything, I couldn’t motivate myself to get help. My husband picked me up off of my parents couch and drove me to a therapist. To this day I don’t remember a word of what was said during that first session. I spent the next seven months in counseling with someone who supposedly specialized in first responders. None of it helped. I wasn’t making any kind of progress. My PTSD, depression, and survivor’s guilt weren’t getting any better.
I finally had a workman’s comp follow up doctor’s appointment. At that appointment I was surprised with a note from my boss that said I wasn’t who I used to be. I was angry, and I needed more time off of work. I was shocked, devastated, and destroyed all in a half hour doctor appointment. What was left to do? How was I supposed to get better? I would never be the same person as I was before. But could I crawl back to a better place than I am right now? These were all the thoughts I had scrambling around in my brain for weeks on end.
I talked to my QRC (Qualified Rehabilitation Consultant) from workman’s comp about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing psychotherapy). She went to work and found me an EMDR specialist who would take my case. I had heard amazing things about it and was nervous to try.
I spent eight weeks with that therapist. Eight of the hardest, most gut-wrenching sessions I had ever experienced. The amazing thing was, I learned more, fixed more, and repaired more in those weeks than I had all those months of regular therapy. EMDR is an amazing tool and if regular therapy isn’t working and you’re thinking about taking the plunge to EMDR, don’t hesitate. It could save your life.”
Waiting until we’re reeling from a major traumatic event to begin searching for the right therapy or learning about our options is setting ourselves up for potentially wasting a huge amount of time on things that aren’t working. As EMS workers, we could all likely benefit from seeing a therapist anyway. Finding a therapist that is capable of helping you, building a rapport early, and understanding our options for advanced psychotherapies like EMDR would provide a great structure to have in place in the event we find ourselves spiraling from a major event.
2: Don’t make your job your Identity
“I see it in too many of us. We Identify ourselves as paramedics or EMTs first, like we aren’t anyone outside of our uniform. After the incident, I wasn’t sure I was ever coming back and felt I was losing my identity. I was lost. Take the time to become someone you are okay being if this part was all taken away.”
She’s right. I’ve been guilty of it too. For a long time the largest part of my identity was the fact that I am an EMS provider. Ask any of us who we are and I’d bet being an EMT or paramedic would be pretty high on that list. There is so much more to life than our profession, so it shouldn’t be our whole identity.
3: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
“You never know when your last day in this job will be. It can end at any moment. Be ready for it, and don’t be thinking this is what you’ll do forever. After the incident, it felt like I would never be ready to return to the job. Knowing I didn’t have many career options outside of EMS just added to the devastation.”
I’ve heard this from many others before. I’ve had co-workers and mentors tell me often that in this job we’re all just one bad lift away from unemployment. The chances of encountering an incident that leaves us unable to perform our duties in EMS is innumerable – whether it be physical or psychological. We’ve all seen coworkers leave the profession and struggle to find meaningful work elsewhere. We can’t assume it will never happen to us.
Our conversation left me with a lot to think about. She had shared a very powerful experience and it left a big impression on me. Any one of us could be in her shoes at any time. Every day we go to work could be the day we are exposed to the worst thing that has ever happened to us, and being ready for it could make a huge difference. She wanted a silver lining to come from her experience – she wanted it to help someone. It did, it helped me, and I hope that it helps someone else too.