December 12, 2024 • 60 mins
In this deeply personal solo bonus episode of Chapter Blue, your host, Tyra Valeriano, shares her story for the first time. From the challenges of balancing motherhood and a law enforcement career to the emotional weight of tough decisions, Tyra talks about how her experiences shaped her journey in and out of law enforcement.
Listen as she discusses her struggles of work-life balance, the impact of trauma, and the lessons learned about priorities, mental health, and resilience. This episode is a raw, honest conversation meant to inspire, connect, and remind listeners that they are never alone in their journey.
Whether you’re in law enforcement, a first responder, or someone looking to navigate life’s challenges, Tyra’s story may resonate with you and offer perspective on the importance of healing, support, and staying true to your “why.”
Let us know what you loved about this episode!
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Episode Transcript
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Tyra Valeriano (00:01):
Welcome to Chapter Blue, the podcast where
we discuss the world of lawenforcement through an honest
conversation on tough orcontroversial topics, real
stories, perspectives andexperience from officers all
around the world.
Whether you're here forinsights on mental health,
self-care, work-life balance,getting into law enforcement,
getting out of law enforcement,or just trying to learn about
(00:21):
personal and professionalchallenges officers face every
day, you've come to the rightplace.
I'm your host, tyra Valeriano,and whether I'm going solo or
speaking with a guest, eachepisode will discuss different
aspects of life behind the badge.
Let's turn the page and stepinto Chapter Blue.
Hey, everyone, today is a bonusepisode and I figured I would
(00:44):
post this before the holidayskind of like a treat, I guess.
If you will, I will not behaving a guest today and this
will be a solo episode, and Ireally just wanted to go over
everything that I've learned sofar about the podcast and I
guess it's my turn to share mystory.
So I wanted to make sure I wasready before actually putting
(01:09):
this out there into the world,because it's been a topic I have
not yet really went into detailwith on any podcast and I've
held it very dear to my heart.
But for starters, I wanted totell you guys thank you.
I know I say that on everypodcast, but thank you so much
(01:30):
for your support.
I have gotten some really greatfeedback and there has been
times where I have posted aepisode and you know I hadn't
gotten any feedback, as it'sbeen maybe two, three days, and
then all of a sudden I getfeedback from someone who thanks
me for posting somethingrelative to them and it kind of
(01:53):
gave me this feeling offulfillment because the whole
purpose of the podcast is forthat it's.
This isn't something I get paidfor.
This isn't something that I amlooking to make fame from.
It really is just time investedinto something that I feel
(02:17):
passionate about and it's solelybased off of it, stemmed from
my own experiences in lawenforcement and seeing my life
for what it is now versus whatit was before and what I wish I
would have known.
Having different aspects andperspectives on the show really
(02:38):
gave me a different perspectiveas well being on the host side
on what others may be goingthrough, because I will be the
first to admit that I am notused to being on the host side.
I've only done a few podcastssince I've left law enforcement,
and I think I mentioned itbefore when I first started this
(02:59):
podcast that I was veryuncomfortable talking about some
of the things that Iexperienced, and when I had
heard it back for the first time, I realized it didn't come out
the way I wanted to and it wasdefinitely not the way I felt.
I didn't know how to expressthe way I felt and I gained this
(03:19):
perspective from a guest that Ihad is that when we want to
talk about certain things, theymay not come out the way we want
them to because we aren't readyto talk about them, or if we do
want to talk about it, we don'tknow how to express that.
And I think that was a reallypivotal point for me when I
realized that's where I was atwhen I first got out of law
(03:41):
enforcement.
Also, there are a fewperspectives from guests that
I've had where I did disagreeand I had to really teach myself
that this isn't a debate andthis isn't about what I agree
with or disagree with.
Being a police officer andcoming from a background where
we ask nothing but questions andwe try to get the information
(04:04):
that we need, it's a lotdifferent being on a podcast and
asking for questions not reallyto get information but to gain
perspective.
It's a different kind ofquestion and it's a skill and,
if you haven't noticed bylistening to my podcast already,
(04:25):
I feel that there are timeswhere I do struggle on how to
ask the question withoutsounding like a cop or without
sounding too invasive, becauseI'm looking for information.
I'm really just wantingperspective and to hear the
story of my guests.
And it is a learning curve forme because this is a different I
(04:47):
guess you can say it's adifferent spot than being that
of the guest or being in aposition of a police officer.
It's just very different.
So the podcast has definitelybeen something that is
uncomfortable for me.
It's put me in a position whereI dove in and I and I do this
often I dive into these thingsthat I want to do and I don't
(05:12):
really have any preparation.
I just kind of learn as I go.
Now, is that a bad thing or agood thing?
I guess you can see it bothways, but I'm going to say for
me, because I have the timeright now to be able to learn
things as I go, I wouldn'treally consider it a bad thing.
I do feel very uncomfortable attimes because I know that there
(05:33):
are a lot of skills and ways todo things on a podcast that I
haven't learned yet.
But my guests have been 1000%supportive and they are great
speakers, they have greatknowledge, experiences and
sometimes I feel that I don'teven know how to respond,
(05:55):
because it's another skill,right, responding in law
enforcement is responding to theactions of others, versus
responding to a story and notreally knowing what to say.
There's been a couple of gueststhat I've had where I was
speechless.
I honestly didn't even know howto respond because I mean, you
(06:18):
hear what they've gone throughand you know the struggles that
they've had and I'm looking atthem in just disbelief.
And there was a couple of timesthat there was a tearjerker in
there and I'm not one that cries.
I mean, I very rarely cry.
I couldn't even tell you Well,I could tell you the last time I
cried, but it's actuallyrelevant to my story that I plan
(06:41):
to share with you guys.
But yeah, it just there's somefeelings in there that you just
can relate to these people,because we've done the job,
we've been there, we know whatthat feels like and to know that
you know, even if somebody youworked with that you care about
went through that and theydidn't say anything.
And you're hearing the storiesof my guests and thinking about
(07:03):
that and knowing that, wow, thisperson that's sitting in front
of me on Zoom is telling me thisstory and it's just
unbelievable that we don't talkabout these things and I don't
know.
I just found this to be areally great experience for me
and I honestly had no idea thatit would be this.
(07:25):
I don't know this emotional, Iguess and I don't mean emotional
on the crying side, I meanemotional on the heartfelt,
vulnerability side and actuallyhaving the ability to feel what
these guests have felt duringtheir darkest times it's pretty
(07:46):
wild.
I have gotten some bits andpieces from each of my guests,
which I'm hoping that mylisteners have also been able to
do.
There is some things that I wasasked that was not recorded,
and one of my guests asked mewhat was my why?
And I actually have been askedthis before and I've never
(08:10):
really put thought into itbecause I felt like it wasn't
relevant to me.
I didn't need to know what mywhy was right.
I knew why I got into lawenforcement, but that's not the
only why that I should haveasked myself it's why did you
get out?
And I've never really askedthat because in my head I
already knew why I got out,which is part of my story that I
(08:33):
plan to tell you today.
It really hit me talking to himon the podcast, because it
clicked and I thought, holy shit, I know my why.
Because it clicked and Ithought, holy shit, I know my
why.
And it was kind of like an ahamoment for me because I've never
really sat here and thoughtabout it.
I just thought I knew, and whenyou actually have the time to
(08:54):
sulk into everything and reallyget a grasp, I guess, on what it
is that you're trying to answerfor yourself, I think that it
helps you find those answers andI kind of felt like that was
that moment for me.
There was also another guestthat told me hey, you know, I
(09:17):
listened to your first podcast.
They followed me on socialmedia whether I can't remember
if it was LinkedIn or Instagram,but you know they said that
you've said you've been throughsome things and you haven't
shared your story.
So we know that you've been apolice officer, we know that
you've been through some things,but what have you been through?
Because we can't relate to youbecause we don't know your story
(09:41):
and I didn't really know how torespond to that other than, yes
, I do need to tell my story.
But that's also the part onwhen you're ready to tell your
story.
Because when people come on tothis podcast, I don't want
people to feel forced to talkabout things that they have been
through.
I want people to be ready.
I want people to know that whenthey're ready to talk about
(10:04):
whatever they want to talk about, that there's going to be
somebody out there who relatesto them and will find value in
what it is that they experiencedand can say hey, I feel like
I'm going through that and theywant to know what worked for you
, they want to know what you did.
And so when he mentioned that Ihaven't really shared my story,
(10:26):
I feel like a big part of it isbecause it's not about law
enforcement on why I got out.
It's also because it's a verysensitive topic for me and I
just never really felt ready.
But I do want to be able totalk about my story, because
(10:47):
another guest also said hey, youknow, if this is your healing
journey by doing the podcast, atwhat point do you think that
you're going to close the dooron law enforcement, and it
actually made me think and itprompted me to go ahead and
share my story this go around,because it's not about law
(11:09):
enforcement.
For me, this isn't a healingjourney from law enforcement.
What I am going through is ahealing journey from my personal
life while I was, how lawenforcement contributed to
either helping me but yet alsobeing the devil's advocate, if
(11:30):
you will, in my situation, and Ifeel like, if I were to finally
share my story, that maybethere might be one person out
there or maybe there might be ahandful of people who can relate
to me.
I am expected to get, you know,some feedback that maybe isn't
so good, or maybe I will getfeedback that is very supportive
(11:55):
.
I don't know what to expect,because it's scary being
vulnerable and putting somethingout there that you don't share
with people, because there is somuch judgment out there and
since I've been out of lawenforcement, I've had a handful
of officers that I didn't yes,that I worked with, but also
that I worked with indirectly.
We didn't work at the sameagency and you know I've heard
(12:17):
what people have said about me.
I've heard what stories peoplehad and there was also things
that I heard that I didn't knowpeople said about me and it was
related to, once again, my storyand it kind of hurt my feelings
because I was thinking, dangman, nobody really knows what I
went through and I let, ofcourse, I let people think what
(12:38):
they want, because it's nobody'sbusiness to know what I'm going
through or why certain thingshappened to me the way they did
and I don't know anybody inexplanation.
But I do feel like I can helpsomeone and that is the whole
reason why I started thispodcast.
So it is my turn to roll outthe red carpet and share my
(13:00):
story with you guys.
I'm going to try not to put toomuch detail in there because it
is a very lengthy story and youknow I don't want to go into
those details.
It's not necessary to get tothe point.
But I never wanted to be apolice officer when I was young
that wasn't my dream.
(13:20):
My goal was to be a forensicscientist and I got married at
18 years old.
I had graduated a year earlyfrom high school and I got
married to my I guess you cancall him my high school
sweetheart.
We broke up when I was in myjunior senior year, I guess,
because I missed a whole year ofschool to get a scholarship to
(13:44):
go to college.
So we broke up my senior yearbecause he joined the Navy.
He was a few years older thanme and during my senior year we
just were on and off.
Once I graduated I moved to SanDiego so I could go to college
on my scholarship and thingsdidn't work out the way I
(14:06):
anticipated out there because Iwas 17 years old at that time.
So California's laws aredifferent than Texas, which we
all know, and so I wasn't reallyconsidered an adult over there
and it kind of put limitationson what I could and couldn't do
while I was there.
Me and my ex at that time gotback together.
We decided we wanted to getmarried.
Ex at that time got backtogether.
(14:27):
We decided we wanted to getmarried and I lived a military
wife life and we had two kidsout of that marriage.
The marriage went south veryquickly.
There was a lot of wrongdoingon both sides and we ended up
getting divorced.
So when I got divorced I was asingle mom with really no job
experience.
I had nothing to my name, nomoney, no nothing, and I needed
to get my ass in gear.
(14:47):
So I applied for a job as acorrectional officer in Sierra
Blanca, texas, and it was aboutan hour and 20 minutes away from
where I lived.
So I had to leave my kids withmy parents while I went to work.
The drive alone was already far.
I had to wake up like at threein the morning to start getting
ready for work.
To make it to work on time bysix.
(15:09):
I worked 12 hour shifts and Iworked three days on, three days
off.
So that was a huge adjustmentfor me because I was not working
and that schedule was prettyrough on me.
I was rough on my kids and Ionly made $9 an hour Like that
is wild to think about now.
(15:29):
But I wasn't making itfinancially.
And I actually had a reallyclose friend from middle school
and we weren't close at thattime, but she became a huge
staple in my life and kind ofguided me to where I am at today
.
I mean, she's a huge reason whyI went through the academy in
law enforcement and even appliedat the prison.
(15:50):
She worked there and shesuggested hey, we're hiring, so
you can apply over here.
So that's kind of what got myfoot in the door.
After a year of working there, Iwent ahead and I applied for an
agency in New Mexico because Ihad a friend at the prison who
said they were hiring over thereand it was about a three-hour
drive from El Paso, texas.
I applied for El Paso PD and Ialso applied for Las Cruces PD.
(16:13):
I went through the hiringprocesses for all three, but the
last one was El Paso PD where Iwas doing the circuit that they
had for the physical fitnessstandard or tests that they had,
and when I jumped the six footwall on their test, I actually
landed on my foot wrong.
(16:34):
They had a mat right there onthe other side and I landed on
my foot wrong and I toreligaments in my right ankle and
my ankle swelled up like aballoon within 1.5 seconds.
I mean it was unreal.
Once I had twisted my ankle, Iwas out and I couldn't continue
with the process with them.
Well, I had already finishedthe other two, but I needed to
do the written exam for LasCruces and the agency in New
(16:58):
Mexico had already completedeverything.
So I was able to continue withNew Mexico and, to top it off,
they had the highest payingsalary or hourly out of all
three agencies.
I had a conversation with myparents.
I told them hey, you know what,if I decide to take this job,
(17:20):
will you guys watch the kidswhile I file in the court to
have the geographic restrictionlifted so I can legally take the
kids across the border to NewMexico?
So nobody gets confused I'm nottalking about Mexico, I'm
talking about New Mexico andthat way you know, I won't be
doing anything that's going toviolate my court order.
(17:41):
Of course I wanted to do thingsthe right way.
I did mention it to myex-husband.
I thought things were going tobe okay, but after 30 days which
you have 30 days until theinjunction is finalized the 29th
day he decided to file to fightfor custody of my kids so that
(18:01):
I could not take them to NewMexico.
So that kind of put a dent inthe plan of, you know, being a
police officer.
The whole idea for me wasn't somuch that I've always wanted to
be a cop, but it was the idealrole to be a role model for my
kids.
It was the ideal role to be aprovider for my kids and to
(18:23):
provide stability for them.
I told my ex and my family thatI would bring them, you know,
on all the weekends that I hadoff so that they could maintain
that relationship.
And my ex I guess he didn'tbelieve me at that time, and
understandably, when you don'thave the best kind of divorce, I
feel like there are maybefeelings there that are going to
(18:46):
be at odds with each other.
That custody battle lasted fortwo and a half years.
I had decided to stay in theagency that I had got hired in
because I had already moved overthere and I had used everything
that I had and I knew if Imoved back to El Paso I wasn't
going to have a job and I wasgoing to be right back at square
(19:08):
one.
So I decided to stay there andtough it out and for two and a
half years I went to go see mykids on every single day off.
It didn't matter if I worked 14hours on night shift.
I went right after work, Idrove the two and a half three
hours to El Paso to go see mykids and I was there every
(19:28):
single day off for two and ahalf years.
Once we got to the court dateto finally get this battle over
with, I had already a house forthe kids their room.
Of course they had visited meon holidays, so they had already
been there.
Everything seemed set in stoneand I was told by the judge that
(19:50):
I had one week to move back toEl Paso to resume the primary
resident or primary custodialparent sorry of my kids, or they
were going to go with their dadand I would be paying child
support.
You know insurance, and theroles would be very different.
Now, in a perfect world I wouldhave happily got up and left
(20:16):
and moved back to be with mykids, but in a realistic world
that just wasn't possible.
I wouldn't have had any way tosupport my kids.
I had nowhere to go.
During the time that my kidswere going through this custody
battle, my parents divorced, sothat home that I used to have as
a home my whole entire life wasno longer there.
(20:38):
It wasn't available for me andthe situation was very, very
different.
So I had to make the decisionthat I could not go back and I
was going to fight again, and bythis time I was already in a
relationship with who is now myhusband.
He was a huge supporter for meduring this time and this is
(20:59):
actually where my I guess youcan say, my mental health was at
risk.
You know it's yeah, it may notbe job related at first, but I
was really intentional aboutthis job being the job that was
going to get us out of the rut.
(21:21):
I wanted to be the single momwho did it for her kids, and my
kids could be proud of me andknow that I did everything I
could for them.
It didn't turn out that way andit wasn't what I expected.
In short, I decided to go aheadand get an attorney and fight
again.
Odds were against me At thattime, my ex worked at the
(21:43):
courthouse where the judgedecided this final ruling and I
felt like I was at adisadvantage.
I tried to change the courthouse.
I tried to change the judgesseveral times and I was denied
every single time.
And, of course, I felt sometype of way.
I felt that, you know, it'sbecause he works at the
(22:06):
courthouse.
This is why there's no reasonwhy my kids can't come with me.
There's no reason why thegeographic restriction can't be
lifted.
I've done nothing wrong, youknow.
I just couldn't come to termswith why this happened and I
wasn't going to give up my fightbecause I knew that everything
I did was by the book and I didright, by my kids, and I wasn't
(22:29):
going to allow this to defeat me.
However, being a mother andbeing a parent and I think that
any parent can relate to this Ispiraled.
I was a mess.
I felt like there was no reasonfor me to live.
I was in a really, really darkspot and I guess I still get
(22:51):
emotional about it because Idon't talk about it.
The only person that was therefor me was my husband, and
obviously we were not marriedback then, but he stepped into a
stepdad role and neverquestioned me.
He had no kids, never beenmarried, and never questioned me
.
He had no kids, never beenmarried, and he just was like
(23:13):
the savior, you know, like theperson who came in and said you
know what, don't worry, I willhelp you financially.
You know, pay for a lawyer,like, we'll do this together.
I was actually required to paychild support at that time,
because that's what the judgesaid If you don't move back,
then this is what you're goingto have to do.
(23:33):
And when I had to pay childsupport, well, obviously I made
decent money, because that's thewhole reason why I took the job
where I did.
I couldn't afford to go backand forth to El Paso to see my
kids on all my days off anymore.
I also had visitation, you know, every other weekend, versus
what I had when I was thecustodial parent.
(23:55):
I had a really hard time withthat and you know I don't share
this information with anybody.
Maybe my dad knew and of coursemy husband knew.
I told my sister some bits andpieces of it, but for the most
part I was a mess, went into mywork and I dove into work.
(24:16):
I had a baby.
You know I had to learn how togo through pregnancy in law
enforcement, which my agencywasn't really really prepared
for that I guess I'm surethey've had many officers in the
past who have had childrenwhile working for them, but they
didn't really have a policy onit.
(24:38):
They didn't really haveanything that I could go off of.
So they worked with me and theymade it very easy for me to go
to work, have a stress mostlystress-free job.
During my pregnancy we had areal-time crime center that we
had just opened at the agencyand I was lucky enough to be
(24:58):
placed in there during mypregnancy and also a few months
after my son was born.
I have nothing negative to sayabout my agency.
Negative to say about my agency.
They helped me so much duringthat time.
They really were empathetic tomy situation If I had court or
if I needed to go see my kidsfor something.
(25:19):
They worked with my schedule.
They did great and it was ahuge benefit of working for a
smaller agency.
Once I had my son, we were stillgoing through the court process
.
So you know, over a year hadalready passed by and I realized
that I couldn't do it anymore.
(25:41):
It was costing a lot of money.
By that time, I want to say wehad already paid the attorney
over $20,000 and she hadn't donea damn thing for me or my kids
or the situation.
I had seen her five times, sixtimes.
We went to a few court datesand nothing had changed.
Nothing was going anywhere andI felt betrayed.
Of course, an attorney isworking for money and I'm I
(26:05):
don't know.
I felt like she wasn't workingfor me.
She was working for the moneythat I was giving her and saying
this is what we're doing foryou and she did nothing.
So I had to make the decision toleave and I told my then now
husband I got to go back, I haveto move back to El Paso.
I can't do this anymore and I'msorry, but I've got to be there
for my kids because this isgoing nowhere.
(26:27):
We're losing money.
I can't afford to go and seethem.
We're using all of our moneyfor an attorney that isn't doing
anything.
So I got to go.
So from one day to the next Itold my job I have to go.
I didn't even really give thema two weeks notice because I
just felt the urgency that Ineeded to leave.
Of course, there's a little bitof a backstory for me and my
(26:48):
husband.
We were going through somerough times and I just felt
defeated, like there's no pointfor me to stay here and yes,
you're helping me, but I need togo.
So I left with my son.
I broke our family apartbecause I needed to situate the
things with my kids.
I got a job as a police officerin another nearby agency in New
Mexico, so the travel time wasabout 40 minutes to and from
(27:12):
work and I tried to be there formy kids.
My husband came to see us in ElPaso every weekend and we did
this for one whole year before Itold my ex I can't do this.
I have a family.
I've moved on with my life.
My kids are old enough todecide if they want to live with
me or not.
(27:32):
We don't need to be fighting incourt.
We need to be adults andco-parent and decide if they
want to move with me or not.
So we asked the kids and mymiddle son said yes, he wanted
to live with me.
And my oldest son told me thathe didn't want to leave his dad
by himself.
He felt bad and that he didn'twant to leave if it was going to
(27:54):
be both of them.
So he decided to stay with hisdad.
So my middle son moved with usand I moved back to New Mexico
and I got my job back at thesame agency, felt like finally,
things are at least working out.
I at least got one of my kidshere and I feel happy.
Three years of that went by andmy son lived with me and this is
kind of where the job takes itsrole in my life.
(28:17):
As far as you know how itreflected my personal life, it
affected my personal life a lot.
You know.
I started to see the imbalancethat I had.
I was stressed out, I was tired, I was overworked.
I, you know, had my ownproblems at work.
(28:38):
Just everything was kind ofcompiling onto each other and
when I would go home I wouldn'tbe the greatest person to be
around.
I wasn't happy, I was tired, Iwanted to sleep and even though
I tried to make time for myfamily on my days off, there
were times where I just had nodesire to do anything with any
(28:58):
of them.
I just wanted to be home and bein bed and be left alone.
With that comes, you know, thethings that we see during our
shifts, the trauma, all thesethings.
I can't say that there was aspecific call that I ever went
to that really impacted me,aside from one which I will talk
about.
But for the most part, if I hada really rough day where there
(29:22):
was just call to call, to call,and they were just all hot calls
that we were responding to allnight, all day long, I would be
pretty grumpy by the time I gothome and I just I wasn't a
pleasure to be around.
So it started to affect my homelife and I would say that my
middle son felt like gosh mom,you're always in a bad mood and
(29:44):
he's not the easiest kid to dealwith, to be fair, the middle
child or the second child.
They call it the middle childsyndrome and I can say that I
may have suffered from thatmyself.
I was not the middle child, butI was a second child and I can
relate to that.
So I feel like it's fair for meto say that, just because I was
that myself.
You know he did have adifficult side to him and he
(30:07):
always has had that, but I feltlike I was the parent that could
deal with him in a better way,because I felt like I understood
him more.
When 2020 hit, we know COVIDcame around and for the job, I
would say that it was not so bad.
I don't know how it was for anyof you who worked during COVID,
but for us we weren't allowedto serve warrants, we weren't
(30:31):
allowed to make traffic stops,we weren't allowed to do a lot
of things.
There was pretty much like awaiver for everyone, unless it
was severe enough that we neededto make contact with the public
or with the driver or withsomeone.
Domestics were definitely aresponse, but there was a lot of
calls that we normally wouldrespond to that we didn't
(30:52):
respond to because of COVID.
Covid really took its toll on myson that decided to live with
us.
He started acting out.
You know, there was just somethings that he was going through
and when we would go visit ElPaso and he would go with his
dad, he would come back with usand be like, oh, it was so fun
with my dad, I want to go withmy dad.
Well, um, he would come backwith us and be like, oh, it was
(31:13):
so fun with my dad, I want to gowith my dad.
Well, we had rules at our house.
You know like you have to be inbed at this time, you have to
have your location on on yourphone.
You know if you mess up atschool or you lie, or you know
just parent rules.
We had rules in our home, um,chores in our home, and he just
didn't pull through.
He didn't pull his weight.
So, of course, he would go todad's house and dad's house was
always fun.
You know.
He got to do fun things.
(31:34):
He got to do all the thingsthat he didn't do all the time
when he was with us, becausethat's just the way it is when
you have a divorced household.
I could be wrong, because Ididn't have that experience as a
kid.
I had my parents together allthe way up until I was 25 years
old, and so I don't know whatit's like to be in a household
where the parents do not getalong or where the parents are
(31:56):
divorced.
So this was new to me too.
But I did know from my friendsand you know relatives that had
been in divorced homes that thisis usually what happens there's
a fun parent and then there'sthe not so fun parent.
And well, I had turned into thenot so fun parent.
Well, when I kept telling myson no, that he couldn't live
with his dad, that didn't sitwell with him, and even though I
(32:20):
had an open dialogue with my exat that time, he was just kind
of like, what do you want me todo about it?
Right, you know, he told my son, you can't move over here just
because you think it's fun.
You know we had rules over hereto kind of enforce the same
thing that we did.
But my son ended up acting outand he said that he was suicidal
(32:40):
at one point.
And of course cop mom kicks in.
And I take it seriously becauseduring COVID I had seen a lot
of kids commit suicide in myjurisdiction and there was one
that was pretty national.
You know what had happened tothis kid and I didn't want that
to be my kid.
You know.
I knew that this was serious.
(33:01):
I knew that a lot of us didn'tknow how to approach or deal
with COVID, with our kids, andso I took him to the hospital so
that he could get seen.
I did the steps that I would dowith anyone else, because I'm
not going to cut corners justbecause he's my son.
I want to make sure that ifthere is an issue, that it gets
addressed and that he gets thehelp that he needs.
(33:22):
Well, it turns out that theyfelt he needed to be admitted
and he was transported three tofour hours away from me.
It was very, very difficult forme.
I once again fell down thatspiral because my why, my why,
was my kids.
My why of why was I in lawenforcement, was my kids.
And now my kid is with me andhe's going through this and I
(33:45):
felt like a failure.
So he left, he went to thehospital and after he was there
for a while, the doctors wouldcome back and say you know, he
says he wants to live with hisdad.
The answer stayed no.
Without getting into too muchdetail.
He continued this, you know,continued.
(34:05):
I want to be with my dad and wewanted him to get help.
That's what we wanted.
It wasn't about who are yougoing to live with when you get
help.
That's what we wanted.
It wasn't about who are yougoing to live with when you get
out.
It's about whatever it is thatyou discussed with the counselor
that she felt you needed to gethelp.
This is what we're trying tohelp, and that's just not where
this was going.
So eventually, you know, itturned out to be that the
doctors were like hey, we don'tthink that he needs to be here
(34:28):
anymore.
We're not getting anywhere withthe ideas that we had on
helping him.
There's definitely not thatgoing on, which was a relief to
hear.
But when it came down to hemight be getting out, he was
going to come back home with me,and that's not what he wanted.
He wanted to live with his dad,and the answer was still no.
(34:48):
Wanted he wanted to live withhis dad and the answer was still
no.
So after a certain amount oftime, he started telling doctors
some fabricated things about myhusband and I.
It was so severe for me and myhusband that I felt like I was
going to lose my job because itwas just that bad and I was at a
(35:09):
disbelief that he would say thethings that he said about us
and I just could not believe it.
It tore my trust apart that Ihave between me and my son and I
felt betrayed in the worst waypossible.
I don't know that there's anyparent that could relate to me
in this way.
The things he accused us ofpotentially could have risked my
(35:33):
job.
It could have risked ourrelationship with our youngest
son.
It was just very devastating.
And when I had gotten this newsfrom the doctor, the doctor
told me that they knew that itwasn't true, based on the path
that he had been on for severalmonths, and they knew that he
(35:54):
really wanted to live with hisdad and that this has never been
something that they had heardbefore from him.
It came up and because it cameup, they still had to report it,
but they wanted to let me know.
So this is kind of where anotherspiral comes in, because now,
once again, I am just fightingthe current on what is going on
(36:18):
with me being able to have mykids.
What is so wrong about mewanting to have my kids.
Why is the universe making thisso difficult for me?
To have a life with my kids?
This is all I want and it'sjust not.
And I don't know if any of youare religious or if you have any
beliefs.
I have never been a religiousperson, I will just be upfront
(36:40):
with that.
But I have perspectives andI've kind of decided my own path
.
The way I word this is justgoing to be in a way to follow
the belief or path that I havefollowed since this has happened
to me.
But I feel like the universedoes things to you to teach you
(37:02):
a lesson and if you do not learnthat lesson, it will continue
to get worse and worse and worseuntil you learn that lesson.
And when you learn that lesson,you have to learn how to walk
away.
And I know that there'sprobably a lot of parents who
may not agree with thisperspective, especially when it
comes to your kids.
But I literally felt like theuniverse was telling me it is
(37:23):
not your lesson right now.
Till you're not getting it,you're still fighting.
You're still fighting to getyou know, get your kids to live
with you.
But I kind of felt like maybethey're not supposed to live
with me, because if they were,it wouldn't be this difficult.
It wouldn't be what I'm goingthrough now.
Like this is terrible.
This is, I feel like my life isjust coming apart and this
(37:44):
isn't what I thought it wasgoing to be.
So, in short, I ended uptelling my ex he's going to have
to live with you because atthis point I can't trust him.
And to have that trust brokenbetween you and your child and
to have that kind of betrayal isvery hard to describe.
(38:04):
It's very hard to describebecause when you do nothing but
everything for your children,regardless of what anybody may
think or say or believe, whenyou know in your heart that this
is what you did, and you getthat betrayal from your child,
it's hard.
It's really, really hard.
And I didn't know how to dealwith it.
(38:25):
I just I don't know how torespond to this.
I don't know how to respond towhat my son did, what he said,
what he's doing, like, how do Irespond to this?
So, naturally, I blocked thatout of my life and I told my ex
until he apologizes, I don'tknow that I can fix this.
I don't know if I can talk tohim.
We were required to go tocounseling.
(38:46):
On the phone, I just couldn'tdo it.
I couldn't do it because I wasso angry and I wanted an apology
and I just wasn't getting that.
My son ended up moving with hisdad.
I had a really, really hard timewith that and I was also
dealing with a case and this isthe case I had mentioned earlier
.
There was a mass shooting inour jurisdiction, the first one
(39:10):
I had ever been to.
I felt like the families reallyfelt like it was my fault and
right now the case is still inlitigation.
So I don't really talk too muchabout the details and one day I
will, because I feel like maybethat's part of my healing
(39:31):
journey when it comes to lawenforcement.
But that case, for me, reallyaffected me.
Responsibility that thefamilies felt I was responsible
for versus you know, we have aperson who is actually
responsible for this and we'reblaming the officer or officers
(39:55):
that responded to the call.
I do understand.
It took me a long time to putmyself in their position, to
understand what they felt andwhere they were coming from, and
I can't say that I understand100%, but I do understand the
perspective of where they'recoming from.
Do I agree?
(40:16):
No, I don't, because I knew myjob, I knew the laws, I knew the
limitations, I knew thepolicies, I knew the scope of
what I could and couldn't do.
It was one of those thingswhere my body camera circulated
the internet like wildfire.
I can say that my body camerasounded like complete shit.
I can say that I think that mybody camera makes the situation
(40:39):
look terrible.
The body camera circulated theinternet and, of course, the
public and the families all hadtheir stab at me.
They had their perspectives ofme.
I saw it on the internet.
It was very difficult to workthrough that and I was working
through these issues.
As I was going through thiswith my son, I reached a
breaking point again.
(41:00):
I felt like I had no reason tolive, Like I felt that if people
could see me in that light andthey really thought that I was
responsible for this situation,I felt like how am I going to be
able to defend myself?
Because that's not what I didand what they said I didn't do.
It's because I couldn't do andI'm not allowed to say what I
(41:21):
want to say because, of course,we're cops and we are not
allowed to go out and speak onopen cases, especially one like
this.
I had to stay in silence and itwas really difficult to work
through.
I started getting threats fromthe internet.
(41:41):
I had to shut down my socialmedia accounts.
I had to really just be veryvigilant because I knew the
jurisdiction that I worked in.
I knew that families of thedeceased were very upset with me
.
They made flyers.
They went on the Facebook pageof the agency, printed out a
(42:02):
picture of me from the internetand they made flyers and they
posted them around my city andthey put on the paper something
along the lines of would youwant this cop to?
You know, she doesn't need tobe a cop.
Pretty much.
She's responsible for the deathof three people and, you know,
several injured from a massshooting that she could have
(42:24):
prevented, you know.
So they put that out there andI had to literally walk around
town and take calls and be ableto act like these things didn't
bother me and I was afraid formy son, who was my you know, my
smallest son, because he walkedto school.
We lived right across the streetfrom the school.
(42:45):
He walked to school every day.
We would walk him to school, hewould walk home from school and
I felt like if somebody is thatupset with me because they lost
their child, you know, younever know what people are
capable of.
We're in this job and we'veseen the worst of the worst and
(43:09):
we know that people are capableof.
We're in this job and we'veseen the worst of the worst, and
we know that people are capableof anything.
Even the goodest people arecapable of anything, and I just
feared for my family.
I feared for my husband, Ifeared for my son, and it was a
lot to deal with and especiallynow the litigation is not over.
There's been a lot that hashappened over the years with
this case, but I now know thatI'm not responsible for that,
regardless of what my bodycamera looks like and I do like
to talk about this because Ifeel like there's a lot of
(43:29):
officers out there who haveexperienced this where their
body cameras circulate theinternet and they have, you know
, to deal with the consequencesof what everybody else sees or
says and there's nothing theycan do about it I will say that
my body camera.
I want to go back to that.
It sounded bad, okay.
So I went to a loud party calland I went there with the
(43:51):
intention of breaking the partyup and taking someone to jail.
That's what I went to the callfor.
I said you know what?
No, I'm going to.
I'm going to see that there'ssomething that I can do, while
my body camera you only have onelens that looks one way, okay,
so you can't see what's going onaround me.
I do have a backing officerthere, but I am making comments
(44:13):
along the lines of me wanting tofind something because I know
that it's there.
But, once again, there is a lawand there is a scope and I
cannot work outside the law.
I cannot work outside the scopeand for people who don't know
the law or the scope or thepolicies, they won't know that,
even though what I'm sayingmight sound like yes, she's
(44:35):
right, why is she not doinganything?
It's because I can't.
There's not enough for me to dosomething, and I think this is
why it played so hard for me,day in and day out, on me not
being able to speak my side onwhy I said what I said.
But this is why because I wantedto break up that party, I did.
(44:57):
I wanted to be a cop and do myjob and go in there and be like,
no, we can't, y'all need to gohome or whatever.
And I just couldn't.
I couldn't Back to my son Oncehe decided to move with his dad.
I tried to work through theseissues.
I was still working on, youknow, dealing with the families
(45:18):
and the public on behalf of thatspecific call.
My husband saw how hard it wasfor me.
I had already gotten promoted,which, by the way, that was
probably a huge moment in mycareer.
I was super excited that I hadgot promoted.
I felt like I had worked my assoff to get promoted.
I wanted that position, I wentfor it, I did everything that I
(45:39):
needed to do and I got it.
And you know, once I gotpromoted, we go into the side of
where law enforcement became anissue for me, because I started
to experience what it was liketo be a female in law
enforcement.
And there were many times in mycareer where I felt like it's
because I'm a female.
But when you entertain thatidea, then you can make it seem
(46:00):
like that's why, and I don'twant to be the victim, you know.
So when you have that mentalityand think that, oh well, this
is happening to me because I'm afemale, then that's.
You know that victim mentalityisn't going to get you anywhere.
So throughout my career, eventhough I had experiences that I
know were probably related tothat, it didn't actually really
(46:20):
come to light until I gotpromoted and I had gotten the
promotion out of, I want to say,like eight or nine people that
had put in for the promotion.
I got the first pick.
I was proud, I was so excited,I felt like I was very deserving
.
But not everybody felt that wayand I had somebody on my shift
who felt like that was not whatI deserved and the only reason
(46:43):
why I got promoted was because Iwas a female and he was very
vocal about it.
You know, he let everybody knowthat that's why I got promoted
and he made it kind of difficultfor me.
The communication was very hard, even though I tried.
You're going to face thesedifficulties in your career,
whether you're a male or afemale, because you could be a
(47:04):
male and people are going to belike, oh it's because you're on
the buddy buddy system and maybeyou are, you know.
But regardless of what thereason is, I knew that I
deserved it and regardless ofwhat anybody else thought, I
wasn't going to let that stop mefrom being successful, because
I needed to dive into somethingto distract me from everything
that I was going through.
I felt like I was okay divinginto work and tackling this role
(47:31):
as a sergeant.
I wanted to be the best that Icould be and that's exactly what
I felt like I was.
I'm sure there were a handfulof people who didn't like me.
I know actually for a fact thatthere was a handful of people
that didn't like me and I wasokay with that.
I was okay with that because Iknew why I wanted to be a
supervisor.
I knew that I wanted to be thebest supervisor I could be and I
(47:54):
wasn't perfect.
Now that you get the idea, Iwas heading first to my job.
So what did that do?
It affected my family life.
We don't have balance.
We don't have, you know.
We're back on the scale wherework is taking up all of my time
and I'm going home depleted andI'm not giving my family shit.
So my son, my littlest son, theone that I have the privilege
(48:16):
to get to experience hischildhood with is slowly going
away for me, because I am onceagain doing the same thing,
except I'm not divorced and I'mnot having to fight for custody
over my son.
I have my son here with me andI'm not taking advantage of it.
Instead, I'm taking advantageof my job and I'm giving my job
my all.
When I started to realize, likeholy shit, this is taking its
(48:38):
toll on my family, I don't havemy kids here anymore, my kids
aren't going to be with me.
I understand this.
My oldest son isn't going tomove with me.
He's already, you know, 16years old.
Like he's not going to want touproot his life and come and
live with me.
At this point, my middle son,we are in this really bad, you
know, section of our life.
(48:59):
This chapter of our life is notvery good.
We're not talking.
There is a lot of problems thatneed to be resolved.
And my why?
Here's my why.
This is why I left lawenforcement.
I left law enforcement becausemy why was no longer my why.
My why to be in law enforcementfor my kids was no longer my
(49:25):
why.
My kids were not with me.
I had to accept that my kidswere not going to be with me and
this was the hardest thing toaccept.
And when my husband, we had madeplans for us to move abroad so
that I could retire.
My retirement plan was to getmy master's degree so that I
could teach college online, domy own business and move abroad.
(49:45):
This was our plans for severalyears, so we had already
prepared for it.
I had already gotten mymaster's degree.
I was already teaching at theacademy.
I was already trying to gain myexperience so that when I
retired I would be fullyprepared to take on this new
role and to move abroad.
By the time my kids were 18years old, except for my little
one.
We wanted to take on this newrole and to move abroad by the
time my kids were 18 years old,except for my little one.
We wanted to take him with usabroad.
(50:05):
My husband was like, hey, youknow what, maybe we should go
ahead and move now.
And it took me a second toreally think about it because it
was only going to be a couplemonths until I got a raise to I
don't know like $43 an hour,which maybe for other people out
there that's not a lot, but forme that was a lot.
(50:26):
That was a huge raise fromwhere I was at and I had to make
the decision am I going to walkaway from the money and from
the job, or am I going to choosemy family?
I slept on it, I woke up and Iwas like there is no sleeping on
it.
I'm going to choose my family.
If my, if we're able to makethis work and we can do these
(50:46):
plans that we made, let's do it.
So that's exactly what I did.
We, within two months, we madethe decision, took on the plans
that we made for retirement andwe just happened to make that
work earlier than we anticipated.
This is where my healing journeycomes in, because during the
past two and a half years thatI've been out of law enforcement
, I haven't had any stress okay,no stress and I have had to
(51:11):
deal with having stress and I'vetalked about this in other
podcasts with my guests thathaving to fight the I say the
nervous system it can becortisol having to fight what
you have known for the past 10plus years is very difficult and
you don't realize it until youdon't have to do it and you have
(51:33):
to rewire your brain.
This is why I took on a passionfor the podcast, for law
enforcement coaching and forcreating this course that I am
making for mental health andwellness for first responders is
because all of these thingsthat I learned and of course
this is a long podcast, I'm suretelling my story is long and
I've never told it before butall of these things that I
(51:56):
experienced, I realized that Iblamed the call.
That's what I blamed.
I said, oh, I got out becauseof that, but I didn't.
It just contributed to the realreason why I got out.
And the reason goes back to whatis your why and my why was my
kids?
And I didn't have that.
I felt like I didn't have thatanymore.
(52:18):
I was able to really sit backand take accountability, take
responsibility for my life, formy actions, for what I did, what
I didn't do, what I could havedone better, and to rekindle the
relationships with my kids andwith my son and take advantage
of the fact that I didn't haveto miss out on my son's
childhood anymore.
(52:38):
I could be here for all of thethings that I missed out with my
older kids trying to be thisrole model.
I don't have to do that.
I don't have to do that anymore.
I have to be here for my son.
I have to be here for myhusband.
I want to have a successfulfamily, a successful marriage,
and I don't want to jeopardizethat.
So now here we are and I havethese businesses that I'm
(53:01):
working on, that I'm, you know,doing, and I'm living out this
goal or dream that I hadprepared for us when I retired.
And what it really comes down tois that I didn't have resources
or knowledge about these thingsthat I would face in law
enforcement, and it's not lawenforcement's fault.
Okay, that's not what I'msaying, but what I'm saying is
(53:24):
that if I would have known thetruth about getting in and you
know, we know that you're goingto respond to calls that nobody
else will ever see in theirlifetime we know that you're
going to see things that nobodyelse will really see unless
they're a police officer or afire or EMT.
I know all these things.
(53:44):
I know that I'm going to worklong hours, but I didn't know
that I wasn't going to know howto balance my life.
I didn't know that I wasn'tgoing to be sleeping good and
that it was going to affect theway I treated my family.
I didn't know that I was goingto experience difficulties on
the home life and, instead ofworking on my home life, I was
going to dive into work, becausethat's the easiest way out.
(54:07):
I also didn't know that theissues or difficulties that I
did face in law enforcement, thepublic eye and becoming a
supervisor and having to dealwith the issues that I've
already explained to you thatthey would affect me in a way
that was going to be reflectedto my family.
(54:28):
And there's also a policeofficer when I was a sergeant.
There's a couple of policeofficers that came to me, you
know, as their supervisor, whenthey needed help.
You know there was somethinggoing on.
I would always check in on myofficers.
I did quarterly what I callquarterly evals and, even though
it wasn't something thateverybody did, I made my own
(54:51):
quarterly eval paper and part ofthat was to ask how are you
doing?
That was the question how areyou doing?
It doesn't matter if you're notdoing okay at home or at work,
I don't care if it's workspecific, I just want to know
how are you doing?
And you would be surprised howthat question caught so many
officers off guard.
(55:12):
There were a couple officersthat did open up to me, and one
in particular.
He ended up losing his job, youknow, for some issues that he
was having.
He was mentally struggling.
He had a lot of things going onin his life and I had no
resources.
I had nothing to give himbesides the EAP program, and
(55:34):
I've talked about this in otherpodcasts.
So when I thought about myexperience and actually being in
a supervisor position and notreally knowing what to do to
help this officer find aresource or find something other
than the EAP program because Ifeel like there could have been
other avenues or other ways forthis officer to seek help I
(55:56):
didn't have that and I didn'tknow much about it either,
because you don't go to trainingfor these things.
You don't know anything aboutit unless your agency puts you
through that.
All of these things combined, Imean obviously there's a ton of
other stuff, but I want to justkind of compact it to give you
an idea of why this is soimportant to me.
I know that there's a lot ofpeople out there that are
(56:17):
probably at my old agency orpeople that know me from work or
you know sister agencies thatare probably like she's dumb, I
can't believe she's doing this,it's stupid, and you know they
have their remarks.
But I don't care, I don't care.
I feel like if there is oneperson that can hear a story on
this podcast and be like, holyshit, that's me or holy shit, I
(56:40):
can relate to that, then that'swhat I want for them.
I want them to know that theyare not alone and that they can
be heard, and that it doesn'tall have to be something that
you saw at a call.
It doesn't have to be atraumatic scene.
It doesn't have to be a youknow homicide that you responded
to.
It doesn't have to be any ofthat, because mine was from my
(57:03):
home life, being affected by thejob that I dove into.
It can be for any professionand I do realize that this can
happen to anybody in anyprofession.
But I am focused on firstresponders because they're so
important and I don't care ifyou stand on first responder
side or not.
There are so many greatofficers out there that I know
(57:25):
that deserve to be able to haveresources and to deal with their
home life, their work life andfind some kind of balance to the
best of their ability and havethe tools that they need to do
that, so that they can continueto be successful police officers
and do what they do, and Ithink it's important.
So here's my story.
(57:45):
I'm sorry it's so long and forthose of you who stuck to hear
my story, thank you For theguests that kind of brought it
out during our conversations.
Thank you, this is a veryvulnerable moment for me.
Just to set the record straight,I do have a relationship with
my kids.
It's not, of course, therelationship that I envisioned
(58:08):
in my head as a mother, but Iknow that there are a lot of
fathers out there who can relateto me because I'm in a position
that most moms are not and Ifeel like I'm more relatable to
the men and there are more menwe know in law enforcement and
first responder roles that gothrough divorce and they don't
(58:30):
get custody of their kids and alot of it may revolve around
mental health.
You know that's highly a toolused in divorce court.
Oh well, he's not mentally welland you know this is I don't
want my kid around this and Imean, they're not wrong because
we do struggle.
But this is what I'm doing.
I'm trying to make a small dent,whether it's one person or
(58:54):
10,000 people that will beaffected in a positive way.
That is all that matters to me,if that one person or the
10,000 people can say, hey, Ithink this is a great idea and
you want to share your story oryou want you know the resources
to be available to you, then itresonates and that's all that
(59:15):
matters.
There's a dent, there's achange that needs to be made,
and it's because we all havesomething.
A change that needs to be made,and it's because we all have
something.
Everybody has their own story.
So, with that being said, Iwant to thank you again for
joining me for this bonusepisode and listening to my
story.
I hope that you get somethingout of it If you resonate with
(59:36):
it.
If you don't, I hope youunderstand my message and if
there is anything that I can dofor you, you know how to contact
me.
You guys can get me onInstagram.
You guys can message me on mywebsite.
You guys can also find me onLinkedIn.
I'm available on various andmultiple social media accounts.
(59:57):
If you just want to have aconversation and not be on the
podcast, I'm 110% okay with that.
I have the time and this is whyI'm doing it.
So if you need me, feel free toreach out to me.
Until then, I hope you guysstay safe and I will see you on
the next one.
Thank you for joining me onChapter Blue.
(01:00:20):
If you enjoyed today's episode,be sure to follow and tag me on
social media and share withyour friends and fellow officers
.
If you're interested in joiningan episode, I'd love for you to
be a part of the conversation.
Until next time, stay safe,take care of yourself and
remember you're never alone inthis journey.
Welcome to Chapter Blue, the podcast where
we discuss the world of lawenforcement through an honest
conversation on tough orcontroversial topics, real
stories, perspectives andexperience from officers all
around the world.
Whether you're here forinsights on mental health,
self-care, work-life balance,getting into law enforcement,
getting out of law enforcement,or just trying to learn about
(00:21):
personal and professionalchallenges officers face every
day, you've come to the rightplace.
I'm your host, tyra Valeriano,and whether I'm going solo or
speaking with a guest, eachepisode will discuss different
aspects of life behind the badge.
Let's turn the page and stepinto Chapter Blue.
Hey, everyone, today is a bonusepisode and I figured I would
(00:44):
post this before the holidayskind of like a treat, I guess.
If you will, I will not behaving a guest today and this
will be a solo episode, and Ireally just wanted to go over
everything that I've learned sofar about the podcast and I
guess it's my turn to share mystory.
So I wanted to make sure I wasready before actually putting
(01:09):
this out there into the world,because it's been a topic I have
not yet really went into detailwith on any podcast and I've
held it very dear to my heart.
But for starters, I wanted totell you guys thank you.
I know I say that on everypodcast, but thank you so much
(01:30):
for your support.
I have gotten some really greatfeedback and there has been
times where I have posted aepisode and you know I hadn't
gotten any feedback, as it'sbeen maybe two, three days, and
then all of a sudden I getfeedback from someone who thanks
me for posting somethingrelative to them and it kind of
(01:53):
gave me this feeling offulfillment because the whole
purpose of the podcast is forthat it's.
This isn't something I get paidfor.
This isn't something that I amlooking to make fame from.
It really is just time investedinto something that I feel
(02:17):
passionate about and it's solelybased off of it, stemmed from
my own experiences in lawenforcement and seeing my life
for what it is now versus whatit was before and what I wish I
would have known.
Having different aspects andperspectives on the show really
(02:38):
gave me a different perspectiveas well being on the host side
on what others may be goingthrough, because I will be the
first to admit that I am notused to being on the host side.
I've only done a few podcastssince I've left law enforcement,
and I think I mentioned itbefore when I first started this
(02:59):
podcast that I was veryuncomfortable talking about some
of the things that Iexperienced, and when I had
heard it back for the first time, I realized it didn't come out
the way I wanted to and it wasdefinitely not the way I felt.
I didn't know how to expressthe way I felt and I gained this
(03:19):
perspective from a guest that Ihad is that when we want to
talk about certain things, theymay not come out the way we want
them to because we aren't readyto talk about them, or if we do
want to talk about it, we don'tknow how to express that.
And I think that was a reallypivotal point for me when I
realized that's where I was atwhen I first got out of law
(03:41):
enforcement.
Also, there are a fewperspectives from guests that
I've had where I did disagreeand I had to really teach myself
that this isn't a debate andthis isn't about what I agree
with or disagree with.
Being a police officer andcoming from a background where
we ask nothing but questions andwe try to get the information
(04:04):
that we need, it's a lotdifferent being on a podcast and
asking for questions not reallyto get information but to gain
perspective.
It's a different kind ofquestion and it's a skill and,
if you haven't noticed bylistening to my podcast already,
(04:25):
I feel that there are timeswhere I do struggle on how to
ask the question withoutsounding like a cop or without
sounding too invasive, becauseI'm looking for information.
I'm really just wantingperspective and to hear the
story of my guests.
And it is a learning curve forme because this is a different I
(04:47):
guess you can say it's adifferent spot than being that
of the guest or being in aposition of a police officer.
It's just very different.
So the podcast has definitelybeen something that is
uncomfortable for me.
It's put me in a position whereI dove in and I and I do this
often I dive into these thingsthat I want to do and I don't
(05:12):
really have any preparation.
I just kind of learn as I go.
Now, is that a bad thing or agood thing?
I guess you can see it bothways, but I'm going to say for
me, because I have the timeright now to be able to learn
things as I go, I wouldn'treally consider it a bad thing.
I do feel very uncomfortable attimes because I know that there
(05:33):
are a lot of skills and ways todo things on a podcast that I
haven't learned yet.
But my guests have been 1000%supportive and they are great
speakers, they have greatknowledge, experiences and
sometimes I feel that I don'teven know how to respond,
(05:55):
because it's another skill,right, responding in law
enforcement is responding to theactions of others, versus
responding to a story and notreally knowing what to say.
There's been a couple of gueststhat I've had where I was
speechless.
I honestly didn't even know howto respond because I mean, you
(06:18):
hear what they've gone throughand you know the struggles that
they've had and I'm looking atthem in just disbelief.
And there was a couple of timesthat there was a tearjerker in
there and I'm not one that cries.
I mean, I very rarely cry.
I couldn't even tell you Well,I could tell you the last time I
cried, but it's actuallyrelevant to my story that I plan
(06:41):
to share with you guys.
But yeah, it just there's somefeelings in there that you just
can relate to these people,because we've done the job,
we've been there, we know whatthat feels like and to know that
you know, even if somebody youworked with that you care about
went through that and theydidn't say anything.
And you're hearing the storiesof my guests and thinking about
(07:03):
that and knowing that, wow, thisperson that's sitting in front
of me on Zoom is telling me thisstory and it's just
unbelievable that we don't talkabout these things and I don't
know.
I just found this to be areally great experience for me
and I honestly had no idea thatit would be this.
(07:25):
I don't know this emotional, Iguess and I don't mean emotional
on the crying side, I meanemotional on the heartfelt,
vulnerability side and actuallyhaving the ability to feel what
these guests have felt duringtheir darkest times it's pretty
(07:46):
wild.
I have gotten some bits andpieces from each of my guests,
which I'm hoping that mylisteners have also been able to
do.
There is some things that I wasasked that was not recorded,
and one of my guests asked mewhat was my why?
And I actually have been askedthis before and I've never
(08:10):
really put thought into itbecause I felt like it wasn't
relevant to me.
I didn't need to know what mywhy was right.
I knew why I got into lawenforcement, but that's not the
only why that I should haveasked myself it's why did you
get out?
And I've never really askedthat because in my head I
already knew why I got out,which is part of my story that I
(08:33):
plan to tell you today.
It really hit me talking to himon the podcast, because it
clicked and I thought, holy shit, I know my why.
Because it clicked and Ithought, holy shit, I know my
why.
And it was kind of like an ahamoment for me because I've never
really sat here and thoughtabout it.
I just thought I knew, and whenyou actually have the time to
(08:54):
sulk into everything and reallyget a grasp, I guess, on what it
is that you're trying to answerfor yourself, I think that it
helps you find those answers andI kind of felt like that was
that moment for me.
There was also another guestthat told me hey, you know, I
(09:17):
listened to your first podcast.
They followed me on socialmedia whether I can't remember
if it was LinkedIn or Instagram,but you know they said that
you've said you've been throughsome things and you haven't
shared your story.
So we know that you've been apolice officer, we know that
you've been through some things,but what have you been through?
Because we can't relate to youbecause we don't know your story
(09:41):
and I didn't really know how torespond to that other than, yes
, I do need to tell my story.
But that's also the part onwhen you're ready to tell your
story.
Because when people come on tothis podcast, I don't want
people to feel forced to talkabout things that they have been
through.
I want people to be ready.
I want people to know that whenthey're ready to talk about
(10:04):
whatever they want to talk about, that there's going to be
somebody out there who relatesto them and will find value in
what it is that they experiencedand can say hey, I feel like
I'm going through that and theywant to know what worked for you
, they want to know what you did.
And so when he mentioned that Ihaven't really shared my story,
(10:26):
I feel like a big part of it isbecause it's not about law
enforcement on why I got out.
It's also because it's a verysensitive topic for me and I
just never really felt ready.
But I do want to be able totalk about my story, because
(10:47):
another guest also said hey, youknow, if this is your healing
journey by doing the podcast, atwhat point do you think that
you're going to close the dooron law enforcement, and it
actually made me think and itprompted me to go ahead and
share my story this go around,because it's not about law
(11:09):
enforcement.
For me, this isn't a healingjourney from law enforcement.
What I am going through is ahealing journey from my personal
life while I was, how lawenforcement contributed to
either helping me but yet alsobeing the devil's advocate, if
(11:30):
you will, in my situation, and Ifeel like, if I were to finally
share my story, that maybethere might be one person out
there or maybe there might be ahandful of people who can relate
to me.
I am expected to get, you know,some feedback that maybe isn't
so good, or maybe I will getfeedback that is very supportive
(11:55):
.
I don't know what to expect,because it's scary being
vulnerable and putting somethingout there that you don't share
with people, because there is somuch judgment out there and
since I've been out of lawenforcement, I've had a handful
of officers that I didn't yes,that I worked with, but also
that I worked with indirectly.
We didn't work at the sameagency and you know I've heard
(12:17):
what people have said about me.
I've heard what stories peoplehad and there was also things
that I heard that I didn't knowpeople said about me and it was
related to, once again, my storyand it kind of hurt my feelings
because I was thinking, dangman, nobody really knows what I
went through and I let, ofcourse, I let people think what
(12:38):
they want, because it's nobody'sbusiness to know what I'm going
through or why certain thingshappened to me the way they did
and I don't know anybody inexplanation.
But I do feel like I can helpsomeone and that is the whole
reason why I started thispodcast.
So it is my turn to roll outthe red carpet and share my
(13:00):
story with you guys.
I'm going to try not to put toomuch detail in there because it
is a very lengthy story and youknow I don't want to go into
those details.
It's not necessary to get tothe point.
But I never wanted to be apolice officer when I was young
that wasn't my dream.
(13:20):
My goal was to be a forensicscientist and I got married at
18 years old.
I had graduated a year earlyfrom high school and I got
married to my I guess you cancall him my high school
sweetheart.
We broke up when I was in myjunior senior year, I guess,
because I missed a whole year ofschool to get a scholarship to
(13:44):
go to college.
So we broke up my senior yearbecause he joined the Navy.
He was a few years older thanme and during my senior year we
just were on and off.
Once I graduated I moved to SanDiego so I could go to college
on my scholarship and thingsdidn't work out the way I
(14:06):
anticipated out there because Iwas 17 years old at that time.
So California's laws aredifferent than Texas, which we
all know, and so I wasn't reallyconsidered an adult over there
and it kind of put limitationson what I could and couldn't do
while I was there.
Me and my ex at that time gotback together.
We decided we wanted to getmarried.
Ex at that time got backtogether.
(14:27):
We decided we wanted to getmarried and I lived a military
wife life and we had two kidsout of that marriage.
The marriage went south veryquickly.
There was a lot of wrongdoingon both sides and we ended up
getting divorced.
So when I got divorced I was asingle mom with really no job
experience.
I had nothing to my name, nomoney, no nothing, and I needed
to get my ass in gear.
(14:47):
So I applied for a job as acorrectional officer in Sierra
Blanca, texas, and it was aboutan hour and 20 minutes away from
where I lived.
So I had to leave my kids withmy parents while I went to work.
The drive alone was already far.
I had to wake up like at threein the morning to start getting
ready for work.
To make it to work on time bysix.
(15:09):
I worked 12 hour shifts and Iworked three days on, three days
off.
So that was a huge adjustmentfor me because I was not working
and that schedule was prettyrough on me.
I was rough on my kids and Ionly made $9 an hour Like that
is wild to think about now.
(15:29):
But I wasn't making itfinancially.
And I actually had a reallyclose friend from middle school
and we weren't close at thattime, but she became a huge
staple in my life and kind ofguided me to where I am at today
.
I mean, she's a huge reason whyI went through the academy in
law enforcement and even appliedat the prison.
(15:50):
She worked there and shesuggested hey, we're hiring, so
you can apply over here.
So that's kind of what got myfoot in the door.
After a year of working there, Iwent ahead and I applied for an
agency in New Mexico because Ihad a friend at the prison who
said they were hiring over thereand it was about a three-hour
drive from El Paso, texas.
I applied for El Paso PD and Ialso applied for Las Cruces PD.
(16:13):
I went through the hiringprocesses for all three, but the
last one was El Paso PD where Iwas doing the circuit that they
had for the physical fitnessstandard or tests that they had,
and when I jumped the six footwall on their test, I actually
landed on my foot wrong.
(16:34):
They had a mat right there onthe other side and I landed on
my foot wrong and I toreligaments in my right ankle and
my ankle swelled up like aballoon within 1.5 seconds.
I mean it was unreal.
Once I had twisted my ankle, Iwas out and I couldn't continue
with the process with them.
Well, I had already finishedthe other two, but I needed to
do the written exam for LasCruces and the agency in New
(16:58):
Mexico had already completedeverything.
So I was able to continue withNew Mexico and, to top it off,
they had the highest payingsalary or hourly out of all
three agencies.
I had a conversation with myparents.
I told them hey, you know what,if I decide to take this job,
(17:20):
will you guys watch the kidswhile I file in the court to
have the geographic restrictionlifted so I can legally take the
kids across the border to NewMexico?
So nobody gets confused I'm nottalking about Mexico, I'm
talking about New Mexico andthat way you know, I won't be
doing anything that's going toviolate my court order.
(17:41):
Of course I wanted to do thingsthe right way.
I did mention it to myex-husband.
I thought things were going tobe okay, but after 30 days which
you have 30 days until theinjunction is finalized the 29th
day he decided to file to fightfor custody of my kids so that
(18:01):
I could not take them to NewMexico.
So that kind of put a dent inthe plan of, you know, being a
police officer.
The whole idea for me wasn't somuch that I've always wanted to
be a cop, but it was the idealrole to be a role model for my
kids.
It was the ideal role to be aprovider for my kids and to
(18:23):
provide stability for them.
I told my ex and my family thatI would bring them, you know,
on all the weekends that I hadoff so that they could maintain
that relationship.
And my ex I guess he didn'tbelieve me at that time, and
understandably, when you don'thave the best kind of divorce, I
feel like there are maybefeelings there that are going to
(18:46):
be at odds with each other.
That custody battle lasted fortwo and a half years.
I had decided to stay in theagency that I had got hired in
because I had already moved overthere and I had used everything
that I had and I knew if Imoved back to El Paso I wasn't
going to have a job and I wasgoing to be right back at square
(19:08):
one.
So I decided to stay there andtough it out and for two and a
half years I went to go see mykids on every single day off.
It didn't matter if I worked 14hours on night shift.
I went right after work, Idrove the two and a half three
hours to El Paso to go see mykids and I was there every
(19:28):
single day off for two and ahalf years.
Once we got to the court dateto finally get this battle over
with, I had already a house forthe kids their room.
Of course they had visited meon holidays, so they had already
been there.
Everything seemed set in stoneand I was told by the judge that
(19:50):
I had one week to move back toEl Paso to resume the primary
resident or primary custodialparent sorry of my kids, or they
were going to go with their dadand I would be paying child
support.
You know insurance, and theroles would be very different.
Now, in a perfect world I wouldhave happily got up and left
(20:16):
and moved back to be with mykids, but in a realistic world
that just wasn't possible.
I wouldn't have had any way tosupport my kids.
I had nowhere to go.
During the time that my kidswere going through this custody
battle, my parents divorced, sothat home that I used to have as
a home my whole entire life wasno longer there.
(20:38):
It wasn't available for me andthe situation was very, very
different.
So I had to make the decisionthat I could not go back and I
was going to fight again, and bythis time I was already in a
relationship with who is now myhusband.
He was a huge supporter for meduring this time and this is
(20:59):
actually where my I guess youcan say, my mental health was at
risk.
You know it's yeah, it may notbe job related at first, but I
was really intentional aboutthis job being the job that was
going to get us out of the rut.
(21:21):
I wanted to be the single momwho did it for her kids, and my
kids could be proud of me andknow that I did everything I
could for them.
It didn't turn out that way andit wasn't what I expected.
In short, I decided to go aheadand get an attorney and fight
again.
Odds were against me At thattime, my ex worked at the
(21:43):
courthouse where the judgedecided this final ruling and I
felt like I was at adisadvantage.
I tried to change the courthouse.
I tried to change the judgesseveral times and I was denied
every single time.
And, of course, I felt sometype of way.
I felt that, you know, it'sbecause he works at the
(22:06):
courthouse.
This is why there's no reasonwhy my kids can't come with me.
There's no reason why thegeographic restriction can't be
lifted.
I've done nothing wrong, youknow.
I just couldn't come to termswith why this happened and I
wasn't going to give up my fightbecause I knew that everything
I did was by the book and I didright, by my kids, and I wasn't
(22:29):
going to allow this to defeat me.
However, being a mother andbeing a parent and I think that
any parent can relate to this Ispiraled.
I was a mess.
I felt like there was no reasonfor me to live.
I was in a really, really darkspot and I guess I still get
(22:51):
emotional about it because Idon't talk about it.
The only person that was therefor me was my husband, and
obviously we were not marriedback then, but he stepped into a
stepdad role and neverquestioned me.
He had no kids, never beenmarried, and never questioned me
.
He had no kids, never beenmarried, and he just was like
(23:13):
the savior, you know, like theperson who came in and said you
know what, don't worry, I willhelp you financially.
You know, pay for a lawyer,like, we'll do this together.
I was actually required to paychild support at that time,
because that's what the judgesaid If you don't move back,
then this is what you're goingto have to do.
(23:33):
And when I had to pay childsupport, well, obviously I made
decent money, because that's thewhole reason why I took the job
where I did.
I couldn't afford to go backand forth to El Paso to see my
kids on all my days off anymore.
I also had visitation, you know, every other weekend, versus
what I had when I was thecustodial parent.
(23:55):
I had a really hard time withthat and you know I don't share
this information with anybody.
Maybe my dad knew and of coursemy husband knew.
I told my sister some bits andpieces of it, but for the most
part I was a mess, went into mywork and I dove into work.
(24:16):
I had a baby.
You know I had to learn how togo through pregnancy in law
enforcement, which my agencywasn't really really prepared
for that I guess I'm surethey've had many officers in the
past who have had childrenwhile working for them, but they
didn't really have a policy onit.
(24:38):
They didn't really haveanything that I could go off of.
So they worked with me and theymade it very easy for me to go
to work, have a stress mostlystress-free job.
During my pregnancy we had areal-time crime center that we
had just opened at the agencyand I was lucky enough to be
(24:58):
placed in there during mypregnancy and also a few months
after my son was born.
I have nothing negative to sayabout my agency.
Negative to say about my agency.
They helped me so much duringthat time.
They really were empathetic tomy situation If I had court or
if I needed to go see my kidsfor something.
(25:19):
They worked with my schedule.
They did great and it was ahuge benefit of working for a
smaller agency.
Once I had my son, we were stillgoing through the court process
.
So you know, over a year hadalready passed by and I realized
that I couldn't do it anymore.
(25:41):
It was costing a lot of money.
By that time, I want to say wehad already paid the attorney
over $20,000 and she hadn't donea damn thing for me or my kids
or the situation.
I had seen her five times, sixtimes.
We went to a few court datesand nothing had changed.
Nothing was going anywhere andI felt betrayed.
Of course, an attorney isworking for money and I'm I
(26:05):
don't know.
I felt like she wasn't workingfor me.
She was working for the moneythat I was giving her and saying
this is what we're doing foryou and she did nothing.
So I had to make the decision toleave and I told my then now
husband I got to go back, I haveto move back to El Paso.
I can't do this anymore and I'msorry, but I've got to be there
for my kids because this isgoing nowhere.
(26:27):
We're losing money.
I can't afford to go and seethem.
We're using all of our moneyfor an attorney that isn't doing
anything.
So I got to go.
So from one day to the next Itold my job I have to go.
I didn't even really give thema two weeks notice because I
just felt the urgency that Ineeded to leave.
Of course, there's a little bitof a backstory for me and my
(26:48):
husband.
We were going through somerough times and I just felt
defeated, like there's no pointfor me to stay here and yes,
you're helping me, but I need togo.
So I left with my son.
I broke our family apartbecause I needed to situate the
things with my kids.
I got a job as a police officerin another nearby agency in New
Mexico, so the travel time wasabout 40 minutes to and from
(27:12):
work and I tried to be there formy kids.
My husband came to see us in ElPaso every weekend and we did
this for one whole year before Itold my ex I can't do this.
I have a family.
I've moved on with my life.
My kids are old enough todecide if they want to live with
me or not.
(27:32):
We don't need to be fighting incourt.
We need to be adults andco-parent and decide if they
want to move with me or not.
So we asked the kids and mymiddle son said yes, he wanted
to live with me.
And my oldest son told me thathe didn't want to leave his dad
by himself.
He felt bad and that he didn'twant to leave if it was going to
(27:54):
be both of them.
So he decided to stay with hisdad.
So my middle son moved with usand I moved back to New Mexico
and I got my job back at thesame agency, felt like finally,
things are at least working out.
I at least got one of my kidshere and I feel happy.
Three years of that went by andmy son lived with me and this is
kind of where the job takes itsrole in my life.
(28:17):
As far as you know how itreflected my personal life, it
affected my personal life a lot.
You know.
I started to see the imbalancethat I had.
I was stressed out, I was tired, I was overworked.
I, you know, had my ownproblems at work.
(28:38):
Just everything was kind ofcompiling onto each other and
when I would go home I wouldn'tbe the greatest person to be
around.
I wasn't happy, I was tired, Iwanted to sleep and even though
I tried to make time for myfamily on my days off, there
were times where I just had nodesire to do anything with any
(28:58):
of them.
I just wanted to be home and bein bed and be left alone.
With that comes, you know, thethings that we see during our
shifts, the trauma, all thesethings.
I can't say that there was aspecific call that I ever went
to that really impacted me,aside from one which I will talk
about.
But for the most part, if I hada really rough day where there
(29:22):
was just call to call, to call,and they were just all hot calls
that we were responding to allnight, all day long, I would be
pretty grumpy by the time I gothome and I just I wasn't a
pleasure to be around.
So it started to affect my homelife and I would say that my
middle son felt like gosh mom,you're always in a bad mood and
(29:44):
he's not the easiest kid to dealwith, to be fair, the middle
child or the second child.
They call it the middle childsyndrome and I can say that I
may have suffered from thatmyself.
I was not the middle child, butI was a second child and I can
relate to that.
So I feel like it's fair for meto say that, just because I was
that myself.
You know he did have adifficult side to him and he
(30:07):
always has had that, but I feltlike I was the parent that could
deal with him in a better way,because I felt like I understood
him more.
When 2020 hit, we know COVIDcame around and for the job, I
would say that it was not so bad.
I don't know how it was for anyof you who worked during COVID,
but for us we weren't allowedto serve warrants, we weren't
(30:31):
allowed to make traffic stops,we weren't allowed to do a lot
of things.
There was pretty much like awaiver for everyone, unless it
was severe enough that we neededto make contact with the public
or with the driver or withsomeone.
Domestics were definitely aresponse, but there was a lot of
calls that we normally wouldrespond to that we didn't
(30:52):
respond to because of COVID.
Covid really took its toll on myson that decided to live with
us.
He started acting out.
You know, there was just somethings that he was going through
and when we would go visit ElPaso and he would go with his
dad, he would come back with usand be like, oh, it was so fun
with my dad, I want to go withmy dad.
Well, um, he would come backwith us and be like, oh, it was
(31:13):
so fun with my dad, I want to gowith my dad.
Well, we had rules at our house.
You know like you have to be inbed at this time, you have to
have your location on on yourphone.
You know if you mess up atschool or you lie, or you know
just parent rules.
We had rules in our home, um,chores in our home, and he just
didn't pull through.
He didn't pull his weight.
So, of course, he would go todad's house and dad's house was
always fun.
You know.
He got to do fun things.
(31:34):
He got to do all the thingsthat he didn't do all the time
when he was with us, becausethat's just the way it is when
you have a divorced household.
I could be wrong, because Ididn't have that experience as a
kid.
I had my parents together allthe way up until I was 25 years
old, and so I don't know whatit's like to be in a household
where the parents do not getalong or where the parents are
(31:56):
divorced.
So this was new to me too.
But I did know from my friendsand you know relatives that had
been in divorced homes that thisis usually what happens there's
a fun parent and then there'sthe not so fun parent.
And well, I had turned into thenot so fun parent.
Well, when I kept telling myson no, that he couldn't live
with his dad, that didn't sitwell with him, and even though I
(32:20):
had an open dialogue with my exat that time, he was just kind
of like, what do you want me todo about it?
Right, you know, he told my son, you can't move over here just
because you think it's fun.
You know we had rules over hereto kind of enforce the same
thing that we did.
But my son ended up acting outand he said that he was suicidal
(32:40):
at one point.
And of course cop mom kicks in.
And I take it seriously becauseduring COVID I had seen a lot
of kids commit suicide in myjurisdiction and there was one
that was pretty national.
You know what had happened tothis kid and I didn't want that
to be my kid.
You know.
I knew that this was serious.
(33:01):
I knew that a lot of us didn'tknow how to approach or deal
with COVID, with our kids, andso I took him to the hospital so
that he could get seen.
I did the steps that I would dowith anyone else, because I'm
not going to cut corners justbecause he's my son.
I want to make sure that ifthere is an issue, that it gets
addressed and that he gets thehelp that he needs.
(33:22):
Well, it turns out that theyfelt he needed to be admitted
and he was transported three tofour hours away from me.
It was very, very difficult forme.
I once again fell down thatspiral because my why, my why,
was my kids.
My why of why was I in lawenforcement, was my kids.
And now my kid is with me andhe's going through this and I
(33:45):
felt like a failure.
So he left, he went to thehospital and after he was there
for a while, the doctors wouldcome back and say you know, he
says he wants to live with hisdad.
The answer stayed no.
Without getting into too muchdetail.
He continued this, you know,continued.
(34:05):
I want to be with my dad and wewanted him to get help.
That's what we wanted.
It wasn't about who are yougoing to live with when you get
help.
That's what we wanted.
It wasn't about who are yougoing to live with when you get
out.
It's about whatever it is thatyou discussed with the counselor
that she felt you needed to gethelp.
This is what we're trying tohelp, and that's just not where
this was going.
So eventually, you know, itturned out to be that the
doctors were like hey, we don'tthink that he needs to be here
(34:28):
anymore.
We're not getting anywhere withthe ideas that we had on
helping him.
There's definitely not thatgoing on, which was a relief to
hear.
But when it came down to hemight be getting out, he was
going to come back home with me,and that's not what he wanted.
He wanted to live with his dad,and the answer was still no.
(34:48):
Wanted he wanted to live withhis dad and the answer was still
no.
So after a certain amount oftime, he started telling doctors
some fabricated things about myhusband and I.
It was so severe for me and myhusband that I felt like I was
going to lose my job because itwas just that bad and I was at a
(35:09):
disbelief that he would say thethings that he said about us
and I just could not believe it.
It tore my trust apart that Ihave between me and my son and I
felt betrayed in the worst waypossible.
I don't know that there's anyparent that could relate to me
in this way.
The things he accused us ofpotentially could have risked my
(35:33):
job.
It could have risked ourrelationship with our youngest
son.
It was just very devastating.
And when I had gotten this newsfrom the doctor, the doctor
told me that they knew that itwasn't true, based on the path
that he had been on for severalmonths, and they knew that he
(35:54):
really wanted to live with hisdad and that this has never been
something that they had heardbefore from him.
It came up and because it cameup, they still had to report it,
but they wanted to let me know.
So this is kind of where anotherspiral comes in, because now,
once again, I am just fightingthe current on what is going on
(36:18):
with me being able to have mykids.
What is so wrong about mewanting to have my kids.
Why is the universe making thisso difficult for me?
To have a life with my kids?
This is all I want and it'sjust not.
And I don't know if any of youare religious or if you have any
beliefs.
I have never been a religiousperson, I will just be upfront
(36:40):
with that.
But I have perspectives andI've kind of decided my own path
.
The way I word this is justgoing to be in a way to follow
the belief or path that I havefollowed since this has happened
to me.
But I feel like the universedoes things to you to teach you
(37:02):
a lesson and if you do not learnthat lesson, it will continue
to get worse and worse and worseuntil you learn that lesson.
And when you learn that lesson,you have to learn how to walk
away.
And I know that there'sprobably a lot of parents who
may not agree with thisperspective, especially when it
comes to your kids.
But I literally felt like theuniverse was telling me it is
(37:23):
not your lesson right now.
Till you're not getting it,you're still fighting.
You're still fighting to getyou know, get your kids to live
with you.
But I kind of felt like maybethey're not supposed to live
with me, because if they were,it wouldn't be this difficult.
It wouldn't be what I'm goingthrough now.
Like this is terrible.
This is, I feel like my life isjust coming apart and this
(37:44):
isn't what I thought it wasgoing to be.
So, in short, I ended uptelling my ex he's going to have
to live with you because atthis point I can't trust him.
And to have that trust brokenbetween you and your child and
to have that kind of betrayal isvery hard to describe.
(38:04):
It's very hard to describebecause when you do nothing but
everything for your children,regardless of what anybody may
think or say or believe, whenyou know in your heart that this
is what you did, and you getthat betrayal from your child,
it's hard.
It's really, really hard.
And I didn't know how to dealwith it.
(38:25):
I just I don't know how torespond to this.
I don't know how to respond towhat my son did, what he said,
what he's doing, like, how do Irespond to this?
So, naturally, I blocked thatout of my life and I told my ex
until he apologizes, I don'tknow that I can fix this.
I don't know if I can talk tohim.
We were required to go tocounseling.
(38:46):
On the phone, I just couldn'tdo it.
I couldn't do it because I wasso angry and I wanted an apology
and I just wasn't getting that.
My son ended up moving with hisdad.
I had a really, really hard timewith that and I was also
dealing with a case and this isthe case I had mentioned earlier
.
There was a mass shooting inour jurisdiction, the first one
(39:10):
I had ever been to.
I felt like the families reallyfelt like it was my fault and
right now the case is still inlitigation.
So I don't really talk too muchabout the details and one day I
will, because I feel like maybethat's part of my healing
(39:31):
journey when it comes to lawenforcement.
But that case, for me, reallyaffected me.
Responsibility that thefamilies felt I was responsible
for versus you know, we have aperson who is actually
responsible for this and we'reblaming the officer or officers
(39:55):
that responded to the call.
I do understand.
It took me a long time to putmyself in their position, to
understand what they felt andwhere they were coming from, and
I can't say that I understand100%, but I do understand the
perspective of where they'recoming from.
Do I agree?
(40:16):
No, I don't, because I knew myjob, I knew the laws, I knew the
limitations, I knew thepolicies, I knew the scope of
what I could and couldn't do.
It was one of those thingswhere my body camera circulated
the internet like wildfire.
I can say that my body camerasounded like complete shit.
I can say that I think that mybody camera makes the situation
(40:39):
look terrible.
The body camera circulated theinternet and, of course, the
public and the families all hadtheir stab at me.
They had their perspectives ofme.
I saw it on the internet.
It was very difficult to workthrough that and I was working
through these issues.
As I was going through thiswith my son, I reached a
breaking point again.
(41:00):
I felt like I had no reason tolive, Like I felt that if people
could see me in that light andthey really thought that I was
responsible for this situation,I felt like how am I going to be
able to defend myself?
Because that's not what I didand what they said I didn't do.
It's because I couldn't do andI'm not allowed to say what I
(41:21):
want to say because, of course,we're cops and we are not
allowed to go out and speak onopen cases, especially one like
this.
I had to stay in silence and itwas really difficult to work
through.
I started getting threats fromthe internet.
(41:41):
I had to shut down my socialmedia accounts.
I had to really just be veryvigilant because I knew the
jurisdiction that I worked in.
I knew that families of thedeceased were very upset with me
.
They made flyers.
They went on the Facebook pageof the agency, printed out a
(42:02):
picture of me from the internetand they made flyers and they
posted them around my city andthey put on the paper something
along the lines of would youwant this cop to?
You know, she doesn't need tobe a cop.
Pretty much.
She's responsible for the deathof three people and, you know,
several injured from a massshooting that she could have
(42:24):
prevented, you know.
So they put that out there andI had to literally walk around
town and take calls and be ableto act like these things didn't
bother me and I was afraid formy son, who was my you know, my
smallest son, because he walkedto school.
We lived right across the streetfrom the school.
(42:45):
He walked to school every day.
We would walk him to school, hewould walk home from school and
I felt like if somebody is thatupset with me because they lost
their child, you know, younever know what people are
capable of.
We're in this job and we'veseen the worst of the worst and
(43:09):
we know that people are capableof.
We're in this job and we'veseen the worst of the worst, and
we know that people are capableof anything.
Even the goodest people arecapable of anything, and I just
feared for my family.
I feared for my husband, Ifeared for my son, and it was a
lot to deal with and especiallynow the litigation is not over.
There's been a lot that hashappened over the years with
this case, but I now know thatI'm not responsible for that,
regardless of what my bodycamera looks like and I do like
to talk about this because Ifeel like there's a lot of
(43:29):
officers out there who haveexperienced this where their
body cameras circulate theinternet and they have, you know
, to deal with the consequencesof what everybody else sees or
says and there's nothing theycan do about it I will say that
my body camera.
I want to go back to that.
It sounded bad, okay.
So I went to a loud party calland I went there with the
(43:51):
intention of breaking the partyup and taking someone to jail.
That's what I went to the callfor.
I said you know what?
No, I'm going to.
I'm going to see that there'ssomething that I can do, while
my body camera you only have onelens that looks one way, okay,
so you can't see what's going onaround me.
I do have a backing officerthere, but I am making comments
(44:13):
along the lines of me wanting tofind something because I know
that it's there.
But, once again, there is a lawand there is a scope and I
cannot work outside the law.
I cannot work outside the scopeand for people who don't know
the law or the scope or thepolicies, they won't know that,
even though what I'm sayingmight sound like yes, she's
(44:35):
right, why is she not doinganything?
It's because I can't.
There's not enough for me to dosomething, and I think this is
why it played so hard for me,day in and day out, on me not
being able to speak my side onwhy I said what I said.
But this is why because I wantedto break up that party, I did.
(44:57):
I wanted to be a cop and do myjob and go in there and be like,
no, we can't, y'all need to gohome or whatever.
And I just couldn't.
I couldn't Back to my son Oncehe decided to move with his dad.
I tried to work through theseissues.
I was still working on, youknow, dealing with the families
(45:18):
and the public on behalf of thatspecific call.
My husband saw how hard it wasfor me.
I had already gotten promoted,which, by the way, that was
probably a huge moment in mycareer.
I was super excited that I hadgot promoted.
I felt like I had worked my assoff to get promoted.
I wanted that position, I wentfor it, I did everything that I
(45:39):
needed to do and I got it.
And you know, once I gotpromoted, we go into the side of
where law enforcement became anissue for me, because I started
to experience what it was liketo be a female in law
enforcement.
And there were many times in mycareer where I felt like it's
because I'm a female.
But when you entertain thatidea, then you can make it seem
(46:00):
like that's why, and I don'twant to be the victim, you know.
So when you have that mentalityand think that, oh well, this
is happening to me because I'm afemale, then that's.
You know that victim mentalityisn't going to get you anywhere.
So throughout my career, eventhough I had experiences that I
know were probably related tothat, it didn't actually really
(46:20):
come to light until I gotpromoted and I had gotten the
promotion out of, I want to say,like eight or nine people that
had put in for the promotion.
I got the first pick.
I was proud, I was so excited,I felt like I was very deserving
.
But not everybody felt that wayand I had somebody on my shift
who felt like that was not whatI deserved and the only reason
(46:43):
why I got promoted was because Iwas a female and he was very
vocal about it.
You know, he let everybody knowthat that's why I got promoted
and he made it kind of difficultfor me.
The communication was very hard, even though I tried.
You're going to face thesedifficulties in your career,
whether you're a male or afemale, because you could be a
(47:04):
male and people are going to belike, oh it's because you're on
the buddy buddy system and maybeyou are, you know.
But regardless of what thereason is, I knew that I
deserved it and regardless ofwhat anybody else thought, I
wasn't going to let that stop mefrom being successful, because
I needed to dive into somethingto distract me from everything
that I was going through.
I felt like I was okay divinginto work and tackling this role
(47:31):
as a sergeant.
I wanted to be the best that Icould be and that's exactly what
I felt like I was.
I'm sure there were a handfulof people who didn't like me.
I know actually for a fact thatthere was a handful of people
that didn't like me and I wasokay with that.
I was okay with that because Iknew why I wanted to be a
supervisor.
I knew that I wanted to be thebest supervisor I could be and I
(47:54):
wasn't perfect.
Now that you get the idea, Iwas heading first to my job.
So what did that do?
It affected my family life.
We don't have balance.
We don't have, you know.
We're back on the scale wherework is taking up all of my time
and I'm going home depleted andI'm not giving my family shit.
So my son, my littlest son, theone that I have the privilege
(48:16):
to get to experience hischildhood with is slowly going
away for me, because I am onceagain doing the same thing,
except I'm not divorced and I'mnot having to fight for custody
over my son.
I have my son here with me andI'm not taking advantage of it.
Instead, I'm taking advantageof my job and I'm giving my job
my all.
When I started to realize, likeholy shit, this is taking its
(48:38):
toll on my family, I don't havemy kids here anymore, my kids
aren't going to be with me.
I understand this.
My oldest son isn't going tomove with me.
He's already, you know, 16years old.
Like he's not going to want touproot his life and come and
live with me.
At this point, my middle son,we are in this really bad, you
know, section of our life.
(48:59):
This chapter of our life is notvery good.
We're not talking.
There is a lot of problems thatneed to be resolved.
And my why?
Here's my why.
This is why I left lawenforcement.
I left law enforcement becausemy why was no longer my why.
My why to be in law enforcementfor my kids was no longer my
(49:25):
why.
My kids were not with me.
I had to accept that my kidswere not going to be with me and
this was the hardest thing toaccept.
And when my husband, we had madeplans for us to move abroad so
that I could retire.
My retirement plan was to getmy master's degree so that I
could teach college online, domy own business and move abroad.
(49:45):
This was our plans for severalyears, so we had already
prepared for it.
I had already gotten mymaster's degree.
I was already teaching at theacademy.
I was already trying to gain myexperience so that when I
retired I would be fullyprepared to take on this new
role and to move abroad.
By the time my kids were 18years old, except for my little
one.
We wanted to take on this newrole and to move abroad by the
time my kids were 18 years old,except for my little one.
We wanted to take him with usabroad.
(50:05):
My husband was like, hey, youknow what, maybe we should go
ahead and move now.
And it took me a second toreally think about it because it
was only going to be a couplemonths until I got a raise to I
don't know like $43 an hour,which maybe for other people out
there that's not a lot, but forme that was a lot.
(50:26):
That was a huge raise fromwhere I was at and I had to make
the decision am I going to walkaway from the money and from
the job, or am I going to choosemy family?
I slept on it, I woke up and Iwas like there is no sleeping on
it.
I'm going to choose my family.
If my, if we're able to makethis work and we can do these
(50:46):
plans that we made, let's do it.
So that's exactly what I did.
We, within two months, we madethe decision, took on the plans
that we made for retirement andwe just happened to make that
work earlier than we anticipated.
This is where my healing journeycomes in, because during the
past two and a half years thatI've been out of law enforcement
, I haven't had any stress okay,no stress and I have had to
(51:11):
deal with having stress and I'vetalked about this in other
podcasts with my guests thathaving to fight the I say the
nervous system it can becortisol having to fight what
you have known for the past 10plus years is very difficult and
you don't realize it until youdon't have to do it and you have
(51:33):
to rewire your brain.
This is why I took on a passionfor the podcast, for law
enforcement coaching and forcreating this course that I am
making for mental health andwellness for first responders is
because all of these thingsthat I learned and of course
this is a long podcast, I'm suretelling my story is long and
I've never told it before butall of these things that I
(51:56):
experienced, I realized that Iblamed the call.
That's what I blamed.
I said, oh, I got out becauseof that, but I didn't.
It just contributed to the realreason why I got out.
And the reason goes back to whatis your why and my why was my
kids?
And I didn't have that.
I felt like I didn't have thatanymore.
(52:18):
I was able to really sit backand take accountability, take
responsibility for my life, formy actions, for what I did, what
I didn't do, what I could havedone better, and to rekindle the
relationships with my kids andwith my son and take advantage
of the fact that I didn't haveto miss out on my son's
childhood anymore.
(52:38):
I could be here for all of thethings that I missed out with my
older kids trying to be thisrole model.
I don't have to do that.
I don't have to do that anymore.
I have to be here for my son.
I have to be here for myhusband.
I want to have a successfulfamily, a successful marriage,
and I don't want to jeopardizethat.
So now here we are and I havethese businesses that I'm
(53:01):
working on, that I'm, you know,doing, and I'm living out this
goal or dream that I hadprepared for us when I retired.
And what it really comes down tois that I didn't have resources
or knowledge about these thingsthat I would face in law
enforcement, and it's not lawenforcement's fault.
Okay, that's not what I'msaying, but what I'm saying is
(53:24):
that if I would have known thetruth about getting in and you
know, we know that you're goingto respond to calls that nobody
else will ever see in theirlifetime we know that you're
going to see things that nobodyelse will really see unless
they're a police officer or afire or EMT.
I know all these things.
(53:44):
I know that I'm going to worklong hours, but I didn't know
that I wasn't going to know howto balance my life.
I didn't know that I wasn'tgoing to be sleeping good and
that it was going to affect theway I treated my family.
I didn't know that I was goingto experience difficulties on
the home life and, instead ofworking on my home life, I was
going to dive into work, becausethat's the easiest way out.
(54:07):
I also didn't know that theissues or difficulties that I
did face in law enforcement, thepublic eye and becoming a
supervisor and having to dealwith the issues that I've
already explained to you thatthey would affect me in a way
that was going to be reflectedto my family.
(54:28):
And there's also a policeofficer when I was a sergeant.
There's a couple of policeofficers that came to me, you
know, as their supervisor, whenthey needed help.
You know there was somethinggoing on.
I would always check in on myofficers.
I did quarterly what I callquarterly evals and, even though
it wasn't something thateverybody did, I made my own
(54:51):
quarterly eval paper and part ofthat was to ask how are you
doing?
That was the question how areyou doing?
It doesn't matter if you're notdoing okay at home or at work,
I don't care if it's workspecific, I just want to know
how are you doing?
And you would be surprised howthat question caught so many
officers off guard.
(55:12):
There were a couple officersthat did open up to me, and one
in particular.
He ended up losing his job, youknow, for some issues that he
was having.
He was mentally struggling.
He had a lot of things going onin his life and I had no
resources.
I had nothing to give himbesides the EAP program, and
(55:34):
I've talked about this in otherpodcasts.
So when I thought about myexperience and actually being in
a supervisor position and notreally knowing what to do to
help this officer find aresource or find something other
than the EAP program because Ifeel like there could have been
other avenues or other ways forthis officer to seek help I
(55:56):
didn't have that and I didn'tknow much about it either,
because you don't go to trainingfor these things.
You don't know anything aboutit unless your agency puts you
through that.
All of these things combined, Imean obviously there's a ton of
other stuff, but I want to justkind of compact it to give you
an idea of why this is soimportant to me.
I know that there's a lot ofpeople out there that are
(56:17):
probably at my old agency orpeople that know me from work or
you know sister agencies thatare probably like she's dumb, I
can't believe she's doing this,it's stupid, and you know they
have their remarks.
But I don't care, I don't care.
I feel like if there is oneperson that can hear a story on
this podcast and be like, holyshit, that's me or holy shit, I
(56:40):
can relate to that, then that'swhat I want for them.
I want them to know that theyare not alone and that they can
be heard, and that it doesn'tall have to be something that
you saw at a call.
It doesn't have to be atraumatic scene.
It doesn't have to be a youknow homicide that you responded
to.
It doesn't have to be any ofthat, because mine was from my
(57:03):
home life, being affected by thejob that I dove into.
It can be for any professionand I do realize that this can
happen to anybody in anyprofession.
But I am focused on firstresponders because they're so
important and I don't care ifyou stand on first responder
side or not.
There are so many greatofficers out there that I know
(57:25):
that deserve to be able to haveresources and to deal with their
home life, their work life andfind some kind of balance to the
best of their ability and havethe tools that they need to do
that, so that they can continueto be successful police officers
and do what they do, and Ithink it's important.
So here's my story.
(57:45):
I'm sorry it's so long and forthose of you who stuck to hear
my story, thank you For theguests that kind of brought it
out during our conversations.
Thank you, this is a veryvulnerable moment for me.
Just to set the record straight,I do have a relationship with
my kids.
It's not, of course, therelationship that I envisioned
(58:08):
in my head as a mother, but Iknow that there are a lot of
fathers out there who can relateto me because I'm in a position
that most moms are not and Ifeel like I'm more relatable to
the men and there are more menwe know in law enforcement and
first responder roles that gothrough divorce and they don't
(58:30):
get custody of their kids and alot of it may revolve around
mental health.
You know that's highly a toolused in divorce court.
Oh well, he's not mentally welland you know this is I don't
want my kid around this and Imean, they're not wrong because
we do struggle.
But this is what I'm doing.
I'm trying to make a small dent,whether it's one person or
(58:54):
10,000 people that will beaffected in a positive way.
That is all that matters to me,if that one person or the
10,000 people can say, hey, Ithink this is a great idea and
you want to share your story oryou want you know the resources
to be available to you, then itresonates and that's all that
(59:15):
matters.
There's a dent, there's achange that needs to be made,
and it's because we all havesomething.
A change that needs to be made,and it's because we all have
something.
Everybody has their own story.
So, with that being said, Iwant to thank you again for
joining me for this bonusepisode and listening to my
story.
I hope that you get somethingout of it If you resonate with
(59:36):
it.
If you don't, I hope youunderstand my message and if
there is anything that I can dofor you, you know how to contact
me.
You guys can get me onInstagram.
You guys can message me on mywebsite.
You guys can also find me onLinkedIn.
I'm available on various andmultiple social media accounts.
(59:57):
If you just want to have aconversation and not be on the
podcast, I'm 110% okay with that.
I have the time and this is whyI'm doing it.
So if you need me, feel free toreach out to me.
Until then, I hope you guysstay safe and I will see you on
the next one.
Thank you for joining me onChapter Blue.
(01:00:20):
If you enjoyed today's episode,be sure to follow and tag me on
social media and share withyour friends and fellow officers
.
If you're interested in joiningan episode, I'd love for you to
be a part of the conversation.
Until next time, stay safe,take care of yourself and
remember you're never alone inthis journey.
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