Christy Warren – A firefighter’s journey through PTSD

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:32] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And again tonight, this is, it's late in the UK for me, Christy, but I'm delighted to have a guest sitting in front of me, resplendent in the middle of the day. And her name is Christy Warren. So first of all, good evening or good afternoon or good morning, wherever you are. Yes, good afternoon. Good evening. Thank you so much for having me, Russell. I really appreciate it. Absolute pleasure. So where in the world are you, Christy? I can spot the accents not from these fair shores.

[00:01:01] No, I am in the United States, California, like the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm about 20 minutes outside of just kind of northeast of San Francisco. Wow. It's very hot here right now. I was going to say, you had all those terrible fires and it's really nasty. Yeah, we have a lot of fires. Yeah. Yeah. It's been hot. It's been really hot. Well, look, it's been a delight to talk to you. So tell us a bit about yourself. What is it that you do?

[00:01:27] So I was a firefighter paramedic for 25 years in Berkeley, California. I think a lot of people have heard of Berkeley and I had a great career and I loved it. And I ended up getting PTSD and having to retire a few years early. And I faced a lot of shame and I struggled with it a lot and it was a pretty tough road. And so that's just kind of like kind of why I'm here is talk about my story and just so other people know that they're not alone.

[00:01:57] Great. Well, look, let's go back to the beginning for a minute. Why become a firefighter? What was the attraction in the beginning? So I originally wanted to become a doctor, you know, to college right after high school and I wanted to be a doctor. And I kind of started going down that road and I needed something to do for a summer. And so I took an EMT class and got a job that summer on an ambulance and I just fell in love. It was, you know, the high pace, the action of it.

[00:02:25] But I found that I'm very good at kind of reacting to things that happen in front of me rather than like long term planning and thinking things through. And I found I was really good at it and I really, really liked it. Like it's just, you know, they say that we don't really choose this job. The job chooses us. And that's what it did. And I was hooked and I kept I kept going to school, but I decided that I'd rather follow the paramedic career path

[00:02:53] than go spend all my time in a hospital. Yeah. So, yeah, I just I just fell in love with the job. It's a peculiar job, isn't it? Because I guess it has high periods of massive stress, huge risk and real danger. And you've got quite long periods of doing nothing and sort of, you know, low stress and, you know, being on being on in a state of readiness, I suppose.

[00:03:21] So I guess you need some sort of particular qualities to to become a good firefighter. What would you say there were? Well, the qualities, like I said, you know, one of the things is, you know, have to be really good at reacting to what's like right in front of you. And, you know, there's not very much time to think. And we have to make a lot of really like serious decisions with very little information. And you are absolutely right.

[00:03:45] There's periods of like intense, crazy stress followed by periods of just absolute, you know, boredom. Yeah. You know, it's getting the business is getting busier and busier just as populations increase and cities become more dense. So those downtimes are almost becoming few and far between. And they found that they did a study where they measured firefighters cortisol levels, you know, throughout like a 24 or 48.

[00:04:12] We work 48 hour shifts out here and they found that our cortisol levels were just as high when we were sitting in a recliner, you know, watching a movie, eating a bowl of ice cream than it was when we were on a very stressful call. And that's because, you know, we, at any second, like you said, you even mentioned it, like that operational readiness at any second, you know, the whole world could fall apart and we would be called to go fix it. So our nervous systems are like always on edge and just always kind of like ready to go. Yeah.

[00:04:41] It's interesting you say that because of course the point about cortisol is that at least when you're firefighting, the cortisol will be even higher, but you're using a lot of that up as well. Whereas that state of anxiety or operational readiness is a challenge, isn't it? Because you, you have to maintain that sort of focus and you often find that at the blue light. We call them the blue light services over here. So ambulance, paramedic, fire, please. We all have blue lights on tops of all vehicles. I forgot what I was going to say. I got myself so interested in talking about the blue lights.

[00:05:11] I was going to say, anyway, it doesn't matter. But I think it's, I think it's, it's, it's quite an interesting, or what I was going to say was there's a high incidence of very particular types of human that appear across those sorts of disciplines, aren't they? It's quite, it's quite dark humor, isn't it? It's very dark humor. And, you know, a lot of the rest of the world wouldn't quite understand. I think a lot of times, like if they really heard how we talk, they'd just be mortified.

[00:05:38] But it's, it's one of our ways of, you know, of dealing with the stress. And, you know, you hear, you know, firefighters or police officers kind of getting caught, you know, sending a black humor text, you know, or saying something, you know, that's, that was not meant for the public, public's ears. But it is, it's really a way for us to deal with stress. And it's almost a way of our brain kind of making sense of what happened or trying to

[00:06:04] like D kind of regulator or make it smaller than it is. Cause if we, if we truly felt the impact of everything that we saw, we would be equivalent or quivering like little balls of jello. Like we would not, you know, be able to function and continue on to do our job. And so, you know, we find ways to cope and that's a coping mechanism. And it's like, yeah, it does kind of make light of something horrible that's happened, but it's, it's really the only way that we can really go on and do our jobs.

[00:06:34] And it's the same in the military, isn't it? It's that way of binding people together, isn't it? It's that it's, it's, it's inclusive therefore by its very nature is exclusive as well. Exactly. Yeah. And it must be even more interesting when you sort of progress through the ranks because you're going from being a firefighter to a sort of middle ranking firefighter to a more senior fire writer, but you're still operational. I'm guessing you're still on the, on the vehicles. So, so tell me about that. How does, how does that challenge change? Yeah, that's a really good question.

[00:07:02] So, yeah, so we have three different ranks for the most part, you know, firefighter and then what you call them apparatus operators or some departments call them engineers. And they're the driver and the operator of, you know, either the fire engine or the truck or the rescue. And then we have captains and the captains are kind of the boss of the engine and, you know, they make the decisions and things really do change because, you know, when you go to, especially a dangerous call and you're a firefighter, you're a driver, you're putting your own life on the line.

[00:07:32] Yeah. But when you're a captain and you're making decisions for your crew, you're putting not only your life on the line, but you're putting your crew's life on the line. So it's a really much heavier responsibility. And it's one that you don't seem to really understand or feel until you sit in that seat, you know, and have to make those decisions. And, you know, sometimes, you know, when you're a really, really aggressive firefighter and then you become a captain and you might pull back a little bit and people might say, oh,

[00:07:59] you've changed or, you know, or whatever, but it's, it's, it's really because your responsibility level is so changed. And, you know, as a captain, I definitely felt that, you know, like if it would be one thing for, you know, me to do something or to get caught in something where I didn't go home the next morning, but for me to make a decision that impacts my crew and then for them to get hurt and not make it home the next morning, you know, or, and then you think about their families and it's much, much higher level of responsibility in terms of what we carry for that. Yeah.

[00:08:29] No, that was a really good question. And I guess you get caught in some of the sort of politics of it as well, don't you? Because I guess there's a, there must be a delicate balance between, you know, creating 5 million pounds worth of damage to rescue a cat sort of idea. You know, it's, there must be, you must have that, that, that degree of being aware of the environment and other people in the area, but also taking decisions that are expedient, but don't create huge amounts of damage where I guess it's like any manager, isn't it?

[00:08:56] You're, you're, you're balancing pros and cons, risks and rewards and safety as well as the ability to execute something. But I guess, I guess you must get to that stage where, you know, certain captains are a lot more expensive to have on the team than others because they're just great, huge amounts of damage. I mean, is that a thing or is that just in the movies? That is a true, you know, the issue that needs to be dealt with, but, you know, a lot of times

[00:09:24] like making decisions whether to, yeah, to risk something or to not risk something, you know, to take, to, I mean, we really don't rescue cats out of trees, but, but even something as simple as that, like, even if we did need to, you know, do something like that, I mean, because we, we care about animals and we want to help animals and, you know, you make that decision like, okay, we are going to go rescue this animal and, you know, somebody else needs us, then, you know, we're not available to take care of them.

[00:09:52] And so, yeah, so those, I mean, every single, as a captain, every, really every decision you make has an impact somewhere. Yeah. Now you mentioned that right at the top of this PTSD and there's, there are people who accumulate PTSD over the course of time and there are people who have a specific incident that creates PTSD. So maybe what could you sort of talk a little bit about if you don't mind a little bit about your, your, how PTSD manifested itself with you originally? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:10:21] So PTSD, there actually is called, so PTSD stands for post-traumatic. Traumatic stress disorder. And we're trying to change it to PTSI or just PTS and because it's actually an injury, it's like a physiological injury. So what happens is when your brain is exposed to trauma, especially the cumulative, you know, over and over and over your, your nervous system kind of like takes a hit like every single time. And that stuff starts to build up.

[00:10:46] And, you know, I went throughout my career, I did 25 years and working in very busy systems and I was fine. I mean, like I was not struggling. I didn't have any problems. I was not just had absolutely no symptoms, you know, just went on a call and was fine afterwards and kind of everything was going along great. And then I had a fatality fire and I've had plenty of fatality fires. And for some reason, this one was kind of like how I liken it.

[00:11:15] Like I have a box in my head and I go on a bad call and I put it in the box and I close the lid. And then, you know, you just keep doing that throughout your career. And this last fatal fire, you know, I tried to put it in the box and close the lid and the box was full. And my nervous system was, what was like kind of finally was like done. And so there's a little part of your brain called the amygdala and the amygdala is like your warning center. It's kind of like your fight or flight center.

[00:11:42] So, you know, something jumps out of you at the bushes and, you know, we all feel that fight or flight and that's your amygdala telling you that, you know, there's danger you need to react. And however our bodies react is how we react. But so what happens with PTSD is that amygdala gets turned on and does not turn off. So you're in a constant state of fight or flight, like 24 hours a day. So what like happened with me is I started experiencing after this fire, I started experiencing symptoms.

[00:12:07] Like I started feeling anxiety, like all the time, you know, when the tones would go off in this fire station to tell us that we had a call, it didn't matter if it was for something like a cat in the tree or, you know, somebody who twisted their ankle. I had the same physiological response. If they had said, you know, a school is on fire and there's, you know, several children trapped. I would, my body felt the exact same way. I stopped sleeping. My sleep was just kind of like completely disappeared.

[00:12:35] I started having nightmares, you know, about calls and rescuing people or not being able to rescue people. I started having like a videotape would play in my head over and over of calls that I'd been on like in the last 25 years. Stuff I hadn't thought about in years was all of a sudden popping up. And I was like constantly is it's almost like having a flashback. Like you're just constantly there and it's just like plays in a loop in your head over and over and over.

[00:13:03] And it's, it felt like being like trapped in a movie theater with a really horrific movie playing, you know, and the brightness is turned all the way up and the volume is turned all the way up. And, you know, the doors are locked and you can't get out. And, and it's just, it's overwhelming. And, you know, you hide it for a while and then, and then I started, you know, I was never a crier. I, and then I started crying at work and that was like another really crazy symptom that I was like, I had no idea where this came from.

[00:13:32] And so, yeah. And so, you know, nobody gets out of this job unaffected like all of us do, but whether or not you, you actually get, you know, like the actual post-traumatic stress injury, you know, where that amygdala gets flipped, the switch gets flipped and it's on, you know, 24 hours a day. And, you know, whether that happens to you or not is, you know, nobody will really know, I think, but, you know, other things happen, like the brain changes shape.

[00:13:58] It changes the chemicals that it makes and the chemicals that it can absorb. And you can actually see PTS on a, on a brain scan. You can take somebody who doesn't have it. Like if you want to call it a normal brain and then compare that with somebody who has PTS and they look very, very different. So it's actually, and I think that's one thing a lot of people don't know is that it's actually, it's a physical injury. It's like, it's no different than blowing your knee out. You know, it's, it's the same like kind of injury.

[00:14:27] And there's, and there's something golden is there about the, the rise of the use of the phrase without it being linked to the actual condition. So you have people who have had a mildly difficult experience claiming they have PTSD and, and it sort of diminishes the, the actual true nature of the condition, isn't it? And it's must be quite galling with someone who's actually experienced some of the more extreme effects of it to hear people who have mildly had a difficult day claiming they have PTSD. Yeah.

[00:14:57] And I know exactly what you're saying, you know, and every once in a while it'll kind of strike me funny of like, yeah, you really have no idea what you're talking about, but you know, I think people like that are just not educated, you know? And, and so I don't really, you know, I don't hold it against them, but it is, you know, like the word like trauma is, is used so much. It's like almost a buzzword and PTSD has almost become a buzzword and, and yeah, whether it's, you know, I mean, you, you can get PTSD from a single incident very, you know, very easily.

[00:15:25] And, you know, we all have different kind of brain chemistry and, you know, and, you know, just like people who might have, you know, bipolar or manic depressive or people have different other mental health issues. You know, you, I, you know, you probably can get PTSD from, you know, something relatively small, but, but yeah. But yeah. So how did you get through it? How did you reconstitute your brain?

[00:15:50] How did you begin to move past or encompass the situation and move forward? And I know you've done lots of extreme sports, so that's often a feature of people who've had an ex, you know, had high adrenaline jobs. But yeah, did you have a therapeutic approach as well? Oh yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I struggled for a really long time. You know, I felt a lot of shame and I did go, I started seeing a therapist and that helped for a little bit, but it really didn't change anything.

[00:16:19] You know, what really made a biggest difference was I found a retreat that is specifically for first responders who have PTSD. And it was a six day residential retreat. And it's, you know, I would say like spending time with people, with your peers, you know, other firefighters and cops and paramedics that have been through what I've been through and

[00:16:45] going through what I was going through was really like the first time that, you know, I felt like I was not alone and I was able to, you know, what was happening to me was real. Like we all think we're just going crazy, you know, because the job is, you know, like you're not supposed to feel that kind of thing, you know, and do this job. Like, you know, there's, I mean, there's still a lot of macho, you know, parts to it. And I mean, and it's also a true aspect of the job. Like you can't get emotional on the call. You have to kind of hold your, your, yourself together.

[00:17:15] But so it was really that it was lots of, you know, lots and lots of therapy. I finally, I started taking medications and that made a significant difference because, you know, like I said, like the, the chemical part of the change in your brain that address that. And then, you know, a big part of it too, is sleep. You know, we work 48 hour shifts out here and, you know, we don't sleep for 48 hours and, you know, and then we get four days off and everybody's like, oh, that sounds amazing.

[00:17:45] And it's like, well, you're exhausted for the first couple. And then you finally get a decent night's sleep. And then it's time to start all over again. That's brutal. And that's when it's absolutely brutal. And when your brain doesn't, you know, that's when your brain repairs itself when, when you're asleep. And so when you're not sleeping and you're, you know, hitting your, your head constantly, you know, with trauma, then it's like, that's like a double whammy. And so that was a big part, piece of my healing and getting better was getting to sleep. And is that still the case, Christy?

[00:18:13] Cause that's just so old, such an old fashioned idea to do 48 hour shifts. Yes. It's still that it is. It's a very old fashioned idea and it's really about money because then you have to, you know, if you want to break that up into smaller shifts and you have to pay a lot more. So, you know, the average work week is, I mean, I know a lot of people work more than that, but you know, it's like the average work week is like 40 hours a week and we work, you know, like anywhere from 72 to 96 hours a week.

[00:18:43] And so they, they would have to pay a lot more firefighters. And so it really comes down to money. Yeah. But yeah, so getting sleep, there's a lot of different therapies out there. There's one called EMDR, which is eye movement, rapid desensitization. And that works, that worked really well for me. I don't even think they know how it works, but it does. There's another therapy called brain spotting and that works really well. And then another one called the Stella ganglion block shot and that people have been having

[00:19:12] tremendous success with that. And, you know, and it's just something it's a, you know, I'm much better than I was, but I, you know, I still have times where, you know, I'll have some nightmares and, you know, they're very few and far between, but, you know, they say, you know, PTSD never really goes away. It just gets a lot better. Now, look, I've got a bit of advice for you if you don't mind. Absolutely. I think you should write a book all about this. Well, why thank you. Funny you should mention that Russell.

[00:19:41] I did write a book. Oh, see, I wrote, I wrote a book called Flashpoint and I've always liked to write, kind of always dabbled around in writing. And I just started writing, you know, about calls and kind of what I was going through. And I was like, one day I was like, I think I have a book here. And I really kind of have been on this mission to like help other people who are going through what I'm going through and, or have gone through what I've gone through.

[00:20:09] And, you know, when I went through it, I looked for books and there were no books. And I looked for, you know, for this is before kind of like the podcast, everything kind of blew up and, and there's really nothing out there. And that was one of the reasons why I felt so alone. And I was like, I don't want anybody to go through what I went through thinking that they're alone, that there's not help out there because first responders are more likely to die by suicide than in the line of duty. We are killing each other or killing each other.

[00:20:34] We are killing ourselves at an astronomical rate and yeah, and it just breaks my heart. And, you know, I came very close to dying by suicide and I fortunately I didn't. And yeah, I just, it just breaks my heart every time I hear another first responder that needlessly dies without knowing that there's help out there. And so, yeah, so that's, I wrote that book and, and that was like a hundred percent of the reason why I did it.

[00:20:59] And so, and so the books for other firefighters or to help non firefighters understand it or tell me, tell me who's your avatar. Yeah, both. Absolutely. So yeah, it's for first responders for sure. And then it's also for families of first responders because families, families go through so much. They're kind of like the unsung heroes, you know, just like in the military, you know, what the family, military families go through.

[00:21:25] And yeah, the families go through so much kind of dealing with us and our crazy schedule and coming home exhausted and coming home after, you know, really bad call or, and then when we get PTSD, you know, having to manage and deal with us. And so it's for the families to kind of understand more what it's like, because a lot of times, you know, people have a hard time articulating what they're going through. And then it's also for the general public who I don't think has a clue what first responders really do.

[00:21:51] You know, I've had friends who have been friends with forever and they know exactly what I do. And, you know, there'll be, I remember one time I was telling a story and one of my friends says like, you did that? I'm like, yeah. Like, you know, like, what do you think that we do? And so I just think people just don't, they don't know what we do. And so I really want to also, you know, kind of help educate the public and what we, what we go through and what we do. And especially when it comes time to, you know, make decision on, you know, electing politicians

[00:22:20] or, you know, making like out here, you know, the, there's a lot of political stuff going on about how our pensions were, you know, making all the cities go broke, which wasn't true. And so they changed our, our retirement age used to be 50 and then they changed it to 57 and that's going to be an absolute disaster. Then they have no idea. But I feel like if they had really educated themselves and they knew what first responders do and what we go through and how hard the job is on our bodies and our minds, like they

[00:22:49] would have never raised the retirement age of 57. So the thing is, it's, it's the sort of job, isn't it? You only appreciate it when everything's gone wrong. And that's the point of extreme risk, isn't it? And most people don't think about that because they don't experience it. And you only have to experience it once to completely change your life. But I'm just looking at the reviews on your site and you've got, I've never seen so many five-star, four-star, five-star reviews. Unbelievably well-reviewed books. It's obviously brilliant.

[00:23:18] So I was listening to everything you said, but I might have just gone and bought myself it as well because it sounds absolutely fantastic. So I can't wait to do that. But my guess also, Christy, is your expertise to make a brilliant podcast. So what are you doing about that? So, yes, I do have a podcast and yeah, actually I was on somebody's podcast and she has like a mental health podcast network and said, Hey, would you do a podcast for me? And at first I was like, no, no, like, that's not me. I don't want to do it. And then I was like, oh my God, like, wait a minute.

[00:23:46] Like I can, like, I can reach a lot of people. And so, yeah, so I have a podcast called the firefighter deconstructed. It's just a little podcast. It's just me. I don't have, I don't have an editor or a production manager or anything like that. And I don't make it, I don't make a dime off of it. And what it's, what it's for is it's really for first. I mean, it's for everybody who wants to listen, obviously, and learn about what we do.

[00:24:11] But my real goal is for first responders to listen to and hear what other first responders have gone through. So I have firefighters and police officers, paramedics, EMTs, you know, all the whole lot, you know, come on and they'll tell their story, you know, of getting PTSD or struggling at some point in their career and, and talk about how they managed it and, and kind of how they got better. And, you know, it does two things that, first of all, you know, like I said, it provides

[00:24:41] information for other people who are going through it, or they know somebody who's going through, I can't tell you how many emails I get from wives who have listened to it and says, Oh my God, this is like what my husband is going through. Like we'd had no idea. And now we know, and now we're going to get help. And, and, and then the other thing it does is it's in a kind of an unexpected kind of serendipity thing about it is people who come on and tell their stories, find it really therapeutic and really, really helpful.

[00:25:09] And yeah, I never really realized that that would happen, but, but yeah, when the people come on and tell their stories, it does a lot for them and, and they're really, really grateful for it. So, so yeah, so, so yeah, that's my little podcast. And I'm guessing you must have Instagram and all the other social media if anyone wants to reach out to and make contact. Yes. Yeah. People can find me. Yeah. I'm on Instagram, Facebook. Although I'm not on Facebook during the election very often because of all the political crap

[00:25:39] on there, but, but yeah, I'm on all the places and you know, my website.com, there's a contact form on there and I respond to every single person who writes in just because, you know, especially I, I just want to help people and that's really why I'm here. So yeah, if anybody has questions or needs resources, I can help point you in the right direction. And it's just, like I said, it's really about keeping us from killing ourselves and, and

[00:26:07] letting people know that there's so much help out there. And if you just go out and get it, you know, it's the scariest thing in the world to do. Like first responders don't ask for help. Like that's not who we are. We are the help. We are the solution. And so when we have to ask for help, it's just, it's a tremendous source of shame for us, but, but we all needed, we all need to ask for help and there's no shame in asking for help and you really can't do this alone. And so, yeah, there's just, there's so much help out there.

[00:26:35] As someone wiser than me once said, asking for help is a sign of strength, a sign of strength, isn't it? It absolutely is Russell. I remember thinking that I was like the strongest, toughest thing in the world. And then when it came time to ask for help, you know how hard I struggled with it. And then once I finally did, I realized like, wow, that was one of the bravest things I ever did. You know, so many of us first responders, you know, we think we're super brave because we run into burning buildings or we chase bad guys or, you know, we run to where the bullets are flying.

[00:27:03] And it's like, you know, we actually really like doing that. Like it's really not as, I mean, we do some very brave things, but that's really not our, it's not really brave because we really like doing it. Like it's, it's the other stuff that's asking for help and, and you kind of tapping out when we're tired or, or stuff like that. That's, that's where the bravery comes in. Yeah. Christy, you're a very wise person. Thank you for spending time with us today. It's been absolutely fantastic. Christy E.

[00:27:33] Warren, definitely Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all these socials, the books, flame points on Amazon. It's something you got to buy. I've just done it. So why aren't you? How about that, Christy? How did that, how did we do? Thank you so much, Russell. Thanks for having me on. I really, really appreciate it. You're the pleasure. Hi, I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com

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