I sat down with Andrew 'Atto' Atkinson, nearly 29 years in Victoria Police and a lifetime of stories that sound like a Netflix series but come with very real scars. We talked about the covert surveillance work that had him breaking into houses, planting listening devices, tracking cars, heart racing, sometimes while the occupants were still home. High risk. High reward. Calculated, but never casual.

Then we moved into the part people do not see.

Atto was deployed as a UN peacekeeper in East Timor and Iraq. He was stabbed in East Timor and that moment set off a chain reaction. Lifelong medical complications. PTSD. Cancer. Chemo. A brain tumour diagnosis. Joint replacements. And years of complete denial because back then you just did not talk about your mental health. You punched on.

Work was his purpose, his tribe, his happy place. It was also the thing he hid behind. Leaving the job meant losing belonging, losing self, losing structure. And that loss can be brutal.

We talked about self-blame, about the 'bucket filling up' until it overflows, about how healing really began when he stopped pretending he was fine. And yesssss, we talked about Sophie, his service dog funded through DVA, trained to detect seizures five minutes before they hit. Absolute superstar.

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