I believed everyone I’m under the care of and it’s costing me what first responders surprisingly value quite highly: being one. Invisible? Yeah, I feel pretty invisible. I may have brought it up once or twice in sessions but I can see how that insignificant matter of pride and identity could easily be forgotten in all the ‘what’s best for me’ that’s going around. Am I the one who should have to know the impacts of these decisions and recommendations for the therapists, akin to telling the MD what to prescribe?

I was a lifer, in it for the long haul. I signed up for a career. Maybe my knees would go; my wife and I would jokingly debate which one would be first. Maybe it would be the arthritis in my neck. Maybe my back. I would still have a job and be wanted by my ex-profession in those situations.

I miss those times. Regardless of scenario it never involved PTSD, losing it all and being told that I’m a done deal because of others’ mistakes and ignorance after I tried so hard in good faith and trust. Having a WSIB return-to-work specialist say that I should be excited to go through this because others before me were is a fine cherry. Remember, these are the folks who claim to understand the culture and motivations of the population they work with.

Have you ever been expected to take part in conversations that you’re irrelevant to? “Oh well, this is how it is” say the folks keeping their job, vocation and pride while claiming to understand me and my situation.

But, I’m not a paramedic, I just worked as one. That’s what you say when it hurts too bad to even look up. Another positive result for that pre-ordained outcome. I don’t even get to grieve the sudden change and loss. When I try it’s just another mood bringing everyone down and thus a problem to solve in the midst of all the excitement of “exploring new possibilities”. Not sure any of them even feel bad about it playing out this way.

Keeping me from the so-called “place that hurt me” is a job well done, even though I was having success with exposure therapy and I was enjoying seeing and catching up with old faces I knew. I kept explaining that it wasn’t a building or a location that hurt me, or a vehicle, or a uniform, that those were just reminders (TRIGGERS) of the actions of other people, the ones behind the calls I attended that caused the hurt. No one sentences the gun to prison. I thought that was the point to approaching the triggers and doing exposure therapy, to negate that automatic connection my brain was making between experience and the material world.

Wrong. I’m not allowed to think that way, so instead I’m to look forward to a life alongside the public and calling it recovery because I’m not in an ambulance anymore.

This is why I wear an inverted pentacle representing a state of element over spirit. It’s what I see when I look and it’s in me too. It’s all what I make of it, though. Right? I’ll move on but the elephant in the room never forgets.

Is it a reflection or a jaded recollection? Does it pass inspection, show direction and have no objection? Does it ask permission with the right inflection? Is it still faith without connection?