Removing The Scars of the Job

Removing The Scars of the Job
By Darci Werner

“I didn’t have a choice. It was either get help or put a bullet in my head.” Not the response I wanted to hear when I commended my husband for seeking help. The scenes and visions of a job that haunts him even after the duty belt and badge have been retired.

It didn’t come all at once. There were little signs of pulling away, being unsociable, wanting to sleep all day. Then the dreams escaped from somewhere in the deep recesses. Night after night making sounds, kicking legs and occasionally, punching the mattress. There were no recollections upon waking. Just the remains of a body that felt like it had not slept all night.

No one told us that the “Golden Years” of retirement would include recalls of tactical team entries, suicides and fatalities. This is not the best time of his life, nor mine, as I watch the man who was so respected as a first responder suffer from the aftermath now that it’s over. He is now a shell.

As the first responder wife who would stand at his side when issues occurred with the job or hold him as he shed tears for children who suffered from someone’s neglect, or an officer down,, there was nothing I could do to remove the demons from his mind or brighten the blank facial expression of depression. The more I tried, the more I slipped down into the same chasm.

One evening there was a discussion of discord and there was no reasoning with him. The stress element just kept spinning around in succession in his mind, never stopping for clarity or processing. The faster it spun the more irritated he became. I had lost my patience and retorted, “You knock this off or I’m taking you to the hospital.” The stress point was still spiraling but he looked away in silence, stewing with tightly pierced lips to keep from speaking.

He then decided to make a doctor’s appointment. From there, a whole new world of assistance has developed to process the painful memories that lurk as a retired officer. He has a way to go but has found tools that allow him to process and not shove the conflict deeper down in the abyss to bring it forward into the light and deal with it appropriately. The visions used to be several throughout the night. They are down to one or two, as well as the limb movements.

I realize that there will be some memories that will never leave and will go to the grave with him. At least now he knows how to keep the memory from dictating his retirement years. Why do I share this ugly part of our lives? For the same reason he tells other officers he knows who have also turned in their badge for the years of freedom and flexibility. That freedom will not come if they do not seek the help needed to remove the scars of the job.

I have always been proud of my husband, and this is no different. There have been other retired officers we chatted with who refuse to seek help. Yet mine valued our marriage and family to get what he needed so he could be the father and husband intended to be during these “Golden years.”

Don’t allow the job to take from you what you deserve in enjoying your later years. Seek help for you and those in your life who care about you. Thank you for serving and thank you for taking care of yourself.

Darci Werner is a retired police wife residing in Northeast, Iowa. She writes for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Lyrical Iowa, and Guidepost. She thanks Blue Magazine for providing alternative topics for all who support law enforcement and is honored to share police family life stories.