CALGARY – Trauma is common among first responders and it can be triggered by a wide range of experiences.
Now, one former Alberta RCMP officer has written about her experiences dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and work place injuries.
Deanna Lennox was in Calgary signing her new book Damage Done: A Mountie’s Memoir on Sunday. It chronicles her story of struggling to cope with the symptoms of PTSD.
She says her operational career ended when it was determined her hearing loss kept her from performing her duties.
“It was hard, because the RCMP is an operational organization. It’s about putting boots on the street and when you can’t be those boots on the street anymore there’s a sense that you’ve lost your usefulness,” says Lennox.
She sunk into depression and more disturbing memories started to bubble up to the surface.
“I did not have the energy to suppress everything that I had experienced and gone through; at that point some memories started coming to the surface and I was having nightmares,” recalls Lennox.
“I just honestly felt like I was going crazy. And there was nobody other than my family to say,‘you need to get some help.’”
She says progress has been made within the RCMP since she retired, but there is still a lot that needs to be done for workers suffering from mental illness.
Lennox stresses the importance of first responders educating themselves and coming up with coping strategies. She says her goal is to prevent emergency personnel from becoming so overwhelmed they feel the need to take their own lives.
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