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Deal With The Stress Or It Will Deal With You

Deal With The Stress Or It Will Deal With You

 As I go through my day, I think about how frustrated people get and that  some people may not have the right way to express themselves. I have  seen where some people may be destructive and others may be able to find  the correct constructive outlets. We all need to find the way that is  our proper stress management.

Some people may enjoy yoga or  certain mindfulness activities. Some of us may be a little more  physical, like running, weight lifting, or working on construction jobs  until we are exhausted. We need to explore for ourselves what avenue is  best for us.

If we do not get a chance to work out out stress,  it can take us out. Stress may show up in ways that we do not want.  Stress untreated is like when you take a bottle of a carbonated drink,  after you just shook it for a half an hour. You try to open it slowly  and not get sprayed but you need to be very diligent. Stress may rear  its ugly head in the form of a heart attack or other physical ailments  or may play a number on your mind. You may not be able to concentrate or  the slightest thing can get you angry. There are many ways that stress  will come out.

Right now people are experiencing a lot of stress  and we need to limit the stress. Please make sure that you have your  personal space and personal things to release stress. Many people may  want to try stress relief like others but we also need to remember that  stress is individualized. One incident may cause stress for one person  but not the next, so it is only logical that one way of relieving stress  may not work for the next person.

Think about constructive ways  about releasing stress. If you need help, there are people around who  are willing to guide you or listen. Sometimes we can learn how to handle  the stress by talking to others
 


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Stay Safe

Stay Safe

Stay safe is a phrase that we have known from years ago. It would  be our way of telling other responders to be careful. It was a constant  reminder. Now we hear many people saying that to each other.

During  this present challenging time we need to stay safe. Domestic violence,  suicide and depression is on the increase. People are getting cabin  fever. People are trying to stay in contact using the different meeting  platforms. I have even ventured to utilize Facetime and Zoom meeting and  trying to figure our Teams. These platforms give a face to the voice  but there is nothing like being in the presence of the other individual.  

People are now doing  some funerals with Zoom or having wakes that way. Right now, social  distancing is becoming the norm. Many of the houses of worship are  having services or devotionals on a social platform. People are trying  whatever they can to do provide some "normalcy".

We  need to be working diligently on self-care or resiliency. We need to  know the thing that will being us joy and practice it on a regular  basis. Yes, it is great to spend more times with the family but I think  that we all know that after a while we all need our own space. Everyone  needs there own person corner, where they can go to get away from  everything.


No matter what  is going on is society, even this pandemic, we see people that never  stop and most people cannot figure out the mindset. Fire, police and EMS  never skip a beat. Even when all this is going on and society is trying  to figure out how their future is going to change, fire calls are still  being answered, ambulances are still rolling to give aid and law  enforcement is still going out. The procedures may be modified but  Emergency Services still respond. We need to say "Thank you" to each  other.


In this time I also  want to thank the medical personnel that working long and hard hours. I  am also impressed to see how many businesses are still operating. There  are too many to name and my appreciation goes out to all that are still  going.

Let me end by saying thank  you, stay safe and look out for one another. We will see each other on  the other side of this challenge.

This is one of the mornings where I celebrated that I did not die, when I could have.

Self-Care / Resiliency

Insanity Defined

  

 There are different definitions of insanity. Webster’s describes it as  “a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific  disorder”, or for legal “unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to  understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by  law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or  that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility”. There are  people who define insanity as doing the same thing over and over and  expecting different results. That quote has been credited to so many  different people I will not even try to give the credit.

The  version that I think we have heard when we joined the fire service is  that insanity is being a firefighter. When there is a burning building  and all the rats and roaches are running out, we are the ones running  in. And we do that willingly.

We have many self-destructive  tendencies, according to the public. We willingly put ourselves into  situations that people do not want to see, or acknowledge that they even  exist. We have seen people who did not survive fires, all ages. We have  seen people mangled up in car wrecks. We have responded to calls with  our Brothers and Sisters as the victims. We have responded to calls at  our loved one’s houses. And we do this because we have the skill set  that is required.

We have said “hello” to emergency services and  “Goodbye” to the age of innocence. We at times take on so much that it  affects us. Maybe not at the scene, or the next one, or the next, but we  forget that stress affects us cumulatively. How many of us may have the  whiff of a smell that brings us to a bad call? You know the smell that  brings you back.

Do you avoid certain parts of town or certain  holiday celebrations? I recall on Christmas morning, when I first  joined, we had a house fire at about 0800 hours and the house was fully  engulfed. We found out after the fire that the homeowner perished within  three-feet of the door.

We need to find ways to correctly  process these thoughts and memories. I have recently spoken with someone  who found a member of his station dead in their station, apparently by  his own hands. The person who told me this still told it with tears in  his eyes, but he was able to deal with it.

When a life is taken,  so much is lost, so much knowledge, humor, love. If we look at it from  one side, the person has spent so much time in training and has so much  experience that it would be a shame to lose all of that. But the human  side of me says, that was someone with a family, mom, dad, brother,  uncle, aunt, sister, son, daughter, instructor, mentor, friend, Brother,  Sister, someone that we may have answered many calls with. What is that  person worth to you? Would you be willing to open up your mouth to help  them? Are you willing to ask them what is wrong, when they do not look  or act right?

I had a friend who died a while back. He always  taught that the human needs a certain amount of hugs a day to thrive. I  forgot what the number was. Does it really matter? We all need human  contact, a sign of affection. Are you willing to let someone cry on your  shoulders? Do you have someone that is close enough that if you need to  cry, that you can cry on their shoulders? Don’t worry, you do not have  to do it in front of a crowd, if you are not comfortable.

I had  someone tell me that their father said that real men don’t cry and that  he was never allowed to talk about the problem. Wow, the father  basically cursed the son for thirty years. I gave him the safe zone to  talk about it. He cried on my shoulders, first time in thirty years. Do  you how much that helped and started him in his healing process.

It  is okay to hang up your Superman cape, once in a while, so that you  take care of yourself. Maybe you need to talk with a peer, a chaplain, a  crisis team member, a crisis line, or a psychologist or social worker.  It’s okay. Your family will thank you. You will thank you. Please take  care of it instead of picking up the bottle or something worse.
 



Self-Care

The Cape

There are times where we keep taking care of other people and our mind may stay in that mode. Some of us cannot get out of the rescuer mode. We are so accustomed to be a server, ever vigilant.


We have all heard the flight attendant say that in case of emergency, we are to put our air mask on first, before we help anyone else.


to read more, click here...

 

 

Self-Care

This is self-care on deployment, a cup of tea and something to eat.

How's Your Rubber Band?

 There is a demonstration of resiliency that shows our resiliency, our  sense of bouncing back is like a rubber band. After we experience a  traumatic event or something stressful, we need to look at if we come  back to the same place where we started, like a rubber band that has  been stretched. We stretch the rubber band and release it and watch it  go back to where it started. The more intense the pressure and/or the  longer the pressure, the less were are going to go back to when we  began, just like the rubber band. The more and more that we are  stretched without our coping skills and self-care skills, we can snap  like that rubber band.
 

Our coping to stress starts long before  we ever respond to any emergency call. It starts with the relationships  that we develop, how well we are trained, what we do to relax and what  we do to seek joy. It includes understanding what the signs of stress  are. Some people show stress some different ways, but most are the same.  Do you  know who you can talk with? A friend, chaplain, crisis  team....Who do you have?
 

What do we do when we are in the middle  of the crisis? On a scene, we may not have time to remove ourselves  from the scene. We can remove ourselves from the scene. We can try  tactical breathing exercises, to bring our breathing under control and  our pulse.
 

There was an incident that I was about to go in with a  partner but I could see that his mind was someplace else. I asked him  what was going on. He said that I was the only one that noticed. We had a  quick discussion and went on with our assignment. Yes, I could have  just gone in with him and not discuss it, but it came to me "Two in, two  out" and I wanted to make sure it would be two out. A few minutes to  address someone's stress can make a big difference on the overall scene.
 

What  about after the scene? Do you exercise when you are stressed? Do you  pray, do yoga, go for a bike ride? There are so many things that people  do. Jesus after feeding 5,000 people, made the disciples get into a boat  and go ahead of him and dismissed the crowds. "After dismissing the  crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening  came, He was there alone." Matthew 14:23 See, we may all need some time  alone to do self-care. I do not think that anyone is immune. Even God  rested on the seventh day.
 

If we do not treat our stress and  take hold of it, we can have psychological issues, or physical issues,  like a heart attack. We need to reduce as much stress that we can.
 

When  I was on a Hazmat team, we had physicals annually to make sure that we  were in shape. When we went to a scene, we had our vital signs checked  before and after entering into the hot zone. When we came out, we had a  certain amount of time for our vitals to come within ten percent of our  baseline. If we did not stabilize, we got a ride to the hospital, no  negotiations.
 

Resiliency may include running, eating healthy,  playing with your kids, etc. We all need to take care of the stress and  how it affects us. If we do not handle the stress, it will handle us.  How do you feel about having a heart attack? Don't want one? Find a  constructive way to deal with it.
 

If you do not know how to  build resiliency, you can always talk to people trained in crisis  intervention. They are trained with a bunch of ideas. 


 

 

 

 

 

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