He pulled into the driveway after another 12-hour patrol shift. In the passenger seat of his take-home car were his kit, the mail and a half-eaten sandwich. At least he almost finished lunch today … that was progress. He took out his phone, set a timer for two minutes, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His sergeant had suggested he work on tangibly separating work from home, and this was his second week of attempting to do just that. Easier said than done — especially because he was on call. He had spent the last six years on call, though some days it felt as though it had been much longer than that. The timer went off, his eyes acclimated back to the daylight and he walked through the door. He was home.

Six months ago is when it started. He couldn’t tell you exactly when, and he couldn’t tell you exactly what, but something was changing. “We have been walking on eggshells around you for months.” That’s what his wife had said. “We miss who you used to be; I know you’re in there somewhere.” That’s what his brother had said. “Dad, you’re never home and you’re always on your phone.” That’s what his oldest had said. He didn’t believe it at first, but when you hear “Something’s wrong with you” enough times from the people you love most, you do start to wonder. He stepped into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, looked into the mirror and thought to himself, “What the fuck happened?”

I have a question for you, and I want you to answer it honestly. How do you know when you are not OK? If you are reading this article, you are a problem solver, right? In some way, shape or form, as a dispatcher, cop or administrator, that is your job. So, how do you solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem is? You can’t, except by accident. You need awareness. In the context of calls for service, we call this situational awareness; in the context of your own life, we call it self-awareness. Self-awareness is one’s ability to understand their own thoughts, feelings, motivations and behaviors.

Easier said than done.

Know the indicators

Back to the question: How do you know when you are not OK? Generally speaking, for cops, there are four groups of indicators: physical, behavioral, emotional and external.

• Physical: Shortness of breath, tight chest, shaky legs or hands, pit in the stomach, feeling hot, tunnel vision, tension in the neck or shoulders
• Behavioral: Intense anger outbursts at home, infidelity, lack of motivation, not leaving the house on non-duty days, risk-taking, working all the overtime
• Emotional: Feeling dead inside or feeling nothing, inability to feel happiness or joy, crying at seemingly inappropriate times, vacillating between anger and depression
• External: Your spouse, co-workers, friends or family members know you aren’t OK before you know, and maybe bring it to your attention

Perhaps when I posed the question “How do you know when you are not OK?” your first thought was “I don’t know.” At the risk of sounding like Jocko, good. At least you know what you don’t know. That’s most certainly a form of self-awareness and a good place to start. And if you want to finish, if you want to feel better, you have to start somewhere. 

Identify, assess, respond

Law enforcement is rich with models and acronyms for solving everyone else’s problems. Let’s flip a simple one on its head and apply it to our own difficulties: identify, assess, respond. Here are a few examples. 

• Identify: Your spouse tells you you’ve changed, and you are more distant. Assess: You listen to what she has to say, without getting defensive. You take some time to think about it. And you agree — you are more distant because you don’t want to talk about work with her. Respond: You and she come up with a plan for how to talk about work, at least a little. You develop contingencies for when you are being distant. You give her permission to call you out in the future so you can re-engage at home.
• Identify: You’ve just slammed the door after coming home and knocked a picture off the wall. Assess: How are you feeling? (Angry.) Why? (You’re not getting promoted.) This is out of your control. You couldn’t be angry at work, so it’s all coming out now that you are home. Respond: You go for a run to burn the
  energy.
• Identify: It’s your kid’s 4th birthday party and you feel depressed — damn near miserable. Assess: What was going on this week? (You worked six straight days in a row on patrol.) And? (You had four suicide calls and a dead baby call.) Of course you feel like shit, despite how you think you are supposed to feel or how you’d like to feel. Respond: You stop beating yourself up for not feeling how you would like to. You accept where you are at emotionally, stop fighting it and go back to the birthday party. 

The elixir for fixing a problem (when the problem is you) is no different than a call for service: Identify the problem. Assess the situation and contingencies. Respond with a plan. Maybe you need some help creating the plan, because brains and emotions are not quite as black-and-white as the 2, 3 or 4 side, but as someone wise once said, it is what it is. You wouldn’t respond to a call for service and identify the problem, formulate the solution and then leave the call. Don’t treat your own self
in a way that’s lesser than how you do the job.

So, in totality, if you catch yourself looking in the mirror, saying to yourself, “What the fuck happened?” — good. You know there is a problem. And you can’t solve a problem you don’t
know exists.