From the Depths of the Abyss

I took some time to reflect over the past couple of weeks, looking at old journal pages, notes I've written in my phone, blog posts, walk and talk videos, social media stuff and something really stuck out to me...so much of what I've voiced has been overtly negative. I decided to journal about it, to try and put some actual thought into why negativity is so easy and positivity takes so much work. After a few hours and a sore brain, the resounding idea was that after so many years of working in a negative environment, of seeing the worst that humanity had to offer, of always being prepared for the worst my brain had becoming trapped in the cycle of negativity. Unfortunately as I have learned over the past few years it takes a lot of work to break out of that cycle, and looking for the upside in situations is so unnatural that it feels like work to try and do it. The reflection started just over a week ago when I had the opportunity to attend my first event as a volunteer with Bo...

While I sit and type away on this tonight, letting thoughts percolate like a good strong cup of coffee, I have to take a little bit of time to reflect. It's been two years, pretty much to the day, since I published the first post on this blog. Two years ago, I was 6 months removed from being pulled off the road, taken out of work by my psychologist who was rather blunt in her assessment that I was a danger not only to myself but also to the community I was sworn to protect. Looking at the time, I was inspired to tell my story, to talk about my struggles because it was necessary for me to drive my healing. I was inspired by those who told their stories on the podcasts that I listened to. Inspired by the journey's they had embarked on and the successes they had. I can look at my writing, things were inspired too, and open and raw. Which was easy because that's where I was in my own journey, things were raw, things were still fresh, things were moving positively because the on...

Well, I feel really old now, after looking up the commercial and finding that it was 13 fucking years ago...how is has it been 13 years? I mean at the time, I lift things up and put them down really described my fitness regime. I picked up weights, put them down and did it over and over. I was getting ready for the RCMP at that time, and it was in that window that I really started to program hop. I was happy with my strength, but I was slow and didn't have much cardio. So I stopped lifting as much and tried to trim down and get faster. It kinda worked, kinda didn't because the truth of the matter is I fucking hate running. I would rather do anything other than run. So needless to say, the getting ready for depot didn't go so well.  One of the first fitness sessions at depot was the Cooper's Run, simple enough, just run 1.5 miles as fast as you can. Sure went well, but not really...it was a time when things weren't quite so gentle and the sergeant of the fitness unit...

 Where do I begin? 2024 felt like it flew by but at the same time, felt like it dragged on and wouldn't let me go. I came into the year with momentum, with hope, with grand plans for how things felt like they should go.  I went back to work, for the first time in a year. 12 months of recovery, 12 months of learning how to live again, 12 months of ups/downs and struggles. I did hundreds of hours of therapy, spent hundreds if not thousands of hours journaling, crafting, listening to podcasts filled with the stories of others who fought the same PTS demons that I did and I felt encouraged through all of it that I could get through it. That if I put the work in, if I did the home work and dug into the hardest memories that I had repressed, that if I opened doors and broke down walls that I would be able to keep consistently climbing out of the hole. But 2024 didn't have the same plans for me. Going back to work wasn't some grand thing to celebrate. After 12 months of no one tha...

How the hell is it August already. And how the hell have i gone this long without writing. The honest truth, I've felt like I'm just trying to get by through a lot of days again. I started going back to work in January and even with reduced hours the entire time, it has not been easy. The organization itself holds so much residual trauma that being in the office takes a toll, even when I'm living my new roll as Will Ferrell in "The Other Guys". Paper bitch. That's my life now, just administrative work. I made peace, or thought I did, many months ago but being in the office, not being able to go for drives, help out with calls, do anything other than paper has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. The visceral reaction to hearing certain calls echo on the radio tells me that being off the road is the only way forward. I can't go back to how I was, the constant IBS, the broken sleeps, the permanent pissed off attitude. I know that the best thing for ...

Good riddance 2023. Except that's not the case at all. Sure, it was a year full of challenges, life changes and more pain than I thought I could handle. But it was also a year of growth, of recovery, of healing, of connection. The honest truth is I had no idea what to expect at the start of 2023 because I was so focused on just surviving each day that I couldn't look to the future without seeing anything but darkness. It took an act of courage by my wife to do what was best for her and our daughters to cast a sliver of light into the blackness that was consuming me. To look back 365 days, to look at where I was in life, there are times that I'm surprised I'm still here. It goes back beyond just this past year, to 3, 4, 5 years ago that I started the slow descent in to the abyss. That's what makes post traumatic stress such a nasty bitch. She doesn't take you quickly. She slowly eats away at the base of what makes you a person, breaking away bits and pieces at a ...