When the Threat Follows Us Home

After 9/11 and again after the Boston Marathon bombings, society's understanding of law enforcement officers, the dangers they face, and the psychological impacts that create progressed for a few years, but there was a gradual regression back to old expectations. You are expected never to show weakness, always be in control, not take things personally, and, at all costs, hold that line. Officers must do whatever it takes to make it home at the end of a shift, but then what? It's no longer just an issue of surviving the streets. Officers are just as susceptible to a life-threatening danger under the roofs of their own homes. It's just at the hands of a different adversary. An adversary that's claiming the life of another officer every 3 days.

In the academy and again during an officer's field training program, it is drilled into their head that if they can't respond to a scene safely and effectively, they aren't doing anyone any good and potentially creating another victim: themselves. Why do we not apply this same concept to officer mental health?

After various life experiences, I made it my mission to raise awareness about Post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as show support for initiatives focused on law enforcement suicide prevention. I decided to illustrate the daily traumas that law enforcement officers face through a personal and intimate account of my mental health journey in the form of an autobiography. By the end of this book, I hope to connect with my readers and show them they are not alone.