Dena Ali—Finding “Hope Out of Darkness” | S4 E51

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As I started researching mental health and I started understanding why I was having some of my struggles, I realized that I wasn't alone. Just understand that we have the power to transform anything negative into something positive. And that's so true. So my idea was if I can put everything that I know about creating a peer support program and assisting others into the book, then when people reach out to me, I can say, hey, go buy this book. When I finally have the courage to see a therapist, which I talk about that in the book, because going to see a therapist is so scary, but it's so awesome once you get there. That just a little bit of light is that little bit of hope that will get you through. Sometimes all you need is a little bit of light in the darkness to find your way out.

Voiceover 0:45

Welcome to Responder Resilience, along with my co-host Bonnie Romoli, LCSW EMT. I'm David Dashinger. In this episode, we'll be speaking with Battalion Chief Dina Ali. She is the program manager for behavioral health with the First Responder Center for Excellence. We'll be talking about our new book, Hope Out of Darkness: a Guide for First Responder Mental Wellness. This episode is made possible by the First Responder Center for Excellence. Discover more at First Responder Center.org and connect with us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. This episode is made possible by Strobes and More, a New England-based leading distributor, installer, and servicer of emergency vehicle equipment. Visit strobesandmore.com to sign up for special offers and receive 10% off your next order. We invite you to like and subscribe, YouTube Responder Resilience, Facebook, Responder Wellness Inc. and Responder TV. Apple Podcast Spotify and LinkedIn and go to our website, responderTV.com for past episodes, guest information. We'll be right back to speak with Chief Ali after this.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

In this family, all of us die by our own hands and by the hazards of the job. In this family, up to a quarter of 911 telecommunicators have symptoms of post-traumatic stress. In this family, our mental health and wellness are in crisis. Our sponders are quietly suffering.

SPEAKER_05 2:03

In this family, many struggle with drop-related stress. With vital information and resources, resilient strategies, and success stories of overcoming the obstacles.

Voiceover 2:25

Welcome to Responder Resilience. We co-host retired Lieutenant David Dashinger, Dr. Stacy Raymond, and Bonnie Rimley, LCSW EMTB. So we'd like to welcome back Battalion Chief Dean Ali. She's with the City of Raleigh, North Carolina Fire Department, and she's an author, speaker, and the program manager for behavioral health with the First Responder Center for Excellence. Chief, we were just talking offline about your 2024, about all the stuff that's happened and you've created, uh, including finishing your EFO and obviously this book, which we're going to talk about, that getting released and published, and becoming the program manager for behavioral health at the First Responder Center for Excellence. So kudos for everything you've accomplished so far. It's really impressive.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you for having me back on. But yeah, this has been a really cool year for me. Um it's been exciting.

SPEAKER_05 3:24

Well, it's been exciting for us to watch from the sidelines. There's so much buzz around your new book, and on social media, you're just lighting up. So congrats. You're doing wonderful things for our people. Thank you, Bonnie. So let's dive into the book. Um, what inspired you to start writing the book? And where did you get sort of your goal and your permits for the book?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

It's so funny, even right now that the book is complete and published, I I look back and I'm like, how on earth? Because writing a book is daunting, and I would have never been able to think that I could write a book or that I would be able to write a book. And somehow it's come to fruition and it's done, which is amazing. So in 2015, I started graduate school, and that's when I really started writing and developing a passion. A lot of people hate school, and I did as well. Uh, and I did graduate school just for like, let's see if I can do it. And I loved it because graduate school is nothing like any other school. It wasn't go memorize this and take a test. It was, hey, let's make something better. Let's use most classes use the problem-solving model to find a problem and research better solutions and come up with ideas for those, um, for that problem. And so early on, I became focused on mental health. It was my own me search. Uh, but as I got involved in it, especially for first responders, I realized, you know, we all remember 2015, it wasn't a topic that many of us were speaking on. It wasn't the hot topic it is today. It was just brushed under the rug because of the stigma. But as I started researching mental health and I started understanding why I was having some of my struggles, I realized that I wasn't alone, that I was more normal than I thought. And there became this passion to be able to share what I was learning. And I was fortunate, you know, it I it really truly everything that's happened is a lot of it has had to do, I mean, of course, hard work, but also I've had these fortunate opportunities. And I just happened to be reading uh Fire Engineering magazine, and there was this opportunity to get a scholarship to go to FDIC, and you had to be nominated. So, like any good person, I asked my friend to nominate me. And my friend nominated me and I got selected, and that's where I met Bobby Halton. And in that meeting, who he was the education director for FDIC and the editor for fire engineering, in that meeting I learned that he had a passion for mental health, and he actually had a family history uh of mental health and suicide, and so it was something that was just really passionate, uh passion project for him as well. He didn't speak so much about it, it was very like quiet. And so I wrote a paper on firefighter suicide in 2016. I sent it to him and he loved it and he published it. And I didn't really even think it would get published, I thought I was just sharing, like, hey, look, and that became like well, and then also I'll be honest, it got published, and then fire engineering paid me money and that money went to my next class because tuition was expensive. And so I realized that if the papers I wrote for graduate school were good enough to be published, I could pay for the next class, um, or part of the next class. So I I actually started to focus writing my papers so that maybe they could be published so that I could use the money to pay for graduate school, but also like being able to share what I was learning and being able to help other people and help other departments was so cool. So I presented FDIC a few years. I would always go to the bookstore and buy every book that was new. And I got to know some of the people at the bookstore, and one of them, Holly, she every year was like, she started inviting me to the author dinners. And I was like, Holly, I haven't written a book. I can't come to these dinners. And she was like, Well, you need to write a book. And so after a couple years of her uh inviting me to the dinners and me feeling like I shouldn't be at those dinners, I took all of my papers and I put them together and had about a hundred pages and I edited it, and I was like, huh, I have something here. And so then each of those papers were really academically written and then transferred a little bit to the fire service. So then I started having fun and just putting all the academics away and then writing experiences and personal experiences, and it became so fun to write non-academically. Uh, so I I I star I just fell in love with it and I started going down the path of writing this book. And I remember uh 2023 from about January till August, all I did was work on the book, and it actually became really fun for me because I had an excuse to say no to going out and doing things. And, you know, I just I I I worked on that book, and around April, when the weather got nice, I made my office outside. And every day I would write, you know, for about an hour, two hours. And the more I would write, the more I'd realize, hmm, I want to include this topic. So then I'd start going down rabbit holes of research uh because I wanted it to be really comprehensive. And as I was fall like finding information about things that I wasn't too familiar with, like one of the topics was play and the value of play. So then I'd spend a month reading everything I could about play so that I could add it to the book. Uh, and then that led to humor, which led to gratitude and all of these other things. So uh long-winded answer to a short question.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

No, it's a gr it's a great answer. And um, what are those three main themes of the book that you were mentioning?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Yeah, it the first part of the book was basically all of the research I'd previously done. So the first part of the book just was an introduction to suicide and mental health uh for first responders. So it's the sciencey part of the book. And then the second part of the book is uh the self-care resilience component, or what can we do to help ourselves? And so that's where play, gratitude, mindfulness, social support, humor, journaling, anything that I found could help us be, you know, more resilient, which I'll be honest, I don't like the word resilience. Um, and I talk about why in part two of the book. Uh, but there's no word in the English language for what I really want, which I also talk about in part two of the book. Um, but it's the idea of recognizing as first responders, we're gonna be exposed to stress, we're gonna be exposed to trauma, we're gonna be exposed to sleep disruption. So it is on us to increase our ability to withstand that stress, and we can do that. And part two of the book talks about all the things that allow us to increase our ability to withstand stress. And then part three of the book is basically it's a consultation guide for peer support.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

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SPEAKER_00 11:16

So I created um the North Carolina Peer Support Curriculum in 2018-19 based off of the IAFF, the Illinois Firefighter Peer Support, and then all of my graduate research. Um, it was just too expensive to host the IAFF or in it was too expensive to host any peer support in our state. So a lot of departments weren't getting peer support. So we created our own curriculum in our own, you know, education group to teach it. And it got to the point where I had more requests for the classes than I had time or ability. And then as I, you know, started doing podcasts and speaking, I would get a lot of emails from people like, hey, we want to start a peer support team. What do we do? Hey, we want to do this. And I got really tired. And so my idea was if I can put everything that I know about creating a peer support program and assisting others into the book, then when people reach out to me, I can say, hey, go buy this book. So the whole part three is really a guide to peer support. Um, it it's fantastic. But also, if you're not interested in a formal peer support, it is truly about helping others. So it's truly about how to active listen, about you know, therapy. In there, there's a chapter on um different types of therapies, including the experiential therapies, um, a little section about psychedelics, you know, EMDR, of course. Um, but it talks about therapy, it talks about how to find a therapist. Um, and then of course, my favorite part a lot of people that get involved with the wanting to help others think that their job is to solve the problems or fix others. And hopefully part three reinforces that you can't fix anybody. All you can do is be there for them and maybe give them a platter of resources and support them as they find their way to healing. So I hope that that third part just gives people the confidence to continue showing up, but not bearing the burden of fixing others. Because I think a lot of us, especially that get involved with peer support, we we carry too much of a burden and we shouldn't have to carry that burden. Peer support is so much easier than we make it out to be. It's truly organic, being there, validating, supporting, um, and showing up when when we when we're needed, even if we don't have the answers.

Voiceover 13:25

Right. And um, you touched on, you know, what is such a probably the hardest part of doing peer support, and that's you know, we're in fix-it mode as first responders. That's what we do, right? We we get to those situations and we we you know calm the chaos, we take care of the problem, we get it solved. And in peer support, that really is not what what we need to be doing. It's more of that, as you said, being present, active listening, and let's let's underscore the resources. Um, the fact that you're offering incredible variety of resources in the book. Um, talk a little bit more about that as far as obviously it's not one size fits all, but how can people kind of use your book to find something that will help them uh move through a challenging situation or um you know find the help that they need?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

No, absolutely. And so my book, there's like one chapter that had 78 citations. So my book is it's my research, me search. And even in the beginning, that's what it says. It says this book is about my research, me search. I'm not a mental health clinician or expert. Um, I'm not gonna tell you how to solve your problems. You have to figure it out on your own. And I I know it's kind of brutal to say that way, but it's the truth. But you know, I hope that you know, as people read the book and maybe they find interest in something I said, they'll go to that citation and go for further. I included a lot of several helpful um web links um to organizations doing great things. But really and truly, like the title of the book uh was meaningful, Hope Out of Darkness, a guide to first to responder, mental health and wellness. Initially, the title was Finding Light Within the Darkness, uh, because I always felt that a lot of us struggle and when when we're in the darkness, we can't see the light. And we don't realize that just a little bit of light is is is that little bit of hope that will get you through. Sometimes all you need is a little bit of light in the darkness to find your way out. And years ago, I read this book, Um The Beauty Within the Darkness by Joshua Mance, and it made a big difference in my life. Uh, because at the end of the book, he talked about how every one of the bad things that ever happened to him gave him the foundation to be the person he is today. And he he found the greatest meaning from the darkness because through that he's able to help others. And that's to him the greatest part of life is being able to support and help others. So I wanted to play off of his book because it had such a profound impact on my life, and that's where light within the darkness came. But uh on Google, I found that there were a lot of books with that title already. But hope, hope is such an important word, and I think some people think hope is like a one-a-warm, fuzzy feeling uh that has, you know, no substance to it. But there's so much more to hope, and hope is beautiful. Hope is a function of struggle, truly. Without struggle, you don't develop hope, and you have to struggle to develop hope. But the beauty of hope is sometimes all you need is just a little to get yourself through. And that's what I found, and I found it really fascinating in my research on mental health. It ties to the research on survival and surviving, like you know, avalanches. Uh, have you ever read the book Deep Survival?

SPEAKER_06 16:38

Yeah, oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

It's one of my favorites. I read it often, but in there it talks about who lives and who dies. And they explain it's not about the people, the people that live aren't the ones that have the most training, the most knowledge. It's the ones that have it inside, and it's the ones that can develop hope and it's the ones that understand. It's not about looking to the end, it's about taking one step, putting one foot in front of the other. The people who can put one foot in front of the other and stay calm are the ones that survive. And in terms of mental health, it's the same thing. And Dr. Brene Brown talks about this trilogy of hope, and it's not a warm, fuzzy word, it's actually like there it's a cognitive process that requires number one, um, belief in yourself, uh, agency, and number, and then finally like being able to take those steps and those little bits of steps. And she she simplifies it so much. So, this point of just putting one foot in front of the other, and then the value of belief, maintaining that belief. So I explained that in one of the chapters, but I really that that's where that title came from. And I thought it was so important. And hopefully, like hope, I hope that people take that out away from the book is hope is a function of struggle. We have to struggle to develop hope. We're all gonna struggle. Life is not easy, you know. We I think the Buddha said it, you know, life is struggle. We're all gonna struggle, life is so hard. Um, but if you can just keep one foot in front of the other, and I think uh Lawrence Gonzalez in his book Deep Survival said something else. He said, and uh, this always plays in my head every time I'm in this situation where life is hard or where I get frustrated, or I think like, man, is okay, now this bad thing has happened, now what? And that's kind of something that he says over and over again, now what? And it reminds me, okay, this bad thing has happened. I can't change it, I can't go back in time. Now what? What can I do next? And I think that's that's the premise of hope.

SPEAKER_05 18:28

I I agree with you um wholeheartedly, and I think that with hope, there's a determination aspect that's hidden behind it. And for some people, when they tap into that hope, the determination is right there. Well, you know, I'll be damned if that's gonna happen to me again, or I'm not gonna let this person or this situation destroy me. It's just gonna make me stronger. And I see some people, especially in our responder world, with the amount of trauma people have lived earlier in their life and they bring to the table, there's this determination to change the situation and to not allow it to change them the way that maybe other things have in the past. So I wondered what you thought of hope and determination working together kind of as best buddies and certain people.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Like a part of the, I guess, the definition of hope that I left out was the pathway. Like hope requires a pathway too. Um, so we don't have to know the end results, we just have to know that pathway. And I think that's where that deter like that determination comes from is okay, let's use this, let's take this pathway, and let's one foot in front of the other. That's it. Um that's what I'm constantly reminded of. And and I love that part of um like deep survival was the people who looked at the end, who looked at the survival and just looked at that, were actually the ones that were least likely to survive. The ones who just put one foot in front of the other and looked at the pathway and said, Okay. Okay, one little thing at a time. And that's why I remember with hope, and especially with helping others and doing peer support, is a lot of times people struggling come and it's like my whole life is falling apart. Everything's going wrong. I I don't know what to do. And what's so beautiful is when one thing gets better, they they they have that's when they find that hope, when they realize, oh, you know what? It's not falling apart. Like this can change. And I just I love that. I love how I love the simplicity of it because I think we all, people struggling and people helping people struggling, we all focus so much on fixing everything and making everything perfect. And we forget that the process, it's it's all about the process. And when one thing gets better, you have the hope and you know that everything else can get better.

Voiceover 20:48

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SPEAKER_00 22:30

I first want to apologize. I recognize the name of this project.

Voiceover 22:34

I saw the irony in that when you said We're just talking about we're not that attached to it.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

And I mean, and I get it, the way we use resilience, it's beautiful, and resilience is so important. But sometimes I think because if you look at the pure definition of resilience, it's this idea of bouncing back. It's idea that's this idea that we're whole, something bad happens, and we're whole again. But I believe, and this is just my belief, and it could be wrong, it could be totally out there, is that we're never whole. We're not whole, we're constantly evolving and growing. And our experiences are laying the foundation for our growth. And so that's why I don't particularly like resilience because I I want a word that describes growth. And I know we have post-traumatic growth, but it's not just post-traumatic, it's also what we can do ahead of trauma to grow and become stronger. And I had a really long conversation with Ryan Muncy, who's uh just one of my like thought leader um heroes, and hopefully we'll talk about and the uh mental wellness and suicide prevention symposium that FRCE is hosting in March, but and because he's gonna be there. And we were having a long talk one day, and he agreed he didn't quite like the word resilience, and a word that he used is anti-fragility, um, that Nassim Talib coined, but we don't quite like that word either. And some people think when they hear anti-fragility, it means callous and not being affected, uh, which isn't quite a good word. But the way that that word is defined by Nassim Talib is it's not quite that, it's just not crumbling under pressure, it's creating yourself in a way that you can withstand it and continue to grow. So uh we talked about this last time, and I still am on this path, and I hope somebody listening will help. You need to invent a word um that describes, you know, our continuous evolution and growth and the need for adversity and trauma to help us become those better versions. Just this weekend, uh, we re-watched the movie Um Unbroken with Louis Samprini. The book now, the movie does not do the book justice. The book is probably one of the best books out there. It's amazing. And we were at the firehouse watching this. And, you know, a lot of times we have these conversations at the firehouse, like, wow, this job with everything that happens, it destroys us, and it's going to, you know, continue to cause more first responders to have PTSD and have to retire and be disabled. And as we're watching this movie, the trauma this guy endured is far more intense than what any of us will ever face in the fire service. I mean, he he he was on a plane that you know went down in the ocean. Uh, he ended up on a life raft with two of his comrades, I think like 70 days. One of them died. He they had no food. Uh, I mean, they caught some fish here and there. Um, and then he became a prisoner of war for a few years, and he was tortured because previous to that, he was an Olympic athlete and they recognized him as an Olympic athlete. And he was tortured. I mean, he was um singled out and beaten um and abused. He actually had an opportunity to go and um speak for the Japanese on like their radio show, um, but basically tell lies. And he refused to do that. And because he refused to do that, he was tortured even more. But in the aftermath, he ended up being so incredibly resilient, uh, your word. Um and ended up living this amazing and beautiful life. And even when he was 80, he went back to Japan and he ran um in the Olympics with the torch in the beginning, and he wanted to meet the person who tortured him because he he forgave him. Uh, and so just watching that, it's just a reminder that the things that we go through don't have to destroy us. Um, so how do we, you know, how do we move through them just like he did to become better versions of ourselves?

SPEAKER_05 26:32

Well, I think the way that I typically think of that word resilience, and and you're not the only person, a lot of people have a reaction to that word, um, truthfully. So that's just interesting in and of itself. But I think of resilience as more determination, it's that determination that comes from inside a person to not give up, to keep pushing, to not let anything destroy that part of them that is the light. And that's really how I view it. And so, as human beings, we're like diamonds. The more pressure and heat that we're put under, we can get more and more beautiful if we embrace it. And so that's really how I have chosen to look at it for whatever the word means to other people. I think that if if we more embrace our conditions as humans and the fact that we will go through trauma, whether we want to or not, we're going to face it at some point in our life. And it's what you do with it, what you choose to glean from it, how you choose to get people to help you with it, all of those things matter. And it seems like those are all the things that you've captured in your book. So I I really can't wait to read it. Um, and in my practice, I give a lot of books out to clients and I say, look, this book could really help you. And, you know, for some people, just reading that hope or reading how you describe that could make a difference for them.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

No, and thank you. And I want to be honest to say one thing that I recognize about myself as well is I can express myself in writing a lot better than on a podcast on stage. And so I know even now having this conversation, I'm not doing some of the thoughts justice because uh when I have the time to sit down and write and formulate that thought. So that's another reason why I'm so excited about this book because I'm I even like I got the e version because I'm still waiting on my hard copy. It's supposed to write hard, and it's driving me crazy waiting. Um, but even as I was reading it, I was blown away by it. I was like, wow, I did this. And I just want to say I did not use AI. Um, I know AI is big. It was not big when I was writing it, it but I'm very like that's a source, like that's something to be proud of. Is no AI was used. I did I did purchase Grammarly.

Voiceover 28:47

Um to help that's a good tool.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

We'll forgive you.

SPEAKER_05 28:52

We'll forgive you for that.

Voiceover 28:55

So well, I and just to touch on your process, because I I've written a book, and I think the first pass when you're kind of getting everything down is you know, it takes time consuming and it can be um can be feel like work, but then when you start to go back and do your second, third, fourth passes and start to refine it and kind of like tweak things and and make them more you know easy to read or just more art than than just uh you know the the knowledge piece. Um, do you find that was that enjoyable for you to just keep kind of crafting it and refining it?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Oh man. So yes, the the crafting I loved, especially working with an editor who was you know formatting it in a way that made it art to me. And then I'd get that and then I'd go add to it. But honestly, what I enjoyed the most, and something I guess I had not done in my life, because every bit of writing I'd done up into that point was academic research. Um, even articles. I'm not the kind of person that likes to write my thoughts and experiences, even though I think that maybe they're valuable. But I I don't like I it's like who am I to have this thought? Uh I like I always like to cite research and share the research and share what I've learned. I think for me, that's something I find more powerful. However, in writing this book, you know, it started off literally 78 pages initially, and it became actually fire engineering who published it, they were like, this book is way too big. Can you cut it down? Um, it became way too big. It's 386 pages now, and that's after cutting it down, and they took some parts out, which made me sad. But I just started falling in love with the part of the creativity. And as I started to get comfortable with sharing my thoughts and experiences uh and seeing them on paper and rereading them, you know, stepping away for a few weeks and rereading them and being blown away. You know those thoughts that you have um laying in bed sometimes, you wake up or falling asleep, you have these really prolific thoughts. And you're you you're so like, wow, when I wake up tomorrow, I'm gonna put this to paper, but then you wake up the next day and they're gone.

SPEAKER_06 30:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Uh-huh. So I started trying to get better about capturing those. Um, and I think that that's kind of what happened with this book is you'd have these prolific thoughts, and when they'd happen, I'd get, I, you know, I'd pull out my phone and go to the notes and write it, or I'd stop what I was doing, pull out my computer and go write. And so I go back to look at them, I'm like, wow, that's amazing. Like, uh, just so exciting and so proud of it. Um, and being able to continue to like add to it, like I can't believe, like, yes, a hundred uh hundred pages were like super nerdy science. Uh, but then the rest was thinking about experiences um in the firehouse, conversations with people. You know, our peer support team was formed in 2017, and we've been very active since then. And so I used a lot of experiences from peer support and some of the things we've achieved, some of the people who've been helped.

Voiceover 31:43

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SPEAKER_00 32:44

Uh several of our Peer Sports team members can contributed chapters. So that was another big piece of this was I truly wanted the book to be comprehensive. And I didn't want to do research on everything. I wanted to find the people who knew those things well. So, for example, Brandon Dryman, have you had him on here yet?

Voiceover 33:02

We have not. I think you uh yeah, you recommended him.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

You gotta get him ASAP. He is freaking brilliant. He's one of the most brilliant people in the first responder mental health um world. He's just amazing. But he has um just a really deep uh knowledge with substance use disorder, um, his own personal history and adverse childhood experiences. So he wrote the whole chapter on substance use disorder. Um, I mean, he went from being um went from having substance use disorder to now he like teaches yoga uh and he helps so many people. We've got a member on our peer support team, Jason Palmetier. He joined in 2019, and I remember when he introduced himself, he introduced himself as hi, I'm Jason, I'm an alcoholic. Um though he's been in recovery, you know, almost I think over 15 years now. Uh, but he's been this just amazing team member, and that when people reach out to our team who are struggling with substance use disorder, specifically alcohol, somehow he helps them. And he's helped almost two dozen people find their way to recovery. And it it's just absolutely miraculous because we've had lots of people struggling and helping people who have, you know, substance use disorder, specifically alcohol, is hard and you feel more like a failure than anything, but somehow he has helped so many people. So he wrote, I asked him, I was like, Can you can you put to paper whatever the heck you do that helps people? Because you have some secret sauce and we need it out there in the world. Um, so he he kind of shared, you know, what he does and how he does it uh in the book. And then the chief, uh the assistant chief of the Garner Fire Department, they recently put together a peer support team. And, you know, even though theirs is one of the youngest peer support teams, I was just so blown away by their process and how they did it. And I personally think it's one of the best models out there. Uh so I asked them, I was like, Can you write what you did? And they even create these posters on Canva that goes around their firehouses where they've got pictures of their team members and what their training or specialties are. Um, so that way when you're in the firehouse, you might see somebody and say, you know what, I like that person. I'll talk to them. Um, let me go up to them. So he wrote the whole chapter on how they created their peer support team. So I think that's that's a piece that I'm also most proud of is the contributors that wrote bits and pieces there to hopefully connect with others. Um, my friend Dylan, he took our peer support class in 2018. And he was one of the quietest people, sat on the back row, didn't contribute, didn't speak a lot. And after he took the class, uh, I would say usually 80% of the people who take the class, they write really good reviews, they say this is so amazing, and then we never hear from them. They never step up, they never do anything. And we realize it's because peer support seems daunting. Uh and Dylan explained that thought process. Like, he was like, Man, this is great, I can't do it. And so he left the class with that mentality. But then an incident happened and he was forced into peer support. And so he just did these really simple things, just had a conversation, didn't try to fix or solve, didn't ask details of the end of the situation, just showed up. And he saw, and that person actually ended up telling him that he was the really the only person that truly made that person feel seen and heard. And so he walked away. He was like, Wait, I can do this. So I asked him to kind of write that because I think that's so important. I think so many people, you know, leave peer support training and they think it's great, but they're not capable. So he kind of shared, like, I had that thought too, but I realized it wasn't about having all the tools in my toolbox and being the best at responding and being able to fix. It was truly about showing up, helping people feel seen and heard, and just helping to validate and normal normalize their thoughts. So I thought that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 36:52

Well, we get asked a lot about helping peer support teams to look at training and what should they be doing in terms of steps and rollouts. So I'm actually really looking forward to having that part of your book because I find myself trying to put together all the pieces that we have, which sometimes is a lot of resources when you add up all the podcast guests and things like that that we're exposed to. But I'm happy that you did that because a lot of us need something tangible just to point to, like you said, that's in the book that people can refer back to and read it a hundred times if they forget it, you know, reread it every six months. Um, you know that we talk a lot about trauma. You've acknowledged trauma is such a huge part of our profession and in the personal lives of responders as well. Can you just elaborate a little bit on um how responders choose to respond differently to their own trauma?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, absolutely. And uh that was so the editing process for my book was over a year, it was torturous. But um during that, um Gabramate, I think I pronounced his name right, um, he published uh the book The Myth of Normal. And he talks a lot about trauma in that book and big T and little T trauma and his own trauma. And this guy's a doctor, um, he's a like renowned speaker on mental health. And it was so fascinating because he was sharing that at the age of 80, he was flying home and he texted his wife uh to you know make sure she was gonna be there to pick him up, and I think right when they landed, and she responded, like, Oh, I'm on the way now. Well, he immediately kind of went into a rage and got really upset and didn't respond to her. And he later explained that that reaction was because of the trauma he experienced as a child. Um, he he was he's Jewish, and during the Holocaust, um, he was actually given away by his mother to help protect him. Um, and even though his mother was protecting him, um, in doing so, he would he kind of felt abandoned. And he explained that even as an 80-year-old who knows so much about trauma and knows so much about recovery and resilience, he still had these reactions. And I think that's so incredibly important to understand um just how much our adverse childhood experiences affect us. And I mean, I think every single one of us have faced some sort of you know trauma as a child. And a lot of us don't take to the time to just understand our experiences. And I know for me, it you know, I mentioned that my research started in 2015, and it was because I was having thoughts of suicide, I was severely depressed, and I could confidently tell you that the reason for that was because of an acute trauma. I could confidently tell you it was because of something that was happening right then in my life. However, the more I researched, um, when I finally had the courage to see a therapist, which I talk about that in the book, because going to see a therapist is so scary, um, but it's so awesome once you get there. Uh, but you got to get over the scary hump. Um, but Finally, I was reading um The Body Keeps the Score. And he had one sentence in there of, you know, if if nobody looked at you and was happy to see you as a child, how that affects you in adulthood. And as a child, my parents, um, they're immigrants, and like anybody else that have in that has immigrant parents, uh, when parents come to America to start a new life and they have nothing, and nothing that they did in their life matters. What matters is their children. And all they want is for their children to be the most successful people to make everything worthwhile. So that again, like every other immigrant family, my parents wanted me to be this super amazing, successful um, you know, doctor, lawyer, whatever, have a hundred kids, all those good things. But as a child, I was a nightmare. Um, I had probably one of the worst cases of ADHD ever known to man. Um, I was all over the place. I had zero filter. I said what was on my mind. I actually, um, when I was 12, um, I told my teacher, who was really beautiful, that she's really beautiful and she looks like a prostitute. Um, I don't think I knew what the word prostitute meant at the time. Um, but I always got in trouble for speaking in class. And then I look at pictures, I never brushed my hair. Like I was truly a wild child. Like I woke up and went to school. Um, people told me forever um that I didn't match. I didn't know what the heck matching meant. Uh, I still don't quite know what it means to match when I dress. Uh, but um, I was a huge tomboy, and my parents are Muslim, and Muslim girls are supposed to be really conservative. I was a huge tomboy, did all the tomboy things. Um, and so with that, my mom uh and my dad, they actually both took this tough love class. And I think they focused in on the tough and not the love so much. And so growing up, they let me know what an embarrassment I was. Um, I remember hearing things like you'll never be anything when you grow up. Um, you know, you're an embarrassment. My mom would take my sister uh out and would leave me at home because I was an embarrassment. So I was, yeah, it was it was it was a great life. Um, but they met well, they really did. I was a nightmare. Um, and they were doing the best they could. Uh, and now I look back on their life, like they came to America and they had kids right away. And my dad now, um, talk about generational trauma. Like he he was abused as a child. His mother died when he was five. His father remarried, moved to America, and left him in Palestine um to raise his um siblings. His stepmother never accepted him or his siblings. Um, so I learned about generational trauma as well. Um, and why my dad, you know, he was very detached. Um, saying, I love you is not something my dad would do. Hugging is not something he would do. Um, however, uh the belt um to discipline us was definitely something he would do. And I remember running in circles around the house trying to get away from that belt. Um, but all that to say is, you know, in my 30s, uh, when I was experiencing some of the depression, the thoughts that were in my mind were the exact same thoughts that I had as a child that I never resolved. And I didn't understand that till later in life. Um, so I I kind of explain that generational trauma in my book. I explain, you know, building your life on a shaky foundation and what that does. And I think a lot of us in the first responder world and first responder communities, we look at the acute traumas. And sometimes I mentioned the book, The Beauty of a Darker Soul, earlier. Um, one of the things I love about that book is he explained that the trauma he experienced, he was um in the army, West Point graduate, shot in Afghanistan, almost died. Um, he explained that that being shot, uh, that was actually a red herring. Um, that was that trauma was a scapegoat. It was easier to blame all of his problems on that because everybody expects it, right? You're in the military, you're in combat, you get shot. That's trauma. That that is the excuse for all of your problems. And what I love about that book is he had the courage to be honest and say he trained for it. He expected it. It was part of the job. That actually didn't bother him. He got through it, got back to Afghanistan. What bothered him was the moral injury of being separated from his company while he was recovering. But then he was honest about his early lifehood experiences and how those affect him, you know, today. But one of the things I appreciated so much is he used that word red herring, and I think we do that a lot because, and he says, you know, trauma number one is ubiquitous. Um, but sometimes you have to give yourself permission to explore your experiences to validate and understand them because sometimes it's the most microscopic detail today that pushes us out of control about something that happened forever ago, and we don't understand that. And we have to give ourselves time and patience to explore that. And I appreciate that because I I think Bonnie, you understand, we all know that if you go see a clinician and you can't relax and open up and be truthful, if you just say, Hey, I'm a first responder, I went on this bad call, now I'm beating my spouse, I can't stop drinking alcohol, I can't sleep, it's all because of this call. But if the truth is it wasn't that call, it was something else, and you're blaming that call because it's easier, you'll never heal. And it's so important for us to be honest with ourselves, with our childhood experiences. And just like me, I felt 100% positive that the reason I was struggling was because of the acute experiences as a 30-year-old. Um, it took time, it took years for me to understand that my reactions, my responses started when I was an eight-year-old kid. And I had to learn how to understand that and put the space bar and and recognize wait a minute, you know, I love that cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, just all right, thoughts, feelings, emotions. Oh, that thought is wrong. Um, you know, I I think I'm a piece of crap, but that's not true. Why am I thinking this? Ah, this person, they don't know me. I shouldn't let the way they look at me or treat me affect my response. And it's such a beautiful thing uh when you can give yourself that time and permission to just understand yourself a little better um and have patience and grace.

SPEAKER_05 47:16

And sometimes when people come in like you did, you know, you have a presenting issue and you truly believe that's what the issue is. And then when you sit with a therapist who understands trauma and understands how the childhood impacts, especially with the MDR, the minute we do that float back, and when was the first time you ever felt that, there's the eight-year-old in the room. Yes, you know, and and sometimes it doesn't take much and it's it's that first session. Um, but it takes time to unpack it to deal with it. And so one thing we try to get first responders to know is that yeah, there's a lot that we can treat very, very quickly. But if you also want to go back and look at childhood and do some of that deeper trauma work, then we need to unturn the stones. We need to look and see what's under them. Um, and so your point is a very good one. I think sometimes situations are a scapegoat, and it's easy to say it's that thing that hurt me. Um, but a lot of the time it's what you're describing.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

Yeah, no, and it's so true. And um, yeah, we just have to give ourselves a little bit of grace and a little bit of time and just explore. Like if as a first responder, you are struggling, you are, you know, avoiding people, you're overreacting, you're getting angry more often, you're having thoughts of depression or suicide, and you feel weird because you don't think it's the call, but you're trying to attach a call to it, or you're trying to attach the job to it, and you feel strange, just know that you're not strange. And um, there could be something just deep underlying, and it might not be a childhood experience, it might not be some sort of child abuse, but there is something there um that needs a little time to uncover and just be patient with yourself. Just like it it literally took reading one line in the book, The Body Keeps the Score. I mean, literally, when I read that I had to close the book, I started to cry. I was like, oh my gosh, because uh up until then I didn't think it was important, right? Like I wasn't beat, you know, I wasn't sexually molested, I wasn't, you know, real childhood abuse. Um, so I didn't I didn't validate any of my experiences. Um, but it's so amazing how uh humans we just need to be loved and we need to know that our existence isn't a burden because uh up until that point, my whole life felt like a burden. Um, because I my the weirdness that I was at an as an eight-year-old has not left me.

Voiceover 49:44

But that's a good that's that's a good thing. And uh so is there one key lesson you'd like to focus on as we sort of wrap up that we haven't talked about yet?

SPEAKER_00 49:57

I don't I don't think so. Um I think because if you ask for one key lesson, that's really hard for me to answer.

SPEAKER_06 50:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

What I'm gonna uh I think what I'm gonna say, and we we've kind of already touched on is just understand that we have the power to transform anything negative into something positive. And that's so true. We have that power. We also have the power to withstand more, but we have to do the things that will allow us to withstand more in our life. And I see so many people talking about how important mental health is and how important suicide prevention is. But when it comes time to talk about the things that we need to do to make a difference, we kind of like wash our hands of it. Like we want to say, okay, call 988 if you're struggling, or call me if you need help, um, reach out. But sometimes there's more pieces to the puzzle, and we're not always willing to go down that path. For example, suicide prevention. And I have a chapter, I have several chapters in my book that talk on that touch on suicide. There's a chapter on how to ask, which I think is important, but there's a chapter on a conversation that we're not ready to have in America, but it's a conversation that we have to get ready to have. And it's um barriers to our access to firearms. There's so much science and research right now that demonstrates that if you do not have immediate access to a firearm, you're gonna be much more likely not to die by suicide. Yet if you have access to a firearm, you are almost eight times more likely to die by suicide. And so the conversation, I'm not saying, you know, take guns away, um, limit access to guns. What I am saying is we have to understand that if we have a gun that we keep right beside our bed every night, we're increasing our chances of dying by suicide. Um, service members, 83% of service members' uh deaths are suicides with handguns. I think I might have misquoted a bit of that, but um, it might be 83% of uh no, it is, it's firearms suicides. Um, so like that's the difficult conversation. That's the difficult piece of all that we're doing is what are the real actionable steps? And they may be uncomfortable. It may be uncomfortable conversations, but if we know that if you're struggling, if you're going through a difficult time in life, you might need to just store your ammunition separate from your gun, put your gun in a lockbox, or let a friend take your guns for a couple of weeks until you get through that hard time. Um, but those are conversations we need to have. I've got a whole chapter on my book that kind of lays out why it's important. It starts with the data. Um, so if I did misquote that, the data is there. Um, a lot of people don't realize it can take less than 10 minutes for somebody to um decide to die by suicide and dying by suicide. And if you're in fight or flight, uh it's really hard to see reasons to live. It's really hard to rationalize that this isn't the decision. Um so there there are things we can do, but uh some of the things that we can do are not the things that are popular.

Voiceover 53:00

Well, I have to say, reading that chapter, I was just struck by the thought that this is a rare time I'm reading something that can actually have a positive impact on reducing suicide. It is so uh so vital what you what you just talked about, the steps and the actual practical ways that we can make a difference. And we don't see that very often. So I have to uh give you kudos for that. It's really, really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Awesome, thank you. And that's really the direction of the symposium we're gonna have in March is is okay, what are some of these difficult and unpopular topics? And uh Chief Lieb and I actually just created a new presentation, uh Prevention by Design, um, Engineering Better Solutions to Wicked Problems. And we will discuss why suicide's a wicked problem and the the tie-in to how you know we reduced in the United States traffic crash fatality significantly by stop by not focusing on individuals and saying, you know, wear your seatbelt, drive the speed limit, don't look at your phones, but actually prevention by design through engineering, because we people still speed, they text more than ever. Um, but now in communities, you see traffic circles, um, you see areas where you can't turn left, you see roads that make it harder to speed. And because of this prevention, this community approach to prevention by design, traffic crash fatalities have drastically decreased. So the conversation we'll have is how can we do that with regards to suicide and stop focusing on individuals because every genius researcher today will tell you our ability to predict suicide is no better than chance. It has not improved since the 60s when we first started researching it. So focusing on individuals and finding individuals at risk is not effective. So, how do we create an environment that just makes it harder to die by suicide? And one of the most important pieces to that is, you know, in the middle of the night when that person's in fight or flight and they just want to die, not making it so easy to grab your gun and shoot yourself.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

I want to thank you so much for shining a light on that topic. It's something that David, Stacey, and I have been talking really a lot about lately, and what more can we be doing? So, yet again, you have a resource that we can point to and we can give to people and say, please look at some of these tangible ideas that are being suggested. And if we can all do that more, then we will all help that problem, which we know is an epidemic, and we know everyone has been impacted in some way by that. So thank you truly for doing that work.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Awesome. Thank you, Bonnie.

Voiceover 55:37

So as we wrap up, um, please talk a little bit about the First Responder Center for Excellence. What are you doing with them and what's their mission and how are they kind of getting out there? What would you like people to know about it?

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Yeah, thank you for the platform, David, and the opportunity. I'm so excited for the work we're doing with the First Responder Center for Excellence. Uh so like I mentioned to you off-air, you know, I had Chief Lee write the forward for my book over oh, it's been a long time ago. And that's where he learned about my work and realized that there was something to it. And so he became the managing director of the First Responder Center for Excellence in March of this year, 2024. And in June, he brought me on as the program manager for behavioral health. And so the First Responder Center for Excellence is an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. But the goal of the First Responder Center for Excellence is actually to put the NFL F out of business by reducing line of duty deaths. And so, in doing that, there are six pillars from cardiac health, physical health, cancer, um, and then of course the behavioral health and suicide prevention aspect, which I get to serve under. And what we do is we are the translators of the science. There's a lot of good research out there, but the research is difficult to read and understand, especially we all know the limitations with research. And sometimes a research article can be pushed out there and it will say, you know, 37% of firefighters have PTSD. But as you go deep into the research, you realize this isn't accurate data. So we want to be translators of the science, but also translators of the good science or be truthful. Like 37% of the people who responded to this survey, but this is why this data is inaccurate. So we're translators of the science, we're finding better practices, not best practices, um, but better practices because when we're looking for better, we're always looking for better. And we're trying to translate that into ways that individuals and agencies can digest it and improve the services they provide. One of the big projects we've been doing the last two months that I'm having so much fun with is we're making whiteboard videos. And these whiteboard videos are going to be shared, um, they're gonna be put into presentations, uh, but I've gotten to help create whiteboard videos on therapy. Uh, so how to find a therapist, uh, how therapy works. One that we're doing is on suicide. And it has it it has the conversation about guns and asking about suicide, which is so cool. Uh, we're creating one about sleep. Uh so man, the First Responder Center for Excellence is just absolutely an incredible organization to work with. They do one-day workshops um across the country. And if you reach out and request a one-day workshop, you can even fine-tune the topics you want. And with those one-day workshops, they bring the subject matter experts uh that are that are kind of translating the science to your agency to share best better practices um and tools and pathways uh to achieve those. But in addition, um, we're hosting that symposium in March. And I'm telling you, I'm just absolutely excited about the symposium.

Voiceover 58:44

Is it virtual or in person?

SPEAKER_00 58:46

It's in person. It's in Nashville, Tennessee, March 20th and 21st. We're still looking for sponsors as well. But uh Dr. Thomas Joyner will be keynoting day one, and Dr. Sally Spencer Thomas will be keynoting day two, and then uh Ryan Muncy, uh, who wrote the book Um Master Your Mind, F Your Feelings. He'll be the closing keynote day two. Or I'm sorry, day one. Uh Frank Lieb and I are gonna be presenting our new uh the new presentation there, uh, which we're so excited about. But we found some of the best people in the business uh to come present and hopefully give everybody that's in attendance um some tools to walk away with to implement right away. And just so thrilled about that.

Voiceover 59:30

Such good stuff going on. And uh you're at the epicenter of it all. So uh we're so thrilled to have you back and speak about the book and just uh let people know where they can find the book and find you if you want to share that as well.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

Yeah, and first of all, um you reached out to me to come back on, and I just want to say like sincerely, thank you so much for doing that. Um, it means so much to me. Um, and thank you for like just uh sharing your platform so that I could share this book because this book was so much work and so much research. And at this point, the goal is. To get it into the hands of others. So thank you for helping me with that. It is being sold by Fire Engineering. So if you go to their website, you can find it. There's also an e version available. I'm on all the social medias Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and then First Responder Center for Excellence is on all of them. I highly recommend like, sharing, following the First Responder Center for Excellence. They're consistently putting out good information. They share a lot of these shows and episodes. So definitely keep an eye on them. And yeah, if anybody needs anything, my email address, I will share it with you. It's easy. Dalley at frcmail.org.

Voiceover 1:00:40

Beautiful. Bonnie, any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:43

Yeah, I just want to thank you again for being here with us. We enjoy talking to you so much. And I know it won't be the last because you're going to keep doing great things. And we're going to have to invite you back to talk about those great things. So it's infectious, and you know, I'm being a little bit coy, but we're so grateful. You're doing great things. Keep going because you're changing lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

You're absolutely awesome. Thank you, Bonnie. Thank you for that.

Voiceover 1:01:10

Well, I feel way more inspired than even when we started. So uh again, um, this book is a game changer. I really, really appreciate you for all the effort you put into it and um just looking forward to see the impact it has in fire service in the first responder world and um just keep doing all that great work with uh FRC as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

This is Smokey. There's not a single podcast that um he does not make appearance on.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:38

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Smokey's made his appearance.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:41

He wants to be popular too.

Voiceover 1:01:44

Remember to like and subscribe, YouTube, responder resilience, Facebook, responder wellness, inc and responder TV, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, and go to our website, respondertv.com for past episodes and guest information. Till next time, stay safe, be kind to yourself. Take care of the