As a firefighter, Christy Warren made rescuing people her life's work. Her toughness earned her praise from her peers. But after decades of rescuing others, suddenly Christy became the one who needed saving.
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Pushkin. Hi. Everyone. This episode contains mentions of suicide and graphic descriptions of injury, including burns on children. Please take care while listening. There's so many important things that go on in this world and so many important people. But when your life is falling apart, you know, are the worst day of your life? I mean, who's more valuable than some person who's going to come and fix it, or who's going to come and save you. Christy Warren served as a firefighter and paramedic in California starting in the nineteen nineties. She was committed to being one of the toughest and strongest members on her team, and often that meant concealing the challenging emotions that came along with daily exposure to life and death situations. For decades, Christie placed every difficult feeling she experienced into a box in the back of her mind. But after a while the box became so full it burst open. It was like being locked in a movie theater with something just horrible playing, with the volume turned all the way up and the brightness turned all the way up, and you can't close your eyes and you can't get away from it. And that would go on for I mean all day until I'd fall asleep, and you know, then I'd have nightmares and I'd wake up screaming, and I'd flip myself out of bed, and I just it was just like the most painful thing ever. On today's episode, what Happens when a first Responder needs saving, I'm maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. I actually got to know Christy Warren through a slight change of plans. She was a fan of the show and reached out to me about her transformative experiences as a first responder. I was really taken by Christie's message and her thoughtful, candid nature. I asked her if she would join me on the show and share her story with all of you. Christie began her career in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked in Vallejo as a paramedic, then in Berkeley as a firefighter. Her identity as a first responder made her feel valued, which was in stark contrast to how she felt growing up. I had a pretty challenging childhood. You know, I felt pretty invisible. My mom was interested in other stuff, pretty much anything besides myself. She was nineteen when she got pregnant with me, and she was like a world partygoer, and she was really never around much at all. And my parents got divorced when I was four, and and then my mom got remarried and my stepfather was really into drugs, and so she really got into drugs, and so when she was around, she wasn't around, if that makes any sense. It was like I felt like I had to grow up really really fast. It was all about like how quickly can I grow up and get out of here and not have to be in this mess and depend on somebody else and just take care of myself and so yeah, so you know, I felt real invisible. You know. It's kind of like there's a saying like, oh, that's person's only person a mother can love, and it's like, well, you know, I felt like it's like, well, my mom didn't even love me, so you know what does that make me? And I would do a lot of stuff to try and get her attention. I always would run away. The street that I lived on, though, was a tree fort up in this tree, and you know, as kids would go play up in there. And then one day I was up there by myself, and I was like, I'm going to jump and maybe then she'll pay attention to me. And so I jumped and I landed on my feet, you know, fell forward. It kind of took inventory and I was fine, and I was kind of pissed because it was like I was hoping. I was hoping to get her or break a leg or something. So it's like my mom would have to take care of me or have to pay attention to me. Wow. So Christie, you you ultimately end up training and passing all the required tests to become a paramedic. Can you tell me more about what those early years were like for you? What I would call the golden years of Christie's time. You know, they were the golden years. Yeah, No, they are totally the golden years. They were. It was really the best time of my life. You know. I started when I was nineteen, so as in my early twenties, and I worked in Valeo. So like the car accidents and the shootings and the stabbings and all that kind of stuff just were rampant, just all the time, every day, and I couldn't get enough I was like a little kid in a candy shop. I mean, this sounds horrible, but you know, the the bloodier and the worse and the more intricate and smashed up things, the better I performed and the better I felt afterwards. And you know, and I think it also goes back to being needed. You know, when there's an accident, everybody slows down and looks, and the animals drives by, Everybody kind of looks, and for me to like to be there, and how visible I would be, It's like I would be where everybody not necessarily wanted to be, but wanted to look. And I was. I was important and I was valued. And I mean there's so many important things that go on in this world and so many important people. But when your life is falling apart, you know, or the worst day of your life, I mean, who's more valuable than some person who's going to come and fix it, or who's going to come and save you, or even just know what to do. And so by being in that environment, I felt valued, I felt important, I felt needed, and I was visible. I wasn't invisible anymore. Yeah, I mean, you say it sounds weird, but it makes so much sense that the more the situation calls of you, the more valuable you feel, and therefore it might bring out the best in you in your first responder skills. Yeah. I would have done it for free. I mean I just loved I worked so much over time, you know, I almost worked every single day. You know, he worked twenty four hour shifts, and so I was tired, but it was like the most satisfying tired. I just would almost say it was bliss. I was so happy. There's this moment, relatively early in your career where you get a hint of just how psychologically taxing this job can be. You end up perceiving one particularly harrowing call in which a mother and her four kids are trapped in a burning house, and and you're the first person called on this scene that night. Do you mind sharing what unfolded? Yeah? Yeah, for sure. So yeah, So we I was working on the ambulance and we were dispatched to a house fire, and the whole second story of the house had flames blowing out of it, and there was a mother hanging on to a firefighter, just screaming that her kids were inside, And so I asked her how many kids are inside, and she screamed four and a firefighter at that time came out and said, I have one kid. I don't know if we can do anything for him. Will you come in and look? And I said sure. So I went in and it was a would turned out to be a four year old kid who was burned beyond recognition, you know, he'd no fingers or toes or ears, or nose or lips, and so I said, you just I go. No, there's nothing we can do for him. I said, but you got to leave us inside. You can't take it outside, and the mother can't see it, the neighborhood can't see it. And I'm very sure I referred to it as an it and not a he or a she. So I went back out, and then a firefighter came running out and handed me and his kid. You know, his legs and arms were bouncing because it's so limp and has you know, skin has burned off of him, like hanging like a spider web. And he hands me this kid, and I'm like, okay, And so I jump in the back of my ambulance and I put the kid on the gurney and I'm just starting to try and get it airway, and another firefighter comes out with another kid and hands me the kid and I put him on my gurney. And then another firefighter comes out with another kid in the same condition, and so I happened to the back of my ambulance again and like almost looked for a second, like, Hey, which kid do I pick to start working on first? Like who deserves to live more than the other? Um? Yeah, we all we all went to the hospital after that with our kids and did they survive? To the three children of four survived. The three children did survive. A couple of them had like severe severe burns, and you know, I went we went to the hospital to see him afterwards, and the one kid was, you know, like a two year old was in you know bed, It was laying on its back. It was just completely wrapped in gauze. It had tubes coming out of everywhere. And and my thought was, like, nobody's going to be able to pick this kid up and hold it for for months and months and months, and what this kid's gonna have to go through this of all the and that had been burned off, you mean yeah, burned off and yeah wow, uh, but they did the three of them they survived, and then what was the um what was the aftermath of this? It was kind of a big deal in the community, and so they did what it's called a critical instance stress debriefing. So what happens is, you know, it's totally confidential, and everybody sits in a circle and kind of go around the room and you know, say what we did on the call, and you know, any feelings we had afterwards, and it's this kind of a way to like bring closure to it, and you know, have everybody talked together. And so everybody was going around the room and everybody was crying and like just talking and through tears, and it came to me and I was like, well, I was the first medical scene, and I just kind of told the story what I did, like I was talking about a frantic mom and or severely burned kids, like I was talking about a trip to the grocery store. I wasn't trying to push down any feelings. In fact, I was trying to cry because I felt like such an asshole for not crying, Like my god, my heartless, and and I just kind of went on and it, you know, didn't I didn't think it affected me at all, And I think I just put it in a box somewhere and close the lid and was able to not look at it again. It's like you take these bad calls and you put them in a box and you close the lid, and so you don't see it and you don't hear it, and it's just pushed away somewhere. And that's what I did my whole career. Had you ever been given training about the psychological and emotional size of the job. Nothing, absolutely nothing, never taught anything at all. Yeah, no, clue. The whole thing is about, you know, suck it up, buttercup. And if you're not, if you get sad about anything, or if you feel anything, then then you're just you can't hang and so you just you just go on. I'm wondering, were there other coping mechanisms you found yourself employing just to survive in a role like this, you know. So yeah, one thing one thing we do is is rationalize kind of what happened. And you know, even for that fire, was like, well, the mom was next door, she should have been with her kids, and you know, and there's a drunk driver that you know, runs into a tree and it's like she went drinking or they didn't wear their seatbelt, you know, or you know, they shouldn't have been out this late at night, Like who goes out at two in the morning and doesn't expect to get you know, shot or stabbed or robbed, and and so, yeah, so we would rationalize it. And in rationalizing, I'm assuming that this was your effort to just draw psychological and emotional distance between you and the person that was wounded. Yeah, that that felt, was that that gave you some sort of emotional protection, is that right? Right? Kind of like they brought this on themselves and they should have known better, and yeah, it sucks, but they should have they should have done something different, because if they're culpable, then there can be limits on the amount of empathy that you feel. Exactly, Yes, hit the nail on the head, Yeah, got it. Okay, it's really interesting. So your performance, Christie starts getting noticed by leaders in the fire department, right. Yeah. So yeah, I was a brand new firefighter and I had a captain who said, we are waiting for somebody, and he says, hey, he goes, I'm hearing really good things about you. I'm hearing you're a really good medic and I hear you can definitely hold your own on the fire ground and I said, well, that's nice. You know, I appreciate that. And you know, and he said, you know, women don't typically make it to retirement, and he was being malicious in anyway. He was just saying, you know, that's just kind of what happens. And you know, we're smaller, and you know, when you're in the industry for a long time, you know, everything gets trained and torned and pushed, and so you know, women tend to retire early due to an injury or sometimes her body just can't hold up anymore, and so you know they'll go to a desk job, like in fire prevention. And boy, he said that, and I reacted like, there's no way in hell that that's going to be me. I will make it to retirement. I'm not going to be one of those token women. If a man goes down in a fire, you know, everybody will say, you know, what a hero he gave it, as all this is so tragic. But if a woman goes down in a fire, what has typically said is she shouldn't have been there in the first place, Like the reason why she went down is because she couldn't handle it. And that's kind of the narrative for I mean for a very long time. And and so yeah, so you know, my goal was to work my ass off and never be that woman who shouldn't have been there. Yeah, and you were carrying, I guess on your shoulders this big achievement for women in your field, right, Like, if I make it to retirement, then I represent what's possible for women exactly exactly, you know. And I also said too, I will never be the weak link in the chain. I will not be like the weak person on the engine. I will always step up and do my job. And if I am weak in some area, I will go work on it and become stronger in that area. I will drag myself to retirement if I have to. And that was just and that does kind of become a mantra for me, and it's just like, yeah, there's there's no question. Where do you think that drive came from. I have no doubt it came from my childhood. You know, I played sports a lot, and and that was kind of the only time that I would get any recognition or anybody would notice me. Is you know, when I really stood out and did something great. And you know, my mom would come to some of the games, and when I did really well, it's like she'd run around and tell everybody that I'm her mother and she's my daughter, and it was like, well that's nice, Like, you know, can you do that when we're at home? And I don't know. So that was when I got That's when I got noticed or paid attention to. Is when I was when I did something really great. Yeah, you like, can I just get noticed when I'm not doing something extraordinary exactly when I'm just kind of being me? Yeah? Yeah, just being me? Wow. Okay, So you have this conversation with him, you have this resolve, and I'm going to fast forward now roughly fifteen years. You're called to the scene of a fire and you're asked to identify if there are any humans still in that building. So yeah, so we were dispatched to how fire and were got their second and the first engine had already gone in and knocked out most of the fire. Me and my crew were sent in and battalion chief told me, you know, everybody out here keeps saying that there's somebody inside still. He goes I don't think there is, but will you and your crew I please go in and just make sure there's nobody in there still. And I'm like absolutely, So, you know, we went up there, and the way the fire had burned was really strange, and it kind of distracted me, and it distracted my crew a little bit, and we looked around. We kind of poked our head in there, but didn't look really well. And like I said, we were distracted by some other stuff going on. And so I called down the radio and I said, you know, it's all clear, there's nobody in here. So my firefighter and I were at one end of the hall and I just like kind of was churning my head, and I looked down the hallway and here comes to firefighters like awkwardly carrying a man who's just you know, completely ashen and limp. And it's like everything went into slow motion for me, like I just fucked up so bad, Like this guy's been in here and I couldn't find him. And they carried him down the stairs and put him in the amulance and the amilts took him away, and you know, he's dead. He'd been dead for a while. And then I and then I went on like the rest of the night, like nothing had really happened, and you know, just finished with other stuff that we had to do and other work we had to do, and went back to our station, took showers, and went on with it. So yeah, So I came home the next day and I started talking about this call like incessantly, and I didn't really realize that I was doing that, but Lisa, my wife, said, you know, you've been on way calls a thousand times, but you never talked about him like this one. And I think what I was doing was I was trying to somehow, you know, rationalize what happened by like talking about it over and over, maybe something would come through where I would rationalize it. And I just couldn't do that on this call. I was sure that on this call, there was something that I could have done to make it different, to make the outcome different, to you know, that that guy would have lived if I had just done this, or if I had just done that, or if I just found him sooner, or if I just got on scene sooner. And you know, we kind of we call that magical thinking that there was something I could do to change it. And when you look back and you know all the facts are said and done, it's like there's nothing I could have done. He was passed away, you know, before anybody got on scene. I think magical thinking is such an understandable response. I mean, in cognitive science, there is a concept called the illusion of control, which is the idea that that's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, we think we have more control over outcomes than we actually do. And in this context, Christie, that makes so much sense to me, because in order for you to keep working on the front lines in such dangerous settings, it is important to feel that you are in control and you are making a difference. And so when good things happen, you want to take full ownership of the good thing happening. But of course, the flip side to that is when things don't go well, even when it's due to factors entirely out of your control, as very well made in the case for this gentleman that was in the building, still you're equally likely to put responsibility on yourself, right in this case, to blame yourself absolutely. And that's something that first responders, like all of us do because that's who we are as we're rescuers, and if we don't rescue somebody, then we do something wrong and we're not a rescuer anymore, and then we're basically a failure. And so I started noticing something was going on with me. I was angry, I was irritable. I stopped sleeping, you know, when the tones would go off for a call, and it didn't matter what kind of call, my anxiety would just it just the physiological response to getting a call, even if it was for something totally minor, was the same as if you know, they had said there's some huge school shooting and you're going to be first in, and it was the same exact response. And then another big thing that would start happening to me is it's a like a videotape, like would play on a loop of calls that I've been on, like in the last you know, twenty five years, over my whole career, and calls that I never even you've really thought of in the years and years and years, Like I had a call involving a water delivery truck and it had ran over a professor or on the campus, and so we were scrambling to get the truck lifted. So we could get the guy out, and by the time we got him out, he was dead. So every time I'd see this certain water delivery truck, like this videotape would start playing in my head and it would start off, you know, with two with obviously that water truck call, and then you know, I had a call where there's a husband and a wife were rejected out of a car after they hit a tree, and I was the only medic on scene. And then it would go to the call with all those kids in that fire, and then when to go to this other gruesome call, and it and another call and another call, and it just played in the sloop in my head and it got to the point where I couldn't turn it off, and um, you know, like for example, I was I was playing tennis with my wife one time and and she stops and walks to the net and says, where are you? And I said, I'm I'm in Berkeley trying to extricate this kid out of this car right now. And my mind would go there and it would just stay there and I couldn't I couldn't get out of my head. It was it was like being locked in a movie theater with something just horrible playing with the volume turned all the way up and the brightness turned all the way up and you can't close your eyes and you can't get away from it. And that would go on for I mean all day, yeah, and you know until I'd fall asleep, and you know, then I'd have nightmares and I'd wake up screaming and I'd flip myself out of bed. And I had a nightmare in particular where somebody had thrown a toddler into the pool and so I jumped into save him, but I couldn't. I couldn't break the plane of the water. And my dream and what it was was I was trying to dive into my bed like my bed was the water. And you know, my wife finally woke me up, and I mean, I just so many dreams like that of trying to save somebody and I just couldn't get to him in time. And so that's what my nights became. And you know, the daytime was a video and anxiety and anger, and my nights were those nightmares. It sounds like hell on earth, wow, And I just it was just like the most painful thing ever. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. Christie Warren had placed all of her painful feelings and memories into a box for more than two decades. The box was now open, and despite her best efforts, she just could not close it. During the day, Christie's mind played an endless loop of graphic images she had seen in her work, and at night, violent dreams kept her awake and rattled. She finally felt it was time to see a therapist. I really walked in there with the attitude of like, okay, fixed me, Like let's do this, let's talk about this, and then I'm going to get back to work, and I'm not going to fill any of the stuff anymore. And so, you know, I told her what was going on, and she says, you have PTSD and I said, oh no, I don't. That's impossible. I'm and I'm not patting myself on the back, but I am one of the toughest people out there, and this, this is not possible. I can't have PTSD. And she's like, well, I really think you do. And I just kept saying like nope, let's fix me, like give me some breathing exercises or give me, you know, something to make this stuff stop. And and but that's it. I can't. I can't go there. I can't. I have to work. You know, if you ask me what's the very worst thing that could ever happen to me, it would be getting PTSD and not being able to do my job because of, you know, some emotional weakness. Say more about that that it would be the worst imaginable thing to happen to you. You know, when I was going through this and I was off work, I was watching some video about the Boston marathon bombing and there was a guy in there had lost his legs, and I was like, I'd give anything to lose my legs instead of having this, because it's it's like more honorable to lose your legs, and it's so dishonorable, and it's just so shameful to cry at work and have anxiety and like not be able to handle your job. You know, if you lose your legs, you lose your legs, there's nothing you can do about it. But but to emotionally not be able to handle your job, and it's just totally unacceptable. So yeah, so I continue to work, and she kept saying he takes some time off and I kept saying, you know, no, I can handle this, and you know I'll figure out a way. So I got off work one morning, and I've been at work for probably almost four days in a row. Every time I got off work, I'd start crying on the way home. So this day I said, I'm not gonna cry, Like I'm gonna make it home and I'm not gonna cry. And so I fought it and fought it, fought it, and I made it all the way home without crying, and I sent my wife a text and I said, I got this, Like I didn't cry on the way home. I got this. And then I was going to go meet somebody to play tennis. And I got in my car to drive to the tennis courts, and the whole world came just tumbling down on me. It I was, it's just everything just blew open and blew apart, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't. I can't go back to work. I just can't. And then my only option is to either kill myself or really to hurt myself so bad that like even if I'm in a coma for a month, I don't have to go back to work for a month and I don't have to tell anybody why. You know, people will care about me and worry about me, and no one will call me a pussy and nobody will know what happened to me that I can't handle my job. And it's like that that just sounds amazing. And I I started looking for you know, pull to drive into, and then I'm like, yeah, poles fall over too easily, and need to find a nice, dirty tree. And then I started thinking about the first responders that would go out on me, and I'd just be adding another thing to their box and put them through, you know, more stuff, and and so I was like, just make it to the tennis courts, like, just get yourself there. And I somehow managed to get myself there, and I sent my wife a text and I said, no matter what I say or how much better I feel after my four days off, I said, you cannot let me go back to work like I can't. And so that it was then that I realized I gotta do something about this, like for real, I need help and I can't just keep pushing this away. And so the next day, you know, I called work and said I gotta I can't come into work. And you know, they asked me why had I pause for a long time? Because it's like, all right, what's everybody gonna start talking about me? And it's supposed to be confidential, but you know who knows. And so I told the battalion chief and I go, this is the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. It is to say I can't come into work, and you know, turning this paperwork in it was it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. And at this moment, do you plan to still come back? I mean, was that the spirit with which you were having this conversation? Yeah? Absolutely. I actually went and talk to the fire chief and you know, I'm crying in his office, and I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna fix this, and I'm coming back to work, like there's no doubt about it. You know, save my seat. I'm coming back. I absolutely will come back. This will not this will not win. Yeah, because I'm assuming in the back of your mind you're thinking I'm gonna make it to that damn retirement. I made a commitment to myself, right yep. Yeah. Can I just pause and say like, I'm so filled with gratitude that you're with us on this planet today, and I'm so glad that you thought of those first responders. You're the sweetest, thank you very much. That means a lot. I'm so grateful that you're here. I am too, actually very grateful. Yeah, I know that after you decide to take time off of work, you get wind of a retreat that's exclusively dedicated to helping support first responders who are suffering from PTSD and it's called the West Coast Post Trauma Retreat. So yeah, so I had like three or four people tell me, like, you know, like my therapist and the workers' comp lawyer and a couple other people are like, you need to go to this retreat. And I'm like, I don't need to go to some sixth day residential retreat. I'm I'm not like one of them. And so finally things got really bad where I was like, okay, you know, I'll go. So I ended up going in January and they put us all at the same table, and you know, so I've been sitting at a table with other firefighters and police officers and dispatchers, and and I look around the room and there's like probably a total of twenty four people in there, and I'm like, all these people here have gone through what I'm going through. You know, we we go through this thing where we talk about our symptoms and it's like we all have the same symptoms. And it was the first time that I realized and it was like the greatest gift in the whole world that I'm not alone. It's like, I'm not I'm not the only one. And you know, there were there were some badass dudes in that room, like these big, tattered out, tough asked dudes in that room, and it was like like if it can happen to them, it's like it's okay that this happened to me. And realizing that I wasn't alone and that I'm not you know, I always thought like, we have one hundred and twenty five uniform people in my department. Why am I the only one that can't handle their shit? And so we get there in the afternoon, and then on the first morning that we're there, every morning we do a check in. Everybody goes around the room and you know, does it check in? And I start crying, like I haven't said anything nobody. It's nothing like anything profound that somebody said. I just start crying and I can't stop crying, and people are talking and I just keep crying. And there's two therapists, there are two clinicians, and one of them Mark, he's one of the founders of this retreat. He says, hey, let's stop for a minute. And he and he says, he says Christi. He goes, what's going on with you? And I shit, you not. I turned behind me and I looked behind me, like who are you talking to? Like you're not talking to me? Like like you stop this whole room and everything to check on me and ask how I am. And it's like it's like nobody's done that before. And it was like I was It's like I was seen for the first time. You know, I'm not putting on my best foot. In fact, it felt like it was my worst foot forward. I was crying and and not keeping my shit together and I was seeing being, like I said, just being in my worst or not at my best, and and that that really, that kind of that was like started my journey. That's that started my healing. I should say, Yeah, it was pretty profound. Wow, Yeah, what I'm hearing in this moment is your discovery that you, Christie, can still be noticed and still be visible to others, and still be cared for even when you're not in this hero role, right, even when you're not performing in your first responder role. And i'd even more than that, at one of the lowest moments of your life, exactly, people still care about you. You're still valuable. Yeah, I'm worthy, just the way I was, just the way I am. Yeah. Can you share a bit more, Christy about how your relationship with your PTSD changed through this experience? You know, no longer coding it as a failure. You know, it's funny to use that word failure because that's a word that I used all the time. Is I would constantly say I'm a failure, Like I failed at this, I failed at everything. I swore to myself, thought I would never depend on anybody, that I would be a super tough, strong firefighter that could withstand anything, and we'll make it to retirement. And I was just an utter failure. And then at this retreat, I learned that I didn't fail. It was it was like almost what my greatest strength was also my greatest weakness. My ability to do so well under pressure and perform under these incredible circumstances and shove this stuff away was also what made me get PTSD and that it was a physical injury. Like I was so blown away when I heard that that it's actually your amygdala basically gets turned on high alert and there is no switch to turn it off, and you can't turn it off, and your brain, your brain changes shape, you can, you know, you go into a brain scan and and somebody who ask PTSD and somebody who doesn't, their brains will look totally different and there's nothing you can do about. It has nothing to do with you and your strength. It's like no different than getting cancer or breaking a leg or it's just it's on you know, physiological injury. And when I learned that it just I was just dumbfounded. It was like, Wow, this isn't me, Like I didn't fail. Yeah. I know there's a stigma around addressing any mental health related issues and something like the fire service, but there's an additional stigma placed on taking medication. And I know for you that was actually the final step for you to really heal was to be willing to take that leap and actually say no, I need medication to help this injury in my brain, to help it heal. Yeah. You know, I was doing better after the retreat, and I was feeling better, and I still have some spiraling times. And I had one spiral that couldn't shake no matter what I did. And then when I learned it was a physical injury, and I felt like I could do all that I could do myself in terms of healing myself. And you know, I could tell myself if I was a good person and I was worthy and all this kind of stuff. I was like, I might as well try medication. And I tried medication and it worked, and I was like, why didn't I do this a long time ago? It puts the floor under you. I didn't spiral anymore. You know, I had my moments, but I'd hit a landing instead of just continuing to fall. And yeah, the medications made just all the difference in the world. And they turned off they turned off that videotape, and they slowed the nightmares down. I could sleep, and everything started changing. My brain started healing. So you ultimately decide, Christie that you will not actually return to the fire department yeah. See, I really wanted to go back to work, and I kept saying like, I might go back to work, Like even up until the very end, in the back of my head, I knew I wasn't going to go back to work, but I didn't want to like face it, you know, I didn't want to close the lid or close the book quite yet. And I made some comment about going back to work, and my wife looked at me deadpan and says, you can go back to work, but I'm not going to stick around for it. And we've been together for twenty eight years and been through thick and thin, and and for her to say that it really hit home that, like, yeah, why would I Why would I do that to myself? And why would I do this to her? Because what she's gone through has just been hell. Also, yeah, the families go through so much. And one of the stations I worked at on my shift, they kept bugging me to come in for dinner and I'd say, yeah, I'll come in, and I'd always find a reason not to, just because of the anxiety. And I was so afraid. And then finally when I was I felt like I was up to it. I went back and had dinner, and I was I was so blown away with how they treated me and and yeah, nobody, nobody looked down on me, and nobody thought I was weak. I even pulled one of the guys aside and I said, hey, I go, so, what's everybody's saying about me? And he goes, nobody's talking about you. He says, we're all talking about that. If this can happen to you, this can happen to any of us, and we need to get our ship together as a department and do something about this so this doesn't happen to anybody else. And I was just so blown away that just how much they cared for me. And here I thought the whole time that they would look down on me and say horrible things about me, and and I just was treated with so much love and kindness and and like respect, you know, like there were some brand new guys there and they call me captain, and yeah, it was, it was. It was pretty amazing. It was really amazing. It's like I'd come full circle. And I laughed there and I did drive through one of the districts that I worked in that was really busy and par It drove me crazy. And I drove through there going, you know what, I don't have to do this anymore. Like I don't have to get up in the middle of the night anymore, and I don't have to come home exhausted. And you know, my wife would always say, you know, I'd say, what are we going to do tomorrow when I come home? And she would always say, you know, I don't know. It depends on what comes through the front door. And you know, I always thought she meant, you know, how tired I was, or how little sleep I got, And it wasn't that, it was what kind of Christie's going to come through the front door, and you know, the one that got a good night's sleep and isn't a good mood, or the one that just had to tell a wife that her husband's dead and there's nothing we can do, or the one that just was covered in blood from some horrible call and is distant and isolating. And so yeah, I was like, I don't have to do that anymore. I mean, I did it for twenty five years, and I started when I was nineteen. I was like just a kid. And to realize that I didn't have to do it anymore. To still be worthy and valuable and and count in this world. It was just like the most incredible feeling ever that it can just be me now and I don't have to I don't have to worry that cape anymore. Christie made it to retirement after all. She was granted a medical retirement by the Berkeley Fire Department in twenty sixteen at the age of forty six. This type of retirement is given to service members who sustained physical injuries while on the job. Christie is currently writing a memoir about her experiences as a first responder. It comes out next year. Hey, thanks so much for listening. On next week's episode, we hear from Priya Parker, a group dialogue and conflict resolution expert. Priya has used lessons from her work in these fields to rethink how we gather. She focuses on making things like weddings, birthdays, and dinner parties more meaningful and makes it more manageable for people like me who get really stressed by logistics. What I wanted to do is detangle gathering from the stuff of gathering, from food from hosting. The Martha Stewart archetype that like the way to host wells to prepare a kruttas three days in advance, to be an expert in food, to be an expert in floral, to be an expert in esthetics, and all of those things create beauty and meaning. But they're the hygiene, right, it's not. Actually what do you do with these people? A Slight Change of Plans is created, written an executive produced by me Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our story editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vastola, and our associate producer Sarah McCrae. Louis Skara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.