Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi. Everyone. This episode contains mentions of suicide and
Speaker 1: graphic descriptions of injury, including burns on children. Please take
Speaker 1: care while listening. There's so many important things that go
Speaker 1: on in this world and so many important people. But
Speaker 1: when your life is falling apart, you know, are the
Speaker 1: worst day of your life? I mean, who's more valuable
Speaker 1: than some person who's going to come and fix it,
Speaker 1: or who's going to come and save you. Christy Warren
Speaker 1: served as a firefighter and paramedic in California starting in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. She was committed to being one of
Speaker 1: the toughest and strongest members on her team, and often
Speaker 1: that meant concealing the challenging emotions that came along with
Speaker 1: daily exposure to life and death situations. For decades, Christie
Speaker 1: placed every difficult feeling she experienced into a box in
Speaker 1: the back of her mind. But after a while the
Speaker 1: box became so full it burst open. It was like
Speaker 1: being locked in a movie theater with something just horrible playing,
Speaker 1: with the volume turned all the way up and the
Speaker 1: brightness turned all the way up, and you can't close
Speaker 1: your eyes and you can't get away from it. And
Speaker 1: that would go on for I mean all day until
Speaker 1: I'd fall asleep, and you know, then I'd have nightmares
Speaker 1: and I'd wake up screaming, and I'd flip myself out
Speaker 1: of bed, and I just it was just like the
Speaker 1: most painful thing ever. On today's episode, what Happens when
Speaker 1: a first Responder needs saving, I'm maya Shunker and this
Speaker 1: is a slight change of plans, a show about who
Speaker 1: we are and who we become in the face of
Speaker 1: a big change. I actually got to know Christy Warren
Speaker 1: through a slight change of plans. She was a fan
Speaker 1: of the show and reached out to me about her
Speaker 1: transformative experiences as a first responder. I was really taken
Speaker 1: by Christie's message and her thoughtful, candid nature. I asked
Speaker 1: her if she would join me on the show and
Speaker 1: share her story with all of you. Christie began her
Speaker 1: career in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked in
Speaker 1: Vallejo as a paramedic, then in Berkeley as a firefighter.
Speaker 1: Her identity as a first responder made her feel valued,
Speaker 1: which was in stark contrast to how she felt growing up.
Speaker 1: I had a pretty challenging childhood. You know, I felt
Speaker 1: pretty invisible. My mom was interested in other stuff, pretty
Speaker 1: much anything besides myself. She was nineteen when she got
Speaker 1: pregnant with me, and she was like a world partygoer,
Speaker 1: and she was really never around much at all. And
Speaker 1: my parents got divorced when I was four, and and
Speaker 1: then my mom got remarried and my stepfather was really
Speaker 1: into drugs, and so she really got into drugs, and
Speaker 1: so when she was around, she wasn't around, if that
Speaker 1: makes any sense. It was like I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to grow up really really fast. It was all
Speaker 1: about like how quickly can I grow up and get
Speaker 1: out of here and not have to be in this
Speaker 1: mess and depend on somebody else and just take care
Speaker 1: of myself and so yeah, so you know, I felt
Speaker 1: real invisible. You know. It's kind of like there's a
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, that's person's only person a mother can love,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, you know, I felt like it's like, well,
Speaker 1: my mom didn't even love me, so you know what
Speaker 1: does that make me? And I would do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff to try and get her attention. I always
Speaker 1: would run away. The street that I lived on, though,
Speaker 1: was a tree fort up in this tree, and you know,
Speaker 1: as kids would go play up in there. And then
Speaker 1: one day I was up there by myself, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to jump and maybe then she'll
Speaker 1: pay attention to me. And so I jumped and I
Speaker 1: landed on my feet, you know, fell forward. It kind
Speaker 1: of took inventory and I was fine, and I was
Speaker 1: kind of pissed because it was like I was hoping.
Speaker 1: I was hoping to get her or break a leg
Speaker 1: or something. So it's like my mom would have to
Speaker 1: take care of me or have to pay attention to me. Wow.
Speaker 1: So Christie, you you ultimately end up training and passing
Speaker 1: all the required tests to become a paramedic. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me more about what those early years were like
Speaker 1: for you? What I would call the golden years of
Speaker 1: Christie's time. You know, they were the golden years. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: they are totally the golden years. They were. It was
Speaker 1: really the best time of my life. You know. I
Speaker 1: started when I was nineteen, so as in my early twenties,
Speaker 1: and I worked in Valeo. So like the car accidents
Speaker 1: and the shootings and the stabbings and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff just were rampant, just all the time, every day,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't get enough I was like a little
Speaker 1: kid in a candy shop. I mean, this sounds horrible,
Speaker 1: but you know, the the bloodier and the worse and
Speaker 1: the more intricate and smashed up things, the better I
Speaker 1: performed and the better I felt afterwards. And you know,
Speaker 1: and I think it also goes back to being needed.
Speaker 1: You know, when there's an accident, everybody slows down and looks,
Speaker 1: and the animals drives by, Everybody kind of looks, and
Speaker 1: for me to like to be there, and how visible
Speaker 1: I would be, It's like I would be where everybody
Speaker 1: not necessarily wanted to be, but wanted to look. And
Speaker 1: I was. I was important and I was valued. And
Speaker 1: I mean there's so many important things that go on
Speaker 1: in this world and so many important people. But when
Speaker 1: your life is falling apart, you know, or the worst
Speaker 1: day of your life, I mean, who's more valuable than
Speaker 1: some person who's going to come and fix it, or
Speaker 1: who's going to come and save you, or even just
Speaker 1: know what to do. And so by being in that environment,
Speaker 1: I felt valued, I felt important, I felt needed, and
Speaker 1: I was visible. I wasn't invisible anymore. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you say it sounds weird, but it makes so much
Speaker 1: sense that the more the situation calls of you, the
Speaker 1: more valuable you feel, and therefore it might bring out
Speaker 1: the best in you in your first responder skills. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would have done it for free. I mean I
Speaker 1: just loved I worked so much over time, you know,
Speaker 1: I almost worked every single day. You know, he worked
Speaker 1: twenty four hour shifts, and so I was tired, but
Speaker 1: it was like the most satisfying tired. I just would
Speaker 1: almost say it was bliss. I was so happy. There's
Speaker 1: this moment, relatively early in your career where you get
Speaker 1: a hint of just how psychologically taxing this job can be.
Speaker 1: You end up perceiving one particularly harrowing call in which
Speaker 1: a mother and her four kids are trapped in a
Speaker 1: burning house, and and you're the first person called on
Speaker 1: this scene that night. Do you mind sharing what unfolded? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So yeah, So we I was working on
Speaker 1: the ambulance and we were dispatched to a house fire,
Speaker 1: and the whole second story of the house had flames
Speaker 1: blowing out of it, and there was a mother hanging
Speaker 1: on to a firefighter, just screaming that her kids were inside,
Speaker 1: And so I asked her how many kids are inside,
Speaker 1: and she screamed four and a firefighter at that time
Speaker 1: came out and said, I have one kid. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we can do anything for him. Will you
Speaker 1: come in and look? And I said sure. So I
Speaker 1: went in and it was a would turned out to
Speaker 1: be a four year old kid who was burned beyond recognition,
Speaker 1: you know, he'd no fingers or toes or ears, or
Speaker 1: nose or lips, and so I said, you just I go. No,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do for him. I said, but
Speaker 1: you got to leave us inside. You can't take it outside,
Speaker 1: and the mother can't see it, the neighborhood can't see it.
Speaker 1: And I'm very sure I referred to it as an
Speaker 1: it and not a he or a she. So I
Speaker 1: went back out, and then a firefighter came running out
Speaker 1: and handed me and his kid. You know, his legs
Speaker 1: and arms were bouncing because it's so limp and has
Speaker 1: you know, skin has burned off of him, like hanging
Speaker 1: like a spider web. And he hands me this kid,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, And so I jump in the
Speaker 1: back of my ambulance and I put the kid on
Speaker 1: the gurney and I'm just starting to try and get
Speaker 1: it airway, and another firefighter comes out with another kid
Speaker 1: and hands me the kid and I put him on
Speaker 1: my gurney. And then another firefighter comes out with another
Speaker 1: kid in the same condition, and so I happened to
Speaker 1: the back of my ambulance again and like almost looked
Speaker 1: for a second, like, Hey, which kid do I pick
Speaker 1: to start working on first? Like who deserves to live
Speaker 1: more than the other? Um? Yeah, we all we all
Speaker 1: went to the hospital after that with our kids and
Speaker 1: did they survive? To the three children of four survived.
Speaker 1: The three children did survive. A couple of them had
Speaker 1: like severe severe burns, and you know, I went we
Speaker 1: went to the hospital to see him afterwards, and the
Speaker 1: one kid was, you know, like a two year old
Speaker 1: was in you know bed, It was laying on its back.
Speaker 1: It was just completely wrapped in gauze. It had tubes
Speaker 1: coming out of everywhere. And and my thought was, like,
Speaker 1: nobody's going to be able to pick this kid up
Speaker 1: and hold it for for months and months and months,
Speaker 1: and what this kid's gonna have to go through this
Speaker 1: of all the and that had been burned off, you
Speaker 1: mean yeah, burned off and yeah wow, uh, but they
Speaker 1: did the three of them they survived, and then what
Speaker 1: was the um what was the aftermath of this? It
Speaker 1: was kind of a big deal in the community, and
Speaker 1: so they did what it's called a critical instance stress debriefing.
Speaker 1: So what happens is, you know, it's totally confidential, and
Speaker 1: everybody sits in a circle and kind of go around
Speaker 1: the room and you know, say what we did on
Speaker 1: the call, and you know, any feelings we had afterwards,
Speaker 1: and it's this kind of a way to like bring
Speaker 1: closure to it, and you know, have everybody talked together.
Speaker 1: And so everybody was going around the room and everybody
Speaker 1: was crying and like just talking and through tears, and
Speaker 1: it came to me and I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: was the first medical scene, and I just kind of
Speaker 1: told the story what I did, like I was talking
Speaker 1: about a frantic mom and or severely burned kids, like
Speaker 1: I was talking about a trip to the grocery store.
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to push down any feelings. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was trying to cry because I felt like such
Speaker 1: an asshole for not crying, Like my god, my heartless,
Speaker 1: and and I just kind of went on and it,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't I didn't think it affected me at all,
Speaker 1: And I think I just put it in a box
Speaker 1: somewhere and close the lid and was able to not
Speaker 1: look at it again. It's like you take these bad
Speaker 1: calls and you put them in a box and you
Speaker 1: close the lid, and so you don't see it and
Speaker 1: you don't hear it, and it's just pushed away somewhere.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did my whole career. Had you
Speaker 1: ever been given training about the psychological and emotional size
Speaker 1: of the job. Nothing, absolutely nothing, never taught anything at all. Yeah, no, clue.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is about, you know, suck it up, buttercup.
Speaker 1: And if you're not, if you get sad about anything,
Speaker 1: or if you feel anything, then then you're just you
Speaker 1: can't hang and so you just you just go on.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, were there other coping mechanisms you found yourself
Speaker 1: employing just to survive in a role like this, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, one thing one thing we do is is
Speaker 1: rationalize kind of what happened. And you know, even for
Speaker 1: that fire, was like, well, the mom was next door,
Speaker 1: she should have been with her kids, and you know,
Speaker 1: and there's a drunk driver that you know, runs into
Speaker 1: a tree and it's like she went drinking or they
Speaker 1: didn't wear their seatbelt, you know, or you know, they
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been out this late at night, Like who
Speaker 1: goes out at two in the morning and doesn't expect
Speaker 1: to get you know, shot or stabbed or robbed, and
Speaker 1: and so, yeah, so we would rationalize it. And in rationalizing,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that this was your effort to just draw
Speaker 1: psychological and emotional distance between you and the person that
Speaker 1: was wounded. Yeah, that that felt, was that that gave
Speaker 1: you some sort of emotional protection, is that right? Right?
Speaker 1: Kind of like they brought this on themselves and they
Speaker 1: should have known better, and yeah, it sucks, but they
Speaker 1: should have they should have done something different, because if
Speaker 1: they're culpable, then there can be limits on the amount
Speaker 1: of empathy that you feel. Exactly, Yes, hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head, Yeah, got it. Okay, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So your performance, Christie starts getting noticed by leaders in
Speaker 1: the fire department, right. Yeah. So yeah, I was a
Speaker 1: brand new firefighter and I had a captain who said,
Speaker 1: we are waiting for somebody, and he says, hey, he goes,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing really good things about you. I'm hearing you're
Speaker 1: a really good medic and I hear you can definitely
Speaker 1: hold your own on the fire ground and I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's nice. You know, I appreciate that. And you know,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, women don't typically make it
Speaker 1: to retirement, and he was being malicious in anyway. He
Speaker 1: was just saying, you know, that's just kind of what happens.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're smaller, and you know, when you're
Speaker 1: in the industry for a long time, you know, everything
Speaker 1: gets trained and torned and pushed, and so you know,
Speaker 1: women tend to retire early due to an injury or
Speaker 1: sometimes her body just can't hold up anymore, and so
Speaker 1: you know they'll go to a desk job, like in
Speaker 1: fire prevention. And boy, he said that, and I reacted like,
Speaker 1: there's no way in hell that that's going to be me.
Speaker 1: I will make it to retirement. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be one of those token women. If a man goes
Speaker 1: down in a fire, you know, everybody will say, you know,
Speaker 1: what a hero he gave it, as all this is
Speaker 1: so tragic. But if a woman goes down in a fire,
Speaker 1: what has typically said is she shouldn't have been there
Speaker 1: in the first place, Like the reason why she went
Speaker 1: down is because she couldn't handle it. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the narrative for I mean for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And and so yeah, so you know, my goal was
Speaker 1: to work my ass off and never be that woman
Speaker 1: who shouldn't have been there. Yeah, and you were carrying,
Speaker 1: I guess on your shoulders this big achievement for women
Speaker 1: in your field, right, Like, if I make it to retirement,
Speaker 1: then I represent what's possible for women exactly exactly, you know.
Speaker 1: And I also said too, I will never be the
Speaker 1: weak link in the chain. I will not be like
Speaker 1: the weak person on the engine. I will always step
Speaker 1: up and do my job. And if I am weak
Speaker 1: in some area, I will go work on it and
Speaker 1: become stronger in that area. I will drag myself to
Speaker 1: retirement if I have to. And that was just and
Speaker 1: that does kind of become a mantra for me, and
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, there's there's no question. Where do
Speaker 1: you think that drive came from. I have no doubt
Speaker 1: it came from my childhood. You know, I played sports
Speaker 1: a lot, and and that was kind of the only
Speaker 1: time that I would get any recognition or anybody would
Speaker 1: notice me. Is you know, when I really stood out
Speaker 1: and did something great. And you know, my mom would
Speaker 1: come to some of the games, and when I did
Speaker 1: really well, it's like she'd run around and tell everybody
Speaker 1: that I'm her mother and she's my daughter, and it
Speaker 1: was like, well that's nice, Like, you know, can you
Speaker 1: do that when we're at home? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: So that was when I got That's when I got
Speaker 1: noticed or paid attention to. Is when I was when
Speaker 1: I did something really great. Yeah, you like, can I
Speaker 1: just get noticed when I'm not doing something extraordinary exactly
Speaker 1: when I'm just kind of being me? Yeah? Yeah, just
Speaker 1: being me? Wow. Okay, So you have this conversation with him,
Speaker 1: you have this resolve, and I'm going to fast forward
Speaker 1: now roughly fifteen years. You're called to the scene of
Speaker 1: a fire and you're asked to identify if there are
Speaker 1: any humans still in that building. So yeah, so we
Speaker 1: were dispatched to how fire and were got their second
Speaker 1: and the first engine had already gone in and knocked
Speaker 1: out most of the fire. Me and my crew were
Speaker 1: sent in and battalion chief told me, you know, everybody
Speaker 1: out here keeps saying that there's somebody inside still. He
Speaker 1: goes I don't think there is, but will you and
Speaker 1: your crew I please go in and just make sure
Speaker 1: there's nobody in there still. And I'm like absolutely, So,
Speaker 1: you know, we went up there, and the way the
Speaker 1: fire had burned was really strange, and it kind of
Speaker 1: distracted me, and it distracted my crew a little bit,
Speaker 1: and we looked around. We kind of poked our head
Speaker 1: in there, but didn't look really well. And like I said,
Speaker 1: we were distracted by some other stuff going on. And
Speaker 1: so I called down the radio and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's all clear, there's nobody in here. So my firefighter
Speaker 1: and I were at one end of the hall and
Speaker 1: I just like kind of was churning my head, and
Speaker 1: I looked down the hallway and here comes to firefighters
Speaker 1: like awkwardly carrying a man who's just you know, completely
Speaker 1: ashen and limp. And it's like everything went into slow
Speaker 1: motion for me, like I just fucked up so bad,
Speaker 1: Like this guy's been in here and I couldn't find him.
Speaker 1: And they carried him down the stairs and put him
Speaker 1: in the amulance and the amilts took him away, and
Speaker 1: you know, he's dead. He'd been dead for a while.
Speaker 1: And then I and then I went on like the
Speaker 1: rest of the night, like nothing had really happened, and
Speaker 1: you know, just finished with other stuff that we had
Speaker 1: to do and other work we had to do, and
Speaker 1: went back to our station, took showers, and went on
Speaker 1: with it. So yeah, So I came home the next
Speaker 1: day and I started talking about this call like incessantly,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really realize that I was doing that,
Speaker 1: but Lisa, my wife, said, you know, you've been on
Speaker 1: way calls a thousand times, but you never talked about
Speaker 1: him like this one. And I think what I was
Speaker 1: doing was I was trying to somehow, you know, rationalize
Speaker 1: what happened by like talking about it over and over,
Speaker 1: maybe something would come through where I would rationalize it.
Speaker 1: And I just couldn't do that on this call. I
Speaker 1: was sure that on this call, there was something that
Speaker 1: I could have done to make it different, to make
Speaker 1: the outcome different, to you know, that that guy would
Speaker 1: have lived if I had just done this, or if
Speaker 1: I had just done that, or if I just found
Speaker 1: him sooner, or if I just got on scene sooner.
Speaker 1: And you know, we kind of we call that magical
Speaker 1: thinking that there was something I could do to change it.
Speaker 1: And when you look back and you know all the
Speaker 1: facts are said and done, it's like there's nothing I
Speaker 1: could have done. He was passed away, you know, before
Speaker 1: anybody got on scene. I think magical thinking is such
Speaker 1: an understandable response. I mean, in cognitive science, there is
Speaker 1: a concept called the illusion of control, which is the
Speaker 1: idea that that's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, we think
Speaker 1: we have more control over outcomes than we actually do.
Speaker 1: And in this context, Christie, that makes so much sense
Speaker 1: to me, because in order for you to keep working
Speaker 1: on the front lines in such dangerous settings, it is
Speaker 1: important to feel that you are in control and you
Speaker 1: are making a difference. And so when good things happen,
Speaker 1: you want to take full ownership of the good thing happening.
Speaker 1: But of course, the flip side to that is when
Speaker 1: things don't go well, even when it's due to factors
Speaker 1: entirely out of your control, as very well made in
Speaker 1: the case for this gentleman that was in the building,
Speaker 1: still you're equally likely to put responsibility on yourself, right
Speaker 1: in this case, to blame yourself absolutely. And that's something
Speaker 1: that first responders, like all of us do because that's
Speaker 1: who we are as we're rescuers, and if we don't
Speaker 1: rescue somebody, then we do something wrong and we're not
Speaker 1: a rescuer anymore, and then we're basically a failure. And
Speaker 1: so I started noticing something was going on with me.
Speaker 1: I was angry, I was irritable. I stopped sleeping, you know,
Speaker 1: when the tones would go off for a call, and
Speaker 1: it didn't matter what kind of call, my anxiety would
Speaker 1: just it just the physiological response to getting a call,
Speaker 1: even if it was for something totally minor, was the
Speaker 1: same as if you know, they had said there's some
Speaker 1: huge school shooting and you're going to be first in,
Speaker 1: and it was the same exact response. And then another
Speaker 1: big thing that would start happening to me is it's
Speaker 1: a like a videotape, like would play on a loop
Speaker 1: of calls that I've been on, like in the last
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five years, over my whole career, and
Speaker 1: calls that I never even you've really thought of in
Speaker 1: the years and years and years, Like I had a
Speaker 1: call involving a water delivery truck and it had ran
Speaker 1: over a professor or on the campus, and so we
Speaker 1: were scrambling to get the truck lifted. So we could
Speaker 1: get the guy out, and by the time we got
Speaker 1: him out, he was dead. So every time I'd see
Speaker 1: this certain water delivery truck, like this videotape would start
Speaker 1: playing in my head and it would start off, you know,
Speaker 1: with two with obviously that water truck call, and then
Speaker 1: you know, I had a call where there's a husband
Speaker 1: and a wife were rejected out of a car after
Speaker 1: they hit a tree, and I was the only medic
Speaker 1: on scene. And then it would go to the call
Speaker 1: with all those kids in that fire, and then when
Speaker 1: to go to this other gruesome call, and it and
Speaker 1: another call and another call, and it just played in
Speaker 1: the sloop in my head and it got to the
Speaker 1: point where I couldn't turn it off, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: like for example, I was I was playing tennis with
Speaker 1: my wife one time and and she stops and walks
Speaker 1: to the net and says, where are you? And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in Berkeley trying to extricate this kid out
Speaker 1: of this car right now. And my mind would go
Speaker 1: there and it would just stay there and I couldn't
Speaker 1: I couldn't get out of my head. It was it
Speaker 1: was like being locked in a movie theater with something
Speaker 1: just horrible playing with the volume turned all the way
Speaker 1: up and the brightness turned all the way up and
Speaker 1: you can't close your eyes and you can't get away
Speaker 1: from it. And that would go on for I mean
Speaker 1: all day, yeah, and you know until I'd fall asleep,
Speaker 1: and you know, then I'd have nightmares and I'd wake
Speaker 1: up screaming and I'd flip myself out of bed. And
Speaker 1: I had a nightmare in particular where somebody had thrown
Speaker 1: a toddler into the pool and so I jumped into
Speaker 1: save him, but I couldn't. I couldn't break the plane
Speaker 1: of the water. And my dream and what it was
Speaker 1: was I was trying to dive into my bed like
Speaker 1: my bed was the water. And you know, my wife
Speaker 1: finally woke me up, and I mean, I just so
Speaker 1: many dreams like that of trying to save somebody and
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get to him in time. And so
Speaker 1: that's what my nights became. And you know, the daytime
Speaker 1: was a video and anxiety and anger, and my nights
Speaker 1: were those nightmares. It sounds like hell on earth, wow,
Speaker 1: And I just it was just like the most painful
Speaker 1: thing ever. We'll be back in a moment with a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans. Christie Warren had placed all of
Speaker 1: her painful feelings and memories into a box for more
Speaker 1: than two decades. The box was now open, and despite
Speaker 1: her best efforts, she just could not close it. During
Speaker 1: the day, Christie's mind played an endless loop of graphic
Speaker 1: images she had seen in her work, and at night,
Speaker 1: violent dreams kept her awake and rattled. She finally felt
Speaker 1: it was time to see a therapist. I really walked
Speaker 1: in there with the attitude of like, okay, fixed me,
Speaker 1: Like let's do this, let's talk about this, and then
Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to work, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to fill any of the stuff anymore. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, I told her what was going on, and
Speaker 1: she says, you have PTSD and I said, oh no,
Speaker 1: I don't. That's impossible. I'm and I'm not patting myself
Speaker 1: on the back, but I am one of the toughest
Speaker 1: people out there, and this, this is not possible. I
Speaker 1: can't have PTSD. And she's like, well, I really think
Speaker 1: you do. And I just kept saying like nope, let's
Speaker 1: fix me, like give me some breathing exercises or give me,
Speaker 1: you know, something to make this stuff stop. And and
Speaker 1: but that's it. I can't. I can't go there. I can't.
Speaker 1: I have to work. You know, if you ask me
Speaker 1: what's the very worst thing that could ever happen to me,
Speaker 1: it would be getting PTSD and not being able to
Speaker 1: do my job because of, you know, some emotional weakness.
Speaker 1: Say more about that that it would be the worst
Speaker 1: imaginable thing to happen to you. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was going through this and I was off work, I
Speaker 1: was watching some video about the Boston marathon bombing and
Speaker 1: there was a guy in there had lost his legs,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'd give anything to lose my
Speaker 1: legs instead of having this, because it's it's like more
Speaker 1: honorable to lose your legs, and it's so dishonorable, and
Speaker 1: it's just so shameful to cry at work and have
Speaker 1: anxiety and like not be able to handle your job.
Speaker 1: You know, if you lose your legs, you lose your legs,
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about it. But but to
Speaker 1: emotionally not be able to handle your job, and it's
Speaker 1: just totally unacceptable. So yeah, so I continue to work,
Speaker 1: and she kept saying he takes some time off and
Speaker 1: I kept saying, you know, no, I can handle this,
Speaker 1: and you know I'll figure out a way. So I
Speaker 1: got off work one morning, and I've been at work
Speaker 1: for probably almost four days in a row. Every time
Speaker 1: I got off work, I'd start crying on the way home.
Speaker 1: So this day I said, I'm not gonna cry, Like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it home and I'm not gonna cry.
Speaker 1: And so I fought it and fought it, fought it,
Speaker 1: and I made it all the way home without crying,
Speaker 1: and I sent my wife a text and I said,
Speaker 1: I got this, Like I didn't cry on the way home.
Speaker 1: I got this. And then I was going to go
Speaker 1: meet somebody to play tennis. And I got in my
Speaker 1: car to drive to the tennis courts, and the whole
Speaker 1: world came just tumbling down on me. It I was,
Speaker 1: it's just everything just blew open and blew apart, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't go back to work. I just can't. And
Speaker 1: then my only option is to either kill myself or
Speaker 1: really to hurt myself so bad that like even if
Speaker 1: I'm in a coma for a month, I don't have
Speaker 1: to go back to work for a month and I
Speaker 1: don't have to tell anybody why. You know, people will
Speaker 1: care about me and worry about me, and no one
Speaker 1: will call me a pussy and nobody will know what
Speaker 1: happened to me that I can't handle my job. And
Speaker 1: it's like that that just sounds amazing. And I I
Speaker 1: started looking for you know, pull to drive into, and
Speaker 1: then I'm like, yeah, poles fall over too easily, and
Speaker 1: need to find a nice, dirty tree. And then I
Speaker 1: started thinking about the first responders that would go out
Speaker 1: on me, and I'd just be adding another thing to
Speaker 1: their box and put them through, you know, more stuff,
Speaker 1: and and so I was like, just make it to
Speaker 1: the tennis courts, like, just get yourself there. And I
Speaker 1: somehow managed to get myself there, and I sent my
Speaker 1: wife a text and I said, no matter what I
Speaker 1: say or how much better I feel after my four
Speaker 1: days off, I said, you cannot let me go back
Speaker 1: to work like I can't. And so that it was
Speaker 1: then that I realized I gotta do something about this,
Speaker 1: like for real, I need help and I can't just
Speaker 1: keep pushing this away. And so the next day, you know,
Speaker 1: I called work and said I gotta I can't come
Speaker 1: into work. And you know, they asked me why had
Speaker 1: I pause for a long time? Because it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: what's everybody gonna start talking about me? And it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be confidential, but you know who knows. And so
Speaker 1: I told the battalion chief and I go, this is
Speaker 1: the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 1: It is to say I can't come into work, and
Speaker 1: you know, turning this paperwork in it was it was
Speaker 1: the hardest thing I'd ever done. And at this moment,
Speaker 1: do you plan to still come back? I mean, was
Speaker 1: that the spirit with which you were having this conversation? Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I actually went and talk to the fire chief and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm crying in his office, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna fix this,
Speaker 1: and I'm coming back to work, like there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. You know, save my seat. I'm coming back.
Speaker 1: I absolutely will come back. This will not this will
Speaker 1: not win. Yeah, because I'm assuming in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind you're thinking I'm gonna make it to that
Speaker 1: damn retirement. I made a commitment to myself, right yep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I just pause and say like, I'm so filled
Speaker 1: with gratitude that you're with us on this planet today,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that you thought of those first responders.
Speaker 1: You're the sweetest, thank you very much. That means a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that you're here. I am too, actually
Speaker 1: very grateful. Yeah, I know that after you decide to
Speaker 1: take time off of work, you get wind of a
Speaker 1: retreat that's exclusively dedicated to helping support first responders who
Speaker 1: are suffering from PTSD and it's called the West Coast
Speaker 1: Post Trauma Retreat. So yeah, so I had like three
Speaker 1: or four people tell me, like, you know, like my
Speaker 1: therapist and the workers' comp lawyer and a couple other
Speaker 1: people are like, you need to go to this retreat.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't need to go to some
Speaker 1: sixth day residential retreat. I'm I'm not like one of them.
Speaker 1: And so finally things got really bad where I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll go. So I ended up going in
Speaker 1: January and they put us all at the same table,
Speaker 1: and you know, so I've been sitting at a table
Speaker 1: with other firefighters and police officers and dispatchers, and and
Speaker 1: I look around the room and there's like probably a
Speaker 1: total of twenty four people in there, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all these people here have gone through what I'm going through.
Speaker 1: You know, we we go through this thing where we
Speaker 1: talk about our symptoms and it's like we all have
Speaker 1: the same symptoms. And it was the first time that
Speaker 1: I realized and it was like the greatest gift in
Speaker 1: the whole world that I'm not alone. It's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not the only one. And you know, there
Speaker 1: were there were some badass dudes in that room, like
Speaker 1: these big, tattered out, tough asked dudes in that room,
Speaker 1: and it was like like if it can happen to them,
Speaker 1: it's like it's okay that this happened to me. And
Speaker 1: realizing that I wasn't alone and that I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: I always thought like, we have one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five uniform people in my department. Why am I the
Speaker 1: only one that can't handle their shit? And so we
Speaker 1: get there in the afternoon, and then on the first
Speaker 1: morning that we're there, every morning we do a check in.
Speaker 1: Everybody goes around the room and you know, does it
Speaker 1: check in? And I start crying, like I haven't said
Speaker 1: anything nobody. It's nothing like anything profound that somebody said.
Speaker 1: I just start crying and I can't stop crying, and
Speaker 1: people are talking and I just keep crying. And there's
Speaker 1: two therapists, there are two clinicians, and one of them Mark,
Speaker 1: he's one of the founders of this retreat. He says, hey,
Speaker 1: let's stop for a minute. And he and he says,
Speaker 1: he says Christi. He goes, what's going on with you?
Speaker 1: And I shit, you not. I turned behind me and
Speaker 1: I looked behind me, like who are you talking to?
Speaker 1: Like you're not talking to me? Like like you stop
Speaker 1: this whole room and everything to check on me and
Speaker 1: ask how I am. And it's like it's like nobody's
Speaker 1: done that before. And it was like I was It's
Speaker 1: like I was seen for the first time. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not putting on my best foot. In fact, it
Speaker 1: felt like it was my worst foot forward. I was
Speaker 1: crying and and not keeping my shit together and I
Speaker 1: was seeing being, like I said, just being in my
Speaker 1: worst or not at my best, and and that that really,
Speaker 1: that kind of that was like started my journey. That's
Speaker 1: that started my healing. I should say, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: pretty profound. Wow, Yeah, what I'm hearing in this moment
Speaker 1: is your discovery that you, Christie, can still be noticed
Speaker 1: and still be visible to others, and still be cared
Speaker 1: for even when you're not in this hero role, right,
Speaker 1: even when you're not performing in your first responder role.
Speaker 1: And i'd even more than that, at one of the
Speaker 1: lowest moments of your life, exactly, people still care about you.
Speaker 1: You're still valuable. Yeah, I'm worthy, just the way I was,
Speaker 1: just the way I am. Yeah. Can you share a
Speaker 1: bit more, Christy about how your relationship with your PTSD
Speaker 1: changed through this experience? You know, no longer coding it
Speaker 1: as a failure. You know, it's funny to use that
Speaker 1: word failure because that's a word that I used all
Speaker 1: the time. Is I would constantly say I'm a failure,
Speaker 1: Like I failed at this, I failed at everything. I
Speaker 1: swore to myself, thought I would never depend on anybody,
Speaker 1: that I would be a super tough, strong firefighter that
Speaker 1: could withstand anything, and we'll make it to retirement. And
Speaker 1: I was just an utter failure. And then at this retreat,
Speaker 1: I learned that I didn't fail. It was it was
Speaker 1: like almost what my greatest strength was also my greatest weakness.
Speaker 1: My ability to do so well under pressure and perform
Speaker 1: under these incredible circumstances and shove this stuff away was
Speaker 1: also what made me get PTSD and that it was
Speaker 1: a physical injury. Like I was so blown away when
Speaker 1: I heard that that it's actually your amygdala basically gets
Speaker 1: turned on high alert and there is no switch to
Speaker 1: turn it off, and you can't turn it off, and
Speaker 1: your brain, your brain changes shape, you can, you know,
Speaker 1: you go into a brain scan and and somebody who
Speaker 1: ask PTSD and somebody who doesn't, their brains will look
Speaker 1: totally different and there's nothing you can do about. It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with you and your strength. It's
Speaker 1: like no different than getting cancer or breaking a leg
Speaker 1: or it's just it's on you know, physiological injury. And
Speaker 1: when I learned that it just I was just dumbfounded.
Speaker 1: It was like, Wow, this isn't me, Like I didn't fail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know there's a stigma around addressing any mental health
Speaker 1: related issues and something like the fire service, but there's
Speaker 1: an additional stigma placed on taking medication. And I know
Speaker 1: for you that was actually the final step for you
Speaker 1: to really heal was to be willing to take that
Speaker 1: leap and actually say no, I need medication to help
Speaker 1: this injury in my brain, to help it heal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I was doing better after the retreat, and
Speaker 1: I was feeling better, and I still have some spiraling times.
Speaker 1: And I had one spiral that couldn't shake no matter
Speaker 1: what I did. And then when I learned it was
Speaker 1: a physical injury, and I felt like I could do
Speaker 1: all that I could do myself in terms of healing myself.
Speaker 1: And you know, I could tell myself if I was
Speaker 1: a good person and I was worthy and all this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I was like, I might as well
Speaker 1: try medication. And I tried medication and it worked, and
Speaker 1: I was like, why didn't I do this a long
Speaker 1: time ago? It puts the floor under you. I didn't
Speaker 1: spiral anymore. You know, I had my moments, but I'd
Speaker 1: hit a landing instead of just continuing to fall. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the medications made just all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1: And they turned off they turned off that videotape, and
Speaker 1: they slowed the nightmares down. I could sleep, and everything
Speaker 1: started changing. My brain started healing. So you ultimately decide,
Speaker 1: Christie that you will not actually return to the fire
Speaker 1: department yeah. See, I really wanted to go back to work,
Speaker 1: and I kept saying like, I might go back to work,
Speaker 1: Like even up until the very end, in the back
Speaker 1: of my head, I knew I wasn't going to go
Speaker 1: back to work, but I didn't want to like face it,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want to close the lid or
Speaker 1: close the book quite yet. And I made some comment
Speaker 1: about going back to work, and my wife looked at
Speaker 1: me deadpan and says, you can go back to work,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to stick around for it. And
Speaker 1: we've been together for twenty eight years and been through
Speaker 1: thick and thin, and and for her to say that
Speaker 1: it really hit home that, like, yeah, why would I
Speaker 1: Why would I do that to myself? And why would
Speaker 1: I do this to her? Because what she's gone through
Speaker 1: has just been hell. Also, yeah, the families go through
Speaker 1: so much. And one of the stations I worked at
Speaker 1: on my shift, they kept bugging me to come in
Speaker 1: for dinner and I'd say, yeah, I'll come in, and
Speaker 1: I'd always find a reason not to, just because of
Speaker 1: the anxiety. And I was so afraid. And then finally
Speaker 1: when I was I felt like I was up to it.
Speaker 1: I went back and had dinner, and I was I
Speaker 1: was so blown away with how they treated me and
Speaker 1: and yeah, nobody, nobody looked down on me, and nobody
Speaker 1: thought I was weak. I even pulled one of the
Speaker 1: guys aside and I said, hey, I go, so, what's
Speaker 1: everybody's saying about me? And he goes, nobody's talking about you.
Speaker 1: He says, we're all talking about that. If this can
Speaker 1: happen to you, this can happen to any of us,
Speaker 1: and we need to get our ship together as a
Speaker 1: department and do something about this so this doesn't happen
Speaker 1: to anybody else. And I was just so blown away
Speaker 1: that just how much they cared for me. And here
Speaker 1: I thought the whole time that they would look down
Speaker 1: on me and say horrible things about me, and and
Speaker 1: I just was treated with so much love and kindness
Speaker 1: and and like respect, you know, like there were some
Speaker 1: brand new guys there and they call me captain, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was pretty amazing. It was
Speaker 1: really amazing. It's like I'd come full circle. And I
Speaker 1: laughed there and I did drive through one of the
Speaker 1: districts that I worked in that was really busy and
Speaker 1: par It drove me crazy. And I drove through there going,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't have to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I don't have to get up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night anymore, and I don't have to come
Speaker 1: home exhausted. And you know, my wife would always say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd say, what are we going to do
Speaker 1: tomorrow when I come home? And she would always say,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. It depends on what comes
Speaker 1: through the front door. And you know, I always thought
Speaker 1: she meant, you know, how tired I was, or how
Speaker 1: little sleep I got, And it wasn't that, it was
Speaker 1: what kind of Christie's going to come through the front door,
Speaker 1: and you know, the one that got a good night's
Speaker 1: sleep and isn't a good mood, or the one that
Speaker 1: just had to tell a wife that her husband's dead
Speaker 1: and there's nothing we can do, or the one that
Speaker 1: just was covered in blood from some horrible call and
Speaker 1: is distant and isolating. And so yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't have to do that anymore. I mean, I
Speaker 1: did it for twenty five years, and I started when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen. I was like just a kid. And
Speaker 1: to realize that I didn't have to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: To still be worthy and valuable and and count in
Speaker 1: this world. It was just like the most incredible feeling
Speaker 1: ever that it can just be me now and I
Speaker 1: don't have to I don't have to worry that cape anymore.
Speaker 1: Christie made it to retirement after all. She was granted
Speaker 1: a medical retirement by the Berkeley Fire Department in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen at the age of forty six. This type of
Speaker 1: retirement is given to service members who sustained physical injuries
Speaker 1: while on the job. Christie is currently writing a memoir
Speaker 1: about her experiences as a first responder. It comes out
Speaker 1: next year. Hey, thanks so much for listening. On next
Speaker 1: week's episode, we hear from Priya Parker, a group dialogue
Speaker 1: and conflict resolution expert. Priya has used lessons from her
Speaker 1: work in these fields to rethink how we gather. She
Speaker 1: focuses on making things like weddings, birthdays, and dinner parties
Speaker 1: more meaningful and makes it more manageable for people like
Speaker 1: me who get really stressed by logistics. What I wanted
Speaker 1: to do is detangle gathering from the stuff of gathering,
Speaker 1: from food from hosting. The Martha Stewart archetype that like
Speaker 1: the way to host wells to prepare a kruttas three
Speaker 1: days in advance, to be an expert in food, to
Speaker 1: be an expert in floral, to be an expert in esthetics,
Speaker 1: and all of those things create beauty and meaning. But
Speaker 1: they're the hygiene, right, it's not. Actually what do you
Speaker 1: do with these people? A Slight Change of Plans is created,
Speaker 1: written an executive produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight
Speaker 1: Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our story editor
Speaker 1: Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vastola, and our
Speaker 1: associate producer Sarah McCrae. Louis Skara wrote our delightful theme song,
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. See you
Speaker 1: next week.