This is the first time I have ever put anything about myself on the internet. I’m not a technophobe, I’m just a very private person. I’m challenging that. This is about my experiences with having mental illnesses. This is part of my recovery. I don’t know what I’m going to end up sharing. I started writing a journal that I would read to my psychologist as a way to overcome my ability to blank out during sessions with him. He suggested that I start a blog. I resisted, but the more his words hung around in the back of my mind the more I felt I should share what I’m going through with others. So this is it.

I am a proud father and a humbled husband. I’m a black metal fanatic and a music collector. I’m also a paramedic. I have PTSD. I worked on the road for 15 years before being diagnosed. I have not worked since May of 2017. I clung on as long as I could, refusing to believe I had psychiatric problems. Not me. I was often angry and I would overreact to the children being children. Nothing was fun anymore. I couldn’t sleep properly. I was isolating. I was booking off sick so often I was taking unpaid sick days. When I did make it to work I was so anxious I would sometimes end up fighting off the tears in the truck between calls. My marriage was falling apart; we weren’t fighting, we had gone silent. I couldn’t get certain calls off my mind. I was drinking. Heavily. I was smoking pot. Heavily (even for me). I was having thoughts of overdosing to save my family from the shitty person I had become. You get the picture. It was a bad place. The day I finally sought help I went to work despite feeling off. Normally I would have stayed home to drink and get high, but that costs money so I showed up. I told my partner I didn’t want to deal with this shit today. I couldn’t elaborate. I just didn’t feel right. Our first call came early in the shift. An average hip pain call. I’m sure I’ll provide details in future posts, but for now I’ll just say that the patient reminded me of a previous patient who died in a similar situation from years prior. I felt like I broke walking into that call. I got through it, but only because I was driving. Had I been attending I would have blown my cover. We made it back to the station. By this point I had again informed my partner that I didn’t want to deal with this shit. A supervisor came to give us incident reports. Drama with our destination hospital. I quickly wrote up the report in the garage and went back in with it, informing the supervisor that I needed to book off because I just wasn’t feeling well. I had felt this way before but not so intensely. It was like the weightlessness of a falling roller coaster with claustrophobia rolled in. I grabbed my stuff and ran out to my car. I got in and burst into tears. I felt broken and ashamed. At least I made it to the car. The world didn’t seem real on that drive home. I’m not sure how I made it home. The tears kept coming. The weightless claustrophobia persisted. I sent my wife a message at work saying that I felt like I had broken, and would she be willing to come to the doctor with me to get help. I didn’t know what else to do. I smoked countless joints. I listened to Bad Religion records. I paced. I cried. I couldn’t fight back the tears like I had been able to up to that day. My wife came home from work and took me to the doctor. So began the challenges: my journey back uphill.

That’s the story of my last day at work. Nothing tragic took place that particular day, I just lost my ability to cope. I had always had memories of calls visit me but I had been able to push the emotions away up until now. I found myself being flooded with the feelings that I should have had back when the calls happened. I felt weak and ashamed. I felt broken. I was a failure in my eyes. I had always prided myself on being somewhat intelligent and capable. I was proud I was able to remain stoic and get the job done. Now that image was shattered. What kind of paramedic can’t cope with their job? It stung deeply. I had to admit that I was human and that I was having those feelings. Part of recovery for me has been about regaining some of that pride and finding new ways to stoke it. Part of it has been to stop stigmatizing myself. It’s a rough road that I have barely travelled, but like those before me I hope to shed a bit more light on a dark subject.