First Responders and Frontline Care Providers
I acknowledge the difficult and honourable work you do as first responders and frontline care providers. Many of you will have worked in intensely stressful environments for months or years on end. So often this work is under-appreciated, unacknowledged and comes at great personal cost.
Here are some of the heartbreakingly common threads I have heard:
- You find it increasingly difficult to enjoy your days off
- You don’t feel really alive or engaged with the people you love the most
- You feel flat and numb or you feel easily enraged or terrified by things that used to not bother you
- You find yourself overwhelmed by routine daily tasks
- You find yourself snapping at your wife or kids with little provocation
- You no longer pursue the hobbies that you used to pursue on your days off
- You distract yourself with overwork, shopping, pornography, drugs, alcohol
- You no longer find any peace in your spiritual practices or community
- You find yourself on high alert anytime you are in public, scanning the faces of every person that approaches you or your loved ones, locating the exits in every room, tracking your children’s whereabouts at all times
- You only feel safe at home
- Once you get home, you find yourself zoning out for hours on end
- Your friends and family don’t understand what you have seen and experienced
- Your friends and family, even your partner, may not even want to hear about what you have seen and experienced
- Your friends and family, even your partner, are at a loss for ways to support you
- You have noticed that your social circle has narrowed and now is limited to your workmates
If this sounds like you we can talk.
I offer trauma-informed counselling for acute workplace stress and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure (PE) for the treatment of PTSI symptoms.
250-818-2148