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September 18, 2024 50 mins

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Ever wondered how a paramedic transitions to a creative copywriter and brand photographer? Meet Sarah Wayte, who shares her incredible 20-year journey through the UK ambulance service and her unexpected leap into a new career in Canada. Sarah opens up about her life-changing late diagnosis of ADHD and how it influenced her path, offering a unique perspective on navigating high-pressure professions with neurodiversity. Her story is a testament to the unexpected paths our careers can take and underscores the importance of mental health awareness.

Sarah provides a candid look into the often overlooked roles within emergency services, shining a light on the unrecognized heroes—emergency dispatchers. She recounts the immense pressure they face and the emotional toll of making split-second decisions. Sarah also touches on her own experiences as a paramedic, discussing the emotional challenges of the job and the unhealthy habit of compartmentalizing trauma. Through her insights, we get a glimpse into the camaraderie and dark humor that serve as essential coping mechanisms in the field.

As we dive deeper, we address the critical need for mental health support among first responders. With alarming rates of suicide and a culture that often discourages open conversations about mental health, the episode advocates for annual mental health checkups and safe spaces for discussing personal struggles. Sarah's heartfelt sharing concludes with a powerful reminder of the importance of peer support and professional counseling, including resources for those in immediate need. Join us for this powerful conversation that emphasizes the significance of mental well-being in emergency services.

To contact Sarah, go to her website www.sarahwayte.com or email her at hello@sarahwayte.com

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy
.
A proud member of thePsychCraft Network, the goal of
this podcast is to demystifytherapy, what can happen in
therapy and the wide array ofconversations you can have in
and about therapy Throughpersonal experiences.
Guests will talk about therapy,their experiences with it and

(00:24):
how psychology and therapy arepresent in many places in their
lives, with lots of authenticityand a touch of humor.
Here is your host, steve Bisson.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Alors, merci et bienvenue à l'épisode 170.
Thank you and welcome toepisode 170.
If you haven't listened toepisode 1699, go back and listen
to it.
And diamond was veryinteresting.
We talked about, uh, menopause.
We talked about add and, uh,the late diagnosing of that and
how to work on trauma, amongmany other things.
So please go back and listen toit.

(00:57):
But episode 170 will be withsarah waite.
Sarah waite, I live like what.
The first thing she told me isthat I'm an accidental paramedic
, um, and she no longerpractices.
But she talked about, uh, herexperience with that.
So you know if I want to giveyou a brief discussion.
Following a 20-year career inthe uk as a paramedic, sarah
with her husband and two catsand moved to canada she's out on

(01:20):
the west coast, I'm sure she'lltalk about that she's now a
creative copywriter and brandphotographer.
She's a co-host of a podcastabout creativity and writes and
takes photographs in her sparetime.
She was late diagnosed withADHD too so that's why I was
mentioning that about the lastinterview and now fully embraces
her neuro-spicy life.
She also enjoys writing andtalking about her experiences as

(01:41):
a paramedic, especially throughthe lens of mental health and
how it impacts the firstresponders.
She is someone I was lookingvery much forward to talking.
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(04:00):
Well, hi everyone and welcome toepisode 170.
I'm so happy to have SarahWaite with me today.
I dubbed her the accidentalparamedic based on our little
conversation that you know wehad through email and Facebook.
But, sarah, welcome to Findingyour Way Through Therapy.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Thank you very much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
You know, I'm always fascinated because you know,
being a Canadian myself, bornand raised, and people going to
Canada.
But I don't want to jump tothat right away.
I know that you moved from theUK to Canada, but I want to
bring that question up a littlelater on.
You know, maybe I feel like I'mgetting to know you still, but
my audience has no clue who youare.
So how about you tell a littlebit about my ideas about

(04:42):
yourself?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh, my goodness, when do I even begin?
I am Sarah and currently nowresiding in BC, canada, but I am
originally from the UK.
I was born in the UK, but I'malso half Maltese, which is a
tiny little island in the middleof the Mediterranean Sea called
Malta.
So my background is like it'ssuch a big, long story, um, but

(05:05):
I became a paramedic by accident2008.
But I've got a 20-year historyin the ambulance service in the
uk, which again was an accident.
I I left home.
I was living in malta at the ageof 19, hated living there,
moved back to the uk and, um, Ineeded work because I was
determined not to go back toMalta.

(05:26):
And I saw an ad in the paper,for it was like the equivalent
of like 911 call handlerbasically it was the taking the
emergency calls and I thought,oh, that sounds interesting.
I can do that until I figureout what I want to do.
You know what I want to be whenI grow up, and that led to a
20-year career in the ambulanceservice, which I very nearly
couldn't get myself out of.
Until I want to be when I growup, and that led to a 20-year
career in the ambulance service,which I very nearly couldn't

(05:47):
get myself out of until I movedto Canada.
That's what kind of got me outof the ambulance service in the
end.
So that's a really quickrundown, but hopefully that
gives you some idea well, itgives us plenty of places to go,
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I always thought that paramedics went to
accidents.
They don't become accidentalparamedics, but hey, what do I
know?
You know, one of the standardquestions from finding your way
through therapy is exactly that.
We ask people have they everbeen in therapy?
So I'm going to ask you thatquestion have you ever been in
therapy?

Speaker 3 (06:15):
I have several times actually, I mean going way back.
I was first introduced totherapy when I was a teenager.
Actually, I got bullied inschool so I got sent to a it was
a count, a school counselor atthat point but it was classed as
therapy and I, you know, I it'sweird I had forgotten all about
that until my most recent umtherapy that I've just I've just

(06:38):
finished about a year with atherapist in the last year.
So, yeah, I've had a few, a fewinstances how was your
experience in therapy?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
has it been mostly good, mostly inquisitive, mostly
thought-provoking?

Speaker 3 (06:52):
something else the no , really good.
Actually, this, this most um,recent experience, uh, I
actually found my what was theword she used?
Like my inner, my inner, aboutmy my what's the word?
My balance, like my center, mycenter, basically it's most.
I had this like very incredibleexperience that I was telling
everybody about afterwardsbecause I've never been there

(07:14):
before and actually that was.
It was really interestingbecause it I think a lot of it
was a lot of it was talkingabout earlier stuff back from
way before I became a paramedic.
But I think being a paramedicexacerbated a lot of the ways I
was feeling.
So there was a lot of stuff toget through.
But yeah, I reached a point ofbeing like completely, almost
like zen.
It was great, I was fantasticand now it's all gone.

(07:37):
That's what we're saying no, no,I'm good, I am happier than I
have been in a very long time,so yes, well, you know I.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I think that that's what makes it very interesting,
because we talk about thejourney being exactly what you
said.
You know, we don't know whatthe journey is going to lead us.
How do we get into this thoughtprocess?
Uh, I think you were sharingpre-interview that your husband
is a paramedic and wanted to bea paramedic since age four.
I'm like, I mean, what anoddball.

(08:05):
But, um, maybe we can talk aboutyour journey, since it sounds
very judgmental for someone I'venever met to say that to.
But hey, I'm, you know I.
I want to break stereotypesabout canadians being polite, so
that's part of my other goal.
But so let's talk about yourjourney a little bit.
So you're looking for a job.
You fall into this assbackwards, basically.

(08:26):
So you got to be motivated tostay, other than hunger, because
you know there's got to bethings that you, you, you
enjoyed about the job, or maybeyou didn't, but so maybe we can
start there and go from there.
So maybe a little bit aboutwhat you know.
You go in like bright eye andbushy tail and that dies, dies
off, but in a month or two,usually for most people uh, yeah

(08:49):
, but like, but I don't want towrite your story.
I want you to paint that storythanks, I will.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Um.
So I mean, obviously I say Istarted in the control room
first of all taking calls, andthen it progressed very quickly
to, uh, being a dispatcher.
So that's what I did for thefirst seven years.
I was sending people, sendingthe ambulances all over the
county and responding to calls,and it was a really I was amazed
I stayed there as long as I did.

(09:15):
Actually I did.
I think it was like seven and ahalf years there and it was.
Every day was busy, it wasstressful, it was, it was hard
work.
It was 12 hour shifts with likefive or six screens around you.
You had to know where everybodywas at any one time.
There was obviously this push,push, push to make sure you're
responding to calls quickly andleaving no patients waiting and
all of that kind of stuff.
And I think when I firststarted I was completely naive.

(09:38):
I had no idea that it was whatI was kind of getting myself
into, but it was.
I've asked myself this questionmany times what kept me there?
And I think it was.
I think it was the rush, Ithink it was.
There was a bit, there was anadrenaline rush to it.
There was a sense like a realsense of satisfaction of a job
well done, when you couldactually see that you were

(09:59):
making differences to people,and a lot of it was the
camaraderie as well.
The people that I worked withkept me there for a long, long
time.
Actually, it certainly wasn't.
It was I can say this nowbecause I don't work for them
anymore but it well, it wasn'tthe bosses, it wasn't the, the
management.
There was a lot of companypolitics within the ambulance
service.
It certainly wasn't any of that.

(10:20):
In fact, a lot of that made mewant to leave quite frequently
as well.
I so it felt like there was areal push-pull all the time, and
also for me as well.
I went into the ambulanceservice with no qualifications.
I wasn't qualified for anything.
I was 20 years old, I'd notfinished school, I hadn't gone
to university, so I had no otherqualifications, and I felt like

(10:42):
I got to a point where I wasn'tqualified to do anything else.
This was all I knew.
So when I, when I went to, whenI decided to become a paramedic
in fact, it wasn't even adecision to become a paramedic I
said I'm done working in thecontrol room.
I might as well apply to becomea paramedic and see if they'll
take me and if not, I'll go andwork in a store somewhere.

(11:03):
That was my, that was mythought process.
As it turned out, the personwho interviewed me to become a
paramedic went yeah, we'll takeyou on.
So you know, that was it.
It just kept me there and thatwas a new kind of adrenaline
Once I got out onto the road andI was seeing patients.
It was stressful, but in adifferent way.
It felt more at the time.
Initially it felt more physicalstress because you're out and

(11:25):
you're busy and you're liftingpatients and you know you're
doing a lot of more physicalstuff.
I didn't think about the mentalstuff until way later, but it
was a different kind of stressfrom what I'd had in the control
room.
But I've discovered I did quitewell under stressful situations
and I've since learned that'sprobably an ADHD trait, where

(11:46):
people with ADHD are very goodin emergency situations.
So we're pretty well suited toworking in places like the
ambulance service, you knowfrontline kind of work.
So, yeah, that's that.
I think that's it was.
It was an accidental findingthat this was my place and it
was very much.
Every now and again a callwould happen and you would save
a life and you would feel likeyou were on top of a mountain

(12:08):
and you just wanted to keepchasing that feeling, basically.
So I think that's what kept methere for a long, long time.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Well, a lot of people keeps the adrenaline rush
really feels good and you knowit's interesting.
I'm in a group for firstresponders in the area and I
talk about the God complex andthat's part of what it is.
So I definitely get what youjust said and One of the things
that I want to mention too,because you talk about being the

(12:34):
control room, as we call it inUS and Canada we call it more a
dispatch, and dispatchers arehighly, highly underappreciated
for the stress to go through.
I don't know if you have anycomments on that, but I
certainly, you know, like aguilty as charged Sometimes I'll
mention all my first responders.
Oh, in this batch it's alwayslike an afterthought and that's

(12:56):
on me too.
But can you speak more aboutthat?
You know in the control room,the dispatch and how you know
there is some value in that, butpeople don't understand the
stress that it also, besideshaving six screens, as you said,
there's other stressors that gowith that people don't really
get oh yeah, totally do you knowit's.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
It's that they.
They are like the unseen,unsung heroes because they
because I kind of equated it toeven it was even different from
the, the people who took thecalls.
They were more recognizedbecause it was, you know, the.
The patient or their familywould be like oh, that person on
the phone was amazing.
They gave me advice, you know,help me save this person's life
until you guys got here, kind ofthing.

(13:34):
So they got recognized butnobody saw what happened in
between the call coming in andthen the ambulance arriving,
which was the, the dispatcher.
That wouldn't happen withoutthat person and that person is
completely.
I think that was the big stressarea came from the fact that
they were juggling everything.
You'd look at an entire areaand you'd maybe have, where I

(13:57):
worked, you had maybe 50,anywhere between 50 and 100
ambulances in your area that youwere managing.
At any one time you had to knowand we were.
We were taught as well.
Lovely manager, very old school.
He was very much of the of thebelief that if you didn't know
where your ambulances were whenthe power went out, then you
weren't a good dispatcher, soyou had to know where everything

(14:19):
was.
He would come and test you andhe'd swing your chair around and
go tell me where this crew is.
Tell me where that crew is, andyou'd be like, yes, they're on
this call and they're doing orthey're going here and so you
have to know.
Your short-term memory wasincredible.
Basically I knew where you knowany one time where my crews
were.
I also knew the calls that Isaid I called them my crews as
well, that it was like I wastheir, I was their mother for

(14:40):
the shift, basically so, and Ifelt responsible for them.
If they went to a call that wasreally horrendous.
I wanted to make sure they wereokay afterwards and I took a
lot of that on myself.
So there's a lot of that stressas well the the responsibility
of worrying about your crews,making sure they're safe and,
you know, not going throughawful things which some of them
invariably were and just thesheer business of it all.

(15:01):
You know just like literallyhaving calls coming in, it was
like playing.
It was like playing a big gameof it all.
You know just like literallyhaving calls coming in, it was
like playing.
It was like playing a big gameof chess.
All the time.
You're always moving thingsaround trying to make sure you
could respond to, like a cardiacarrest, really quickly,
diverting crews off of othercalls, making really quick
decisions.
Is this patient more sick thanthis one?
Do I need to be moving thisambulance to this call instead

(15:22):
and it was a it was a 12-hourshift of constant mental
gymnastics.
Basically, I would go home atthe end of every day with with a
massive migraine, sleep for 10hours and then come back and do
it all again.
You know so, yeah, they don'tget.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
They don't get sung about often enough,
unfortunately so and you right,and I think that that's why I
wanted to talk about it, becauseone of my, my biggest pet
peeves is even within the systemwe work here, the dispatch is
also kind of like.
You know, I'll talk about theNortheast intelligently, but I
think it's across the US andeven in Canada.

(16:00):
That's great, but remember,you're just a civilian, you're
not one of us, and you know, andI think that that exclusionary
standpoint happens just abouteverywhere.
And just my curiosity, it's not911 in England, what is it?

Speaker 3 (16:14):
It's 999 in England.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Thank you, I forgot about that.
But hey, psa for anyone inEurope listening, but talk a
little more about because theother part too is I really feel
like they're underappreciated.
But more importantly, you know,like I I should I showed this
before in the podcast and youknow you go, someone goes to a
call with you know domestic,with violence or whatever, and

(16:37):
you're talking to the personwhile the police is going on the
way and then suddenly you hearbang or you hear like ah,
yelling, and then it cuts off.
That pressure on the dispatcher, the communication center, is
absolutely mind boggling and Idon't think that's appreciated
as much.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Oh so much.
Yeah, it was.
I probably appreciate this more, having I obviously did a good
few years as a paramedic,actually working with patients,
you know, going out to patientsand stuff years as a paramedic
actually working with patients,you know, going out to patients
and stuff.
And then I came back into thecontrol room, into the dispatch
center, and I worked ontelephone triage for a little
while actually, and I had anewfound appreciation for the

(17:15):
difficulty of not knowing whatwas going on or being able to
actually do something.
I was at the end of a phone andit's there would be so many
times I would want to reachthrough the phone to make things
right because I knew what to do.
Um, and I think I mean, as thecall handlers in the uk are not,
most of them are not medical.

(17:36):
I think sometimes they are, butmost of the time they're not
medical.
They again, they are typicallycivilians.
They come in off the street,they're trained how to take
emergency calls and follow asystem.
But there was still that senseof oh, I can do something here
If people were especially tryingto get people to listen as well
, that's that was when you couldgive them advice that could
help in the meantime or and yeah, situations like that if you

(17:59):
would hear noises like that andphones getting cut off and
things, then your mind wouldjust go crazy thinking about all
the possible things that weregoing on and you had no, no way
of being able to see or do or bethere in that moment to help.
That distance, I think, made itlike being on the other end of
a phone, made that so much moredifficult, definitely.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
I definitely wanted to shout out the dispatchers
that I work with umunderappreciated, appreciated,
and Exactly what you just saidand then some.
But you know, in the joke Iwanted to make earlier was you
know People listening and youknow I can reach to the phone
and help them, and I was gonnasay, well, I Is that.
Why like.
So you're like fuck this shit,I'm going to become a paramedic,

(18:41):
I'm going to jump in and I'mgoing to be able to.
Oh, is that what brought thattransition on, or what brought
that transition?

Speaker 3 (18:47):
No, you know, maybe that was a part of it.
It was no, actually it wasn't.
I think for some people it is.
We had a lot of dispatcherswould go on to be paramedics and
that was because they weretired of being the person on the
other end of the phone and theywanted to just go out and do
the job basically.
So I think that was the casefor a lot of people.
For me it was very much.

(19:07):
I'd come to the end of my lifeas a dispatcher and it was just
like that was.
The natural transition was togo out onto the, onto the road,
to be, you know, to workoperationally.
So it was just a case of let'ssee if they'll take me and if
not, I'll go somewhere elseinstead.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
So okay, and when you know, I think that there's,
when you talk about a transitionfrom phone to on-site,
essentially that's what I callit emergency on-site work,
because you still did emergency,but it wasn't on-site work
necessarily.
What?
How?
How easily is it to adapt tothat, or how hard is it to adapt
?
And what were the things youfaced that you felt were very

(19:46):
easy and the other stuff thatyou went, oh fuck oh, um.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
So the transition was like for us at the time.
It was a 12-week uh course in aclassroom, basically being
taught all the very basics of.
We went out as studentparamedics.
So they they taught us the verybare minimum that we needed to
know in 12 weeks, crammed usfull of like anatomy and
physiology and doing exams, andyou know all the basic stuff cpr

(20:12):
and basic skills and all ofthat kind of stuff.
And then you did a.
I think you did a couple ofweeks driving course as well, so
they taught you how to drivewith the lights and the sirens
and, which was obviously thebest part, we all enjoyed that.
Um, and then off you went outinto the big wide world as a
trainee paramedic.
You were a student working withsomeone qualified, and actually
that's when the real trainingbegan for most of us all.

(20:33):
The stuff that they teach you inthe classroom is nothing like
what you'll see when you're.
When you're out there and I Ihad no idea what I was going to
be facing.
I kind of knew a little bitbecause I'd been a dispatcher.
I knew and I was friends with alot of paramedics as well, so I
got to know a little bit aboutsome of the things, but until
you're there and facing them,you just don't know.

(20:54):
I mean, the first time I saw anopen, fractured lower leg, you
know, it was like, oh, that'swhat bones look like, you know,
I was just like and it was.
It was that moment I realized,okay, this is a sink or swim
moment.
I'm either gonna like pass outhere or I have to do something.
And luckily the brain took it,kicked in and was like we must
do something.
Let's, let's fix this now.
You know so, but you don't know, until you face that, how

(21:17):
you're going to deal with that.
The first time I went to ahanging, you know, which was
really an unfortunate outcome itwas like they sent a manager to
me because I've never seen onebefore and I think I surprised
them because I was like this isgoing to sound a little bit
morbid, but I was like I'venever felt a broken neck before.
Can I see what that feels like?
It was like a learningexperience for me because I was

(21:38):
new and excited and even thoughit was an awful situation, I was
curious to know, for learning,for future, you know, whether
I'd be able to help somebody inthe future, kind of thing.
So I came at it very much froma place of curiosity.
I was lucky at this point I wasalready with my partner, who
had been a paramedic for acouple of years, so I had him as

(21:58):
a really good resource.
I think I learned a lot fromhim before I'd actually faced it
myself, and him being a veryenthusiastic paramedic, as we've
already talked about, that wasdefinitely really helpful.
I have a feeling it had been theother way around, because I was
not an enthusiastic paramedicat all.
In fact I would probably put alot of people off the job now if

(22:18):
they spoke to me.
If it had been the other wayaround, it might have been a
completely different story.
But I was fortunate that he wasso passionate about the job and
what it entailed that I was.
I think I just kind of went it,jumped in with both feet and
waited to see what happened.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Really, so, yeah, well and I think that you know
when you're dealing with hardscenes just like you just
described.
You know, sometimes it is ourdefense mechanism to say, gee, I
never felt a broken neck, whythat way?
I don't have to deal with thisscene per se, I'm just dealing
with a broken neck.
Is that part of the stuff, too,dick?
Because you know where I thinkit's underestimated is that you

(22:58):
know what I hate hearing and Ihear this sometimes from and I
am a civilian, I am notpretending I'm not.
I hear civilians talk about itas well.
Isn't that what they signed upfor?
I don't know if gruesome wasexactly what they signed up for,
or feeling like shit about itor whatever.
But talk a little bit aboutthat, because I think that for
me it is so difficult to seeyour first hanging or your first

(23:21):
shooting and you know, I stillremember some, you know some of
my scenes that I was on for thefirst time and going, and even
today I think about it and likejust I get a little bit of
goosebumps just thinking aboutit.
And again, civilian, I showedup as a civilian mental health
clinician, not a first responder.
So anyone listening to this,I'm not stealing any valor yeah,

(23:43):
no, it's.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Uh, there's a.
I think you learn reallyquickly and early on in your
career that you learn how todissociate, which is not.
It's not healthy by any stretchof the imagination, but it's
the only way to cope and it's a.
It's.
Yeah, it's definitely a copingmechanism and very early on as
well as a paramedic I was we.

(24:04):
It was a different service whenI first started in that it was
much quieter.
We didn't have as many calls aswhat as it as came later, so
you had time to like havediscussion with your crewmates
and your colleagues in thecountry in the in the break room
.
You'd all hang out together andyou'd discuss calls together
and it was almost like a peerreview, almost.

(24:25):
You'd have like a learningexperience together, talking
about what you did and what youcould have done better, and
everyone throwing in some oftheir experience and advice and
I mean it was crew room banter.
There would be a lot oflaughter and joking about stuff
as well which probably thecivilians would be horrified at.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Dark humor and gallows humor makes us survive,
but please go ahead, yesabsolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
And then, obviously later on it got so busy you
never ever went back to the crewroom, so you didn't have that
opportunity anymore.
So it became very much a caseof compartmentalizing it in your
brain.
You'd see a thing, it was awful, you would put it in a box and
youalizing it in your brain.
You'd see a thing, it was awful, you would put it in a box and
you'd push it out of the way,and you think I will deal with
that later, whenever later comes, you know which, for a lot of

(25:07):
people, would come veryunexpectedly and not very nicely
, unfortunately.
So yeah, so there wasdefinitely that element to it,
but there was something you saidand I've completely forgotten
now I forgot my own stuff, sodon't worry.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
But don't worry, I I think that we talk about, you
know, gala's humor.
We talk about dark humor, wetalk about dealing with it and
how we don't you know.
You talked about peer review Icall it peer support and being
able to talk about it, becausethat, as time goes on, that
changes, and then you go toscenes and you know it's like
next call and you don'tnecessarily have that time.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
No, yeah there's also sorry to interrupt you there's
an element.
There's an element of notdealing with it.
Eventually, in the end, youjust stop you it's, you would
just cram it down.
I mean, the box would get very,very full, basically.
And when you try and stuff abox and it starts to burst at
the edges, and that's basicallywhat was happening.
You just kept cramming thingsdown and down and down and, yeah

(26:06):
, at some point it would spillover.
And I saw lots of people'spersonalities my own included
change over the years as Iworked in the service and, yeah,
it's just not healthy.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, you know, it's the proverbial 10 pounds of shit
in a 5-pound bag.
I mean, at one point it's justgoing to explode at the seams.
I know that what they callpeople on Discovery tried to do
it and they clearly could tellthat they couldn't do it.
Mythbusters actually tried todo it.
But I really think that onceyou don't have that peer review,

(26:41):
you don't get that peer supportand you need to repress it.
But, like you said, it shows upin a weird way at other points
in times in your life, becauseyou can see so much bloodshed,
you can see so much difficulties, domestic violence, um, or all
those things, before it startsaffecting you.
I don't, I just want you know,I want to acknowledge that,

(27:02):
because I also think that youbring that home.
You said that it changes youand I do believe that it
absolutely changes you.
How did you feel it changed you?

Speaker 3 (27:11):
I became very depressed and angry and well, I
went.
Actually, I went through arange of emotions.
There was a point I'm reallywell aware of, a point of I hit
they call it sympathy fatiguewhere I just did not care.
I was so apathetic toeverything I was going out to,
which is not what you want froma paramedic, really.
When you're calling them inyour most stressful moments, you

(27:34):
want someone who's going toactually care for you, right,
and turning up to people at 4amwith their complaints and me
going just get on the ambulance.
I don't, you know, I didn'teven really want to know at that
point and that was a thing.
And yeah, being very angry.
There was a lot of.
One of the things they used toadvise us a lot of was.
I remember the biggest piece ofadvice I ever got given before

(27:57):
I became a paramedic was youhave to be as lovely and nice to
the last person that you see ina shift as you are to the first
person, and that's really hardto do when you are called as an
example to maybe someone who hascut their finger.
Um, you know something reallybenign yeah, something really

(28:18):
benign when you've just been outto say, I don't know, a 16 week
old cardiac arrest or somethinglike that, you know.
So, trying to keep that samelevel of professionalism and
kindness and is really hard, andyeah.
So I think, um, and I am aperson who wears her heart on
her sleeve as well, I'm not.
I don't, I'm not very good atkeeping my emotions at bay or my

(28:39):
opinions.
Honestly, there were times whenI had crewmates say to me you
need to go outside and waitoutside and I'll deal with this,
you know, because otherwise Iwould have probably got myself
fired, or yeah.
And then, yeah, there wasfalling down the hole of
depression as well, for a longtime, being very, very depressed
, thinking this isn't, this isnot where I want to be, I need

(29:01):
to get the hell out of here,kind of thing.
So, yeah, it's a full range ofemotions and feelings, I think
does it affect your self-esteem?

Speaker 2 (29:09):
because I know that for some guys you know when I
talk to them this is one of thecommon things is that you know
at three o'clock in the morningyou're finally in your bunk, you
know you've had all calls allday, you're finally can relax a
little bit, and then you get aphone call and then you know you
hear the, you hear the ding.
You got to go to the call andit's someone who's like oh yeah,
I've had, I've had back painfor two days but I decided to

(29:31):
call 9-1-1 at 3 am for that.
And your lack of empathy inthat particular moment is really
clear because you were sleepingand everything else and they
have to put it in check.
And you know my paramedics, myfirefighters, they're able to do
that.
But but ultimately it's like weforget that whoever, whatever

(29:52):
you do in life, whether it is aparamedic, whether it's a police
officer, whether it's atherapist, we're human beings
too.
But you don't get to show thatside and I think exactly.
I think that's what you'retalking about, like you have to
wait outside.
But for me it's like how do yousurvive without using a little
gallows humor and sometimessaying for sake, it just took a

(30:13):
guy a cardio, had to Nitro him,make sure that he got to the
hospital safely, and you've gota cut on your finger and you
can't get a band-aid.
And you know if I sound cold.
By the way, for everyone thatheard me, I'm not a paramedic,
it doesn't matter, I'm just atherapist.
But that's one of those thingsthat comes up and I don't know
what you think about all that.
But oh yeah it's absolutely likeit's hard to be ourselves in

(30:35):
those situations well you do,you that you find you have to.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
There is a real separation between who you are
every day as a normal personoutside of the of the service
and who you are when you've gotthat uniform on.
I actually wrote a piece aboutthat, about how the uniform
almost became like a superhero'scape kind of thing, where
people see that and they expectthe superhero, not realizing
that actually underneath is aperson who is probably more

(31:00):
depressed than and mentallyunwell than you will ever be,
and you want this person to carefor you.
And there was a real there's areal stigma around that.
You know the care who, whocares for the carer, kind of
thing.
If the carer is not well, howare they supposed to look after
their patients effectively?
You know, there were times whenI felt so I wasn't mentally

(31:23):
functioning as a paramedic and Iwould go to calls and I would
have to call for help.
I would say I'd have to say youneed to send me another
paramedic.
I don't know what I'm doing.
You know patients who arereally poorly and I had no idea
how to treat them.
I was just standing therestaring at them because I could
not.
It wasn't there for me to to beable to actually help them.
I was completely useless tothem and you don't.

(31:45):
That's the last thing you need.
You know, say you're callingsomeone in an emergency,
normally like a life or life ordeath situation.
You want someone who's going tocome in with the cape flying,
he's going to save the day.
You know, and so many of themcouldn't do that, even though
though they had the uniform onit.
Just it was a struggle,struggle to do that sometimes.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
So yeah, and I think it's also because you know we
need to be human in the humanside, as I tell people, like,
when you get to your third orfourth call you've been doing
this for several years it's likesmelling the color Thursday it
makes no sense whatsoever.
Smelling the color Thursday.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
And that's actually verysensible because, yeah, your

(32:25):
brain's a little mush because ofall the hard stuff that you saw
and that's the depression asyou talked about, and I know
that you know in pre-interviewwe talked a little bit about
suicide and colleagues andfriends and all that.
Can you speak a little morebecause that you know the
ultimate sign of depression, ofdepression right is suicide
attempts or suicide.
Uh, I don't know what word wegotta use, but suicide is what

(32:45):
the word I use?
You want to speak about it alittle bit?

Speaker 3 (32:50):
yeah, I mean there's not a lot I can say, because I'm
not an expert.
I I'm certainly, I've had I'mnot either.
I'm just winging it I can onlyspeak from my own experiences
and I I there was a point where,um, oh, I mean I've lost count
of the number of colleagues I'velost to suicide.
Um, over the years.
I think I read somewhere thatthe rate of suicide in first

(33:12):
responders is it's likesomething like 24, close to 25,
like a quarter.
It's ridiculous.
It, compared to civiliannumbers, it's really high.
And, yeah, there was a pointwhere it seemed like it was
happening every week.
We were just hearing aboutsomeone and this is not just
paramedics, I'm talking aboutactually some dispatch staff as

(33:34):
well.
We ended up losing dispatchersto suicide and those people that
don't even get remembered by alot of others.
You know so and I maintain thatif I'd stayed, I might well
have been one of them.
I had I was reaching that kindof point.
I think.
If I'd stayed, I might.
I've been thinking about thatmyself.
So it's it's really prevalent,it's it's terrible, it's

(33:58):
terrifying to know how manypeople I I worked with are no
longer here because because ofhow they were feeling and
because they didn't couldn'ttalk about it or didn't know how
to talk about it, or didn'thave access or or whatever.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
So, yeah, I think it's also because of the
mentality right, you have a, youhave a thick, you know, and
while we were talking I quicklylooked it up to a website.
I know so it goes medicaldoctor, dentists and police
officers.
They didn't mention the medicalpeople, but to me they also
omitted the Department ofCorrection and people who work

(34:35):
in the corrections Medicaldoctors and dentists not
surprising they have access togood stuff.
Police officers have access toperfect weapons and I think that
with the medical people too, ingeneral it's a hard thing to do
.
And you know like if youseparate ERs emergency rooms
from the regular medical place,the ER staff also has a higher

(34:56):
suicide rate than the regular.
I think it's because we have nospace and we don't give anyone
that space.
And you know, making that safespace is something I try to do
in my therapy, in my groupsessions.
But do you have any suggestionsof how to make those places
safe for people to talk aboutthis?

Speaker 3 (35:16):
For me it very much became the only people I mean
where, where I worked, you wouldtend to work with the same
people over and over and overagain, so you get to see when
thing, when things aren't rightwith them, you get.
I mean, I had a crewmate.
I knew him better than I knewmy husband at one point.
We worked.
So, you know, we workedtogether so often.
He knew me so well that when Iwasn't right, he, he could

(35:40):
recognize that and he would askme what's you know what's going
on, are you okay?
He'd ask that question and it'sit.
I think it fell to each of us tolook out for our colleagues as
opposed to expecting them tocome and talk to us.
It was when, when I first gotyou know, realized I had.

(36:00):
I was depressed.
It was because actually it wasa colleague who pointed it out
to me and I thought, oh no, thatcan't possibly be the case,
because I still make love, Istill make jokes and I laugh and
how can I possibly depressed itbe depressed if that's what's
happening.
But she pointed it out to meand it was like oh, okay, maybe
I need to go and talk tosomebody about this.
But one of the things I wasvery.
I need to go and talk tosomebody about this.
But one of the things I wasvery I used to talk an awful lot

(36:22):
about and I don't think it haschanged yet, but I I maintain
that I would like to see therebe at least an annual mental
health review with somebody withwith a professional, like, like
maintenance, you know, just,even if it's like you go for one
session, they ask, obviously,the key questions they need to

(36:44):
be asking to try and figure outwhat's going on and at that
point, make a decision.
Do we need to be having, youknow, more sessions or are you
great, you're good off, you go,you know, back out into the
world, I'll see you again nextyear, kind of thing.
I think that's something thatwould be, I think would be
really important in allfrontline areas.
It's, um, it's yeah, I I saidwe, you know you do health

(37:06):
checkups on a regular basis,especially when you get to a
certain age.
Why aren't we doing mentalhealth checkups?

Speaker 2 (37:11):
that's that kind of thing well, what's funny is I
have my first responders alwayskind of like surprised that I go
to therapy and I have my owntherapist.
I'm like yeah, because I'd befucked up if I didn't.
Right, I hear a lot of crazystuff in my job, like you know.
You see it, but I hear it, andI'm not saying that one's more
valuable than the other, but itcertainly is not much different

(37:33):
in that way.
So I think that you know I canonly speak intelligently
no-transcript every every year.
And if you mean if you needmore, because it's for

(37:53):
transportation, everything else,and I know another place to
talk about a full day off, uh,if you need it, and then for me,
that's what I I've always thegoal of finding your way through
therapy.
My podcast is that I want mentalhealth to be as important as
physical health.
I'd like to be able to.
I have clients who come in onlyonce every six months, three
months a year.
Hey, steve, I'm good.

(38:14):
Oh, on this team, I might needhelp with that.
To me it's the same exact thing.
It's like you don't need tolike sit there and be
psychoanalyzed on a couch, butsome people believe it is it
really is about are you doinggood?
No, you know what I probablyreview.
I've had, like add like fourbad calls last year ones.
I'm still not over it and, yes,I work with a lot of first
responders, so obviously I'mtalking about that.

(38:36):
And then we review them andafter a four or five session
you're like yeah, I'm good, Imean, I'm on my merry way soon,
about a year.
Sure, no problem.
But we need to be able to dothat.
And you know, when you talkabout depression, I think that
you so that first respondersaccept it a little more to
post-traumatic stress, uh,illness or injury, uh, I think

(39:00):
it's injury and whatever makesit workable, I don't give a shit
, it's whatever works.
But I feel like the other parttoo and again, you correct me if
I'm wrong and sorry, I'm afeminist women have it harder
than men in that way too,because you went into a male
profession, so to speak, and youneed to be tougher because you
are a female.
I don't know if that's beenyour experience or not, and I
just wanted to throw that out.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
No, that's really interesting.
I hadn't really considered that, but yeah, it makes total sense
.
Definitely Just trying to think.
Did you know, though?
I think most of the experiencesthat I saw of suicide were
actually mostly in the malestaff members, and I think that
comes back to how men don'toften talk about you know how

(39:43):
they're feeling, and it's keptvery quiet until eventually they
just can't cope with it anymore.
So maybe I think actually maybethat's where my feminine
experience is is that women arevery good at talking about these
things, and actually that's whyI say I think having therapy is
so useful, because it comesfrom that woman's background of

(40:07):
being able or wanting to talkmore about these things.
It's really interestingthoughts.
They just give me some littlefood for thought on that one,
actually.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
And like you talk, you're right.
Right.
Males don't talk about it andthey tend to be the ones who
commit suicide again,historically.
I was a suicide preventionspecialist for a while.
Um, the other reason why mentend to die of suicide more than
women is that they tend to usea more violent way to kill
themselves.
It's true yeah but I'm not hereto do suicide prevention just

(40:36):
yet.
But hey, it's always a greattopic to talk about.
But yeah, I really think thatyou know the ability to talk
about it is half the battle.
I've seen it too many times inmy life and my career, not only
about first responders, but ingeneral people will say
something like first responders.

(40:56):
But in general people will saysomething like so sometimes I'm
very sad when I watch a showwith parents because it makes me
think about my mom.
Okay, like wow, it wasn't ashard as I thought.
I kept it in my head all theseyears thinking I was some sort
of like weak person, butultimately saying out loud help
them, just made it up because Idon't want to identify any of my
clients.
But the point is is that I Itry to tell men like getting it

(41:18):
out of your head, out in theopen, just view sometimes is so
relieving, even if I don't doanything as a therapist, because
I don't fix people.
I just listen to people and Igive them suggestions if they
need to, but I'm not actuallydoing any fixing and I think
that what I I feel.
Again, you can tell me what youthink, but sometimes getting

(41:38):
out that stupidity out of ourhead and saying it out loud.
I mean, my therapist has heardmost of my stupidities and he
still seems to like me for somereason, so it's great.
But I think that that's part ofwhat the therapeutic process is
, and sometimes you can't dothat at the station or the
communication center and allthat.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Yeah Well, there's that fear of, I think, of
judgment, of, like you sayyou're supposed to be the person
helping people.
How can you be that person ifyou're saying things like I'm
really not feeling great today,I've been really thinking about

(42:20):
this call and I might want tohurt myself, or you know,
because there's a I think it'sfear of judgment and there's
just that shame that there's a.
There's a real shame attachedto it, because you are supposed
to be the person helping otherpeople.
You're not supposed to needhelp from, from other people.
Yeah, I think that's a lot ofit, but actually it's so.
It was always really interestingwhen someone would say
something like that and otherpeople would in.
In, you know, all crewmates,your colleagues, everyone around
you.
Most people would then go yeah,me too.

(42:41):
Actually I've been feeling thatway.
It's amazing how, when oneperson speaks up, the rest think
oh, okay, I can say that that'sactually it's, it's safe to be
able to say those things, and Ithink that was why it was always
super important to ask yourcolleagues how they were.
You know, or you know you don'tsee yourself today what's going
on, just because it could beanything.
It could be a job that they'vedone, but it could be something

(43:03):
that got going on at home aswell.
You know that's.
That would always have animpact on how you were feeling
too.
So just being able to givepeople the space to actually say
something.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right, and I think that you're absolutely right too
.
I try to leave my you know I goto work, I think my home
backpack, leave it at the door,pick up my work backpack and
show up for that.
But there's times where my homebackpack was too full, so I had
to put a little bit of my workbackpack and I do bring it to
work.
You know, for XYZ I have, youknow, two teenage girls, and
sometimes that can have its ownchallenges and maybe I have a

(43:36):
conflict with a friend or aconflict with a family member,
or that.
You know, there's X, y, z to bedone at the house and it's
bothering me because it's got tobe done soon rather than later,
and I'm trying.
So it all shows up.
And I think that you know theillusion that we can separate
our home life from our work lifeand vice versa is absolutely
bonkers.
But I think that that's whereyou know, having good colleagues

(43:59):
and people you can turn to isso essential, besides having a
good mental health counselor,having a good counselor in
general.
I say mental health counselor,whatever the hell works for
people, right?
But uh, that's what I think too.
We do bring stuff.
We bring stuff from work tohome and vice versa.
And let's not pretend we don't.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah, absolutely, and I can.
I just I want to really add tothat as well, like no, you
cannot add for it.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
I'm sorry we're cutting you off, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Just that.
Obviously the talking part isreally important, but also
giving ourselves the space tofeel the feelings as well.
There's there were times when Iwould do a horrible call and I
would be off the next day andactually the best thing for me
was to spend the whole daywallowing in the feelings and
actually experiencing.

(44:44):
You know the shit.
You know the upset, the shame,the dread, everything that I
went through from that call.
But giving myself a cut-offpoint like, okay, feel the
feelings, but tomorrow you'regoing to be, you're going to be
better in the game, you know andfor me that was really useful
as well I feel like, um, a lotof the time we would squish
those feelings down and thenstill wouldn't allow ourselves

(45:06):
to have those feelings, evenwhen we have the time to do that
.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
So yeah, just kind of wanted to add that in there no,
no, I appreciate, I appreciateit and always feel free to
interrupt.
I talk for a living, so I'measily lost in my own thoughts.
But the other part, too thatyou know you mentioned here and
I think that is very importantto mention is that I tell people
have your pity party.
You want to have a.
You know like, if it's a badcall, take eight hours of pity

(45:34):
party.
If it's a bad call, take eighthours of pity party.
It's really, really bad.
Take a 24-hour pity party.
I don't care about that.
But after that shit, we got toget back into working on the
other stuff or even processingthat, and I think that that's
what happens is that I think,when you're depressed or you
have anxiety or you're notpermitted to have that if you
start wallowing, you stay stuckthere and no one tells and you

(45:56):
don't know how to get yourselfout because you don't have that
ability.
And you're not asking for help,because that's too shameful,
right, because you need help.
Oh, my god, you, you bastard,why do you need help?
So I think that that plays allfactors.
I appreciate you saying thatbecause it is absolutely true
and I will quote uh, one of myfirst, my favorite tick, tock,
tick.
Non-hon statement is uh.

(46:18):
What you resist persists yes,oh yeah and um.
The buddhists and me will alwayswant to share a little bit
about my buddhism, uh, but whatyou resist persists and that's
just what it is.
So you feel bad because you,you saw like I've never again.
I don't want to see it.
I actually have no interest inseeing a bone sticking out of
someone's leg.

(46:38):
I have no interest, and if Idid I'd probably handle it, but
I just don't want to see it.
But if you saw that and it'sstill in your mind and you can
still see it, that's tough.
I saw someone have musclecollapse on their arm and you
can see just the bones and Istill think about it.
I still have a little bit ofgoosebumps, but I kept it to
myself.
And then I went to someone like, was that stranger?

(46:59):
Is it me?
And the other person's like, ohmy god, no one else said that,
thank god.
And then we talked about it forfive minutes and it was over.
Now I still have goosebumps,but it doesn't bother me as much
.
So I think that I tell peoplelike, talk about the weird stuff
, and maybe someone will be like, no, you're weird and that's
okay.
Then you can go talk tosomebody else who's a therapist
or whatever, and if you're notweird, they'll be like me too,

(47:21):
and there's ways to join aroundthese things yes, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
I think talking about it was the best thing I ever
did.
It was the.
The there was, you know, two,three years ago.
I would not have been able toshare some of the stories that I
share now without tears coming,without feeling like lots of
anxiety, heart racing, all ofthat, and now and now I can just
talk about it.
It's a part of my history, it'sa part of my past.
It's still like you say, stillgives you goosebumps and stuff,

(47:45):
but it's much easier to talkabout the more, the more you
share it.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
So Well, as we get close to the hour here, I'd like
to wrap it up.
Uh, knowing you, knowing,knowing human behavior and human
uh concentration is never morethan 45 to 50 minutes.
Anything you want to talk aboutthat, you do now and maybe
people can reach you and talk toyou about it uh, so I'm a
writer these days.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
When I left the ambulance service, I became a
writer and actually I I do lotsof different kinds of writing.
But I have an account on medium.
I'll send you the link so youcan share it.
But, uh, please, I share.
I share stories about myparamedic life and what, what
that, as well as other things.
But, yeah, there's a lot ofstuff about being a paramedic on
there and I'd love to be ableto.
I've talked to paramedics fromall over the world as well about

(48:30):
their experiences, so if anyoneever wants to reach out and
talk to me, I would love tospeak to you and we can direct
message you where uh, you can.
Um, oh, I probably actuallyemail me.
Email me is probably theeasiest way.
Hello at sarahwaitecom is theeasiest way to get hold of me
right.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
So what I'll do is I'll I'll link down the show
notes, but uh, if you know I Iappreciate you sharing your
story.
I've worked this field for along time and you know you being
so transparent about what youjust talked about is moving to
me, and this is not just beingnice to you, it's just the truth
and I like to thank my thankyou and thank you, thank you for

(49:11):
sharing with my audience yourexperience and I'm sure it's
going to benefit some people.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
I hope so that's that's why I I wanted to come on
and talk to you.
Definitely so.
Thank you for sharing with myaudience your experience, and
I'm sure it's going to benefitsome people.
I hope so.
That's that's why I wanted tocome on and talk to you.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Definitely so, thank you and I hope to talk to you
again soon.
Well, that completes episode170.
Again, sarah Waite.
Thank you so much, so much totalk about there and I hope you
guys enjoy it.
But episode 171 is going to bea little bit of my passion of
working with first responders,how it started, where I'm at now
and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
So please join me then informational, educational
and entertainment purposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for

(49:59):
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
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