Strength and Vulnerability in the Public Safety Trenches
Jan 21, 2024Season 1Episode 8
Harriet West-Moore
As a woman who's worn the badge and walked the beat, I, Harriet West-Moore, have stared down the barrel of mental health challenges that keep so many of us in public safety up at night. On this powerful episode of the Women in Public Safety podcast, I take you through the often silent struggle against depression, anxiety, and the weight of vicarious trauma that comes with the territory of our noble professions. With my background in forensic psychology and the lived experience that comes from years in law enforcement, I share not just the battles but also the strategies for maintaining our mental fortitude amidst the chaos.
Join me as we address the elephant in the room: How do we, as women serving on the front lines of crisis, ensure our mental health doesn't become the unseen casualty of our commitment to public service? I open up about personal moments of vulnerability, the difficulty in separating the heartache of the job from the sanctuary of home, and the importance of self-care routines that too often get left in the dust. This episode is a candid, behind-the-badge look at the realities we face and a heartfelt reminder that while our jobs may be about serving others, we can't pour from an empty cup. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or a rookie in public safety, let's stand together in this journey to safeguard our mental well-being.
As a woman who's worn the badge and walked the beat, I, Harriet West-Moore, have stared down the barrel of mental health challenges that keep so many of us in public safety up at night. On this powerful episode of the Women in Public Safety podcast, I take you through the often silent struggle against depression, anxiety, and the weight of vicarious trauma that comes with the territory of our noble professions. With my background in forensic psychology and the lived experience that comes from years in law enforcement, I share not just the battles but also the strategies for maintaining our mental fortitude amidst the chaos.
Join me as we address the elephant in the room: How do we, as women serving on the front lines of crisis, ensure our mental health doesn't become the unseen casualty of our commitment to public service? I open up about personal moments of vulnerability, the difficulty in separating the heartache of the job from the sanctuary of home, and the importance of self-care routines that too often get left in the dust. This episode is a candid, behind-the-badge look at the realities we face and a heartfelt reminder that while our jobs may be about serving others, we can't pour from an empty cup. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or a rookie in public safety, let's stand together in this journey to safeguard our mental well-being.
Hey everybody, this is Harriet Westmore, the host and producer of the Women in Public Safety podcast. This is a podcast where I provide a platform for women who provide direct services to the public and that could be in law enforcement, that could be in firefighting, emergency medical services, social work or other humanitarian roles that again provide direct services to the community. I wanted to collectively provide a support system that and the challenges and the triumphs that we as public safer service workers have to endure on our daily jobs, so welcome. This is episode number eight, and today I want to talk about the mental health journey that we, as women who work in these type of fields, have to endure as a public safety worker. So there are various challenges in our mental state that we deal with every day on our jobs. I don't care again, it could be law enforcement I work in the law enforcement field. It could be social worker you have to deal with children and family services. That could wear on your mental health. You can be a health professional, emergency or doctor or that could wear on your mental health, dealing with people who are in an emergency state, health wise and I just wanted to kind of pose the question who takes care of you mentally? How do you take care of yourself mentally? I know that trauma can be a major factor in our work you can take on. The traumatic experience that you are dealing with when you're helping someone else is called vicarious trauma in mental health terms, counseling terms. By the way, I do have a master's degree in forensic psychology. So I work with in my profession as a law enforcement officer. I sometimes have to use my go back and use my psychology degree to kind of do the job that I need to do. But mental health is very serious.
Speaker 1:
I think last week I spoke about how we are dealing with people the populations that we serve who are going on diagnosed with mental health issues. But what about us? Many of us have experienced depression. I know I have anxiety. Some may say they're bipolar, antisocial personality disorders. There's all sorts of issues. There are sort of mental health issues that we as workers are dealing with and sometimes we are dealing with it in silence because we don't want, you know, people to know that we also have issues and especially in the field that we're working in, that could be a potential issue as far as our jobs concern. So I wanted to kind of talk about.
Speaker 1:
How are you handling depression if you are depressed? You know, let's face it, we're not dealing with all the time. Most of our jobs are dealing with people that are in a gloom and doom state. Very rarely do we have, you know, our jobs are, you know, sunshine and roses. It's not we are dealing with people in a crisis situation.
Speaker 1:
So you know, you can't help but to not feel some kind of effect from that every day, when you, you know, off duty or when you're home from work. So, I know, personally, I try, it's my, I try to keep things compartmentalized. I keep my jobs separate from my home life, but it's you know, I'm going to be honest, it doesn't always work out that way and, matter of fact, lately, here, lately, it's been, you know, an ongoing struggle for me to just let things go at work and then I'll deal with it, you know, the next day and bring it home. I bring it home all the time, you know, I'm sorry to say, and you know how do you, you know, deal with that? I know? You know, sometimes, you know, family members just don't understand because they haven't, they really don't know what you deal with. But you have to go through every day and then when you talk to them about it, they're like well, you know, you know, just leave it at work. You can't always do that. You can't always do because it affects you so much, especially as a social worker. You, when you are going in and removing children who are been severely abused, how can you leave that at work when you see the horrific things that are going on inside a home? I know in my situation.
Speaker 1:
I go in homes that you know use obviously a lot of dysfunction, not only as far as the the from the individuals that live in the home, but also the environment themselves. You go into horrific, you know nasty, uncapped homes that you just literally gag just the step inside the house and that also creates a health risk. That's why we have to be very careful and be protected. I definitely wear a mask every time I go into homes to do my job and you look at other people's lives and you think you know to them it's normal. You know I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything, but they sit there and live in filth all day, but that's their normalcy. But in the meantime it causes a health hazard and you know. So you come home and you deal with that. I've been in some really, you know bad situations in that respect.
Speaker 1:
So how do I deal with it? And when I get home, I try to you know de-stress by doing things that I consider in my zen moment. I do things that I know. That kind of puts me in a different mindset, that I'm not thinking about what I had to deal with during the day. So I have other hobbies that I try to do, even if it's just for a few minutes a day. I can't really engage in the things that I really want to do because of time and the way I work and everything. But when I take that little moment to myself I try to just do things that I enjoy doing. That kind of puts me in a better frame of mind.
Speaker 1:
Also, you are more than encouraged to talk to someone. I talk to a professional. There's nothing like having someone to acknowledge what you're going through and really understand and show empathy to what you're dealing with, what you have to deal with every day. So there's nothing wrong and I think we as women nowadays, in these times, it's very much needed that we talk to a professional. I know back in the day you always go into a therapist or a counselor or you're considered crazy. That's no more that stigma. I think the stigma has gotten a lot better. People don't think of that as a stigma anymore but more of a necessity, because we are going through so much, not only on our work, on our jobs, but also it falls over into our personal lives. So definitely seek the mental health and the encouragement and the support that you need, and some of the resources that are available are the Employees Assistance Program.
Speaker 1:
Now I must have to say and I'm being very transparent, I was kind of leery of going to a department-issued EAP Employee Assistance Program because I always thought, well, they may disclose a lot of something to my supervisor or whatever. But I have a good friend who's a licensed clinical social worker and we were talking about our issues of work, issues in our mental health and how we take care of our mental health, and I mentioned about EAP and she assured me she said by law they cannot disclose. I mean it is a part of confidentiality. They can't tell your employers things that they discuss. It's just a resource that the company has provided for their employees to utilize, but they can't divulge any type of information to that employer about what is discussed. I mean that's a violation of confidentiality, so, but in a matter of fact, I might have her come on as a guest so she can talk about the Employees Assistance Program more in depth. So that would be in the future, so tune in for that.
Speaker 1:
Also, there could be peer support programs within your department or your organization. I know the state has that for us, which I didn't even know about until recently that they had a peer support where they had certain people, key people, which another peer who went through actual training, and they are like a source of information where they can refer you to different type of other services or resources that you may need, and it's not necessarily including mental health, but it also can include personal issues. You may have issues with family members or resources that you need that you're taking care of, a loved one that you need outside of distance. They can point you to that particular resource, that a possible resources that could help you. So it's not just for work related issues, it's also for your personal life as well. So that's a good resource to tap into if your department offers that.
Speaker 1:
And also I myself have created, besides having this podcast, I've created a Women in Public Safety Private Facebook group and I would strongly invite you to join. It's on our Facebook. Just look up Facebook and groups and then type in women in public safety and you know you are more than welcome to just please answer the three questions in order to be approved, it accepted into the group. You know, again, this is about providing support with like-minded individuals who are going through the same things that similar issues that we you know, in various professions, but yet we are dealing with the same type issues and it's just a way to provide each other some kind of support and you know and empathy or in other, you may, you know, you may ask a question that another person with another in another profession, may you know, can point you to the answer to what you are asking. So you never know who you might meet in the group and it's a judgment-free zone. I do not tolerate, you know, bullying. I do not tolerate any kind of judgmental interaction in the post. So it's just you know us as women coming together and providing each other support.
Speaker 1:
So I want to hear from you guys what mental health, traumatic issues that you may be experiencing and how are you addressing those mental health issues and are you able to reach out to your employer for assistance, or are you suffering in some of this, which I hope you're not? I'm encouraging you to get the help that you need to take care of yourself, because it's all about we have to take care of ourselves first in order to take care of others, and that's going to be my mantra throughout the whole. You know, throughout the whole podcast and through my Facebook group, it's about taking care of yourself first before you take care of others. So I like to hear feedback from you. If you would like to be a guest on my podcast, I'm always looking for you, a podcast guest that we can, who actually can want to share their stories or their experience in their whatever profession that they're in.
Speaker 1:
Please email me it's on the screen there Public safety by women at gmailcom. Reach out to me and let's set up a time for us to discuss your story and then we can proceed from there. But, in closing, I encourage everybody to just please, please, please, take care of yourself before you take care of others. Stay safe and be blessed, and I want to speak with you next week. All right, bye for now. Bye for now. You are listening to women in public safety podcast. This podcast is also available on YouTube. Check it out on wwwyoutubecom. Backslash women in public safety. Also, you can go to our website at wwwwomeninpublicsafetycom and look for resources and other past stories regarding women in public safety. Thank you,