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Disclosing my "Why"......Person to Person · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: My name is Aaron, I'm your host and you guys are in for a pretty awesome, enlightening show.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: You know, in life we sometimes have to find our why.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Why are we doing the things that we're doing?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: They might be big things, they might be small things.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to you guys a little bit tonight about my why, but before we get there, there's something that I want to read.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: So this last week I got an email from one of the listeners, and this is what it says.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It says hello, aaron, in your recent podcast Pathways to Healing, you spoke about how important it was to find a therapist that you connect with.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It says I've been wanting to seek therapy, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to not only find a therapist that I connect with, but someone that is willing to do in-person therapy.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had any insight on different ways to find a therapist and or if you felt like you had enough content to create a podcast about the subject.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I think this would be very helpful, not just for myself, but for others out there struggling with the same situation.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So, with that being said, here's what I'm doing.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I am working with my therapist, who is culturally competent in first responders, law enforcement, and I'm working with her to come up with a show and I really want to deep dive into it.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I could go online and I could Google you know best ways to find a therapist and give you those anecdotal answers.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: But I really think this is an important subject.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate this listener bringing it to my attention.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So in a future show, sooner than later, I'm going to talk about this.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have a whole show based on finding that therapist connecting as first responders, law enforcement or just general anybody out there.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What are some things we can look at?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Different modalities, how to select them and how to get the most out of that therapeutic experience.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: You know, one thing I can say and then I'll move on is that finding a good therapist is great.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Finding a therapist you don't connect with or a bad therapist can do more harm than good and you may never seek therapy after one of those negative exposures.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So I really want to put some time into this, but I just want you to know there's a show around the corner with you all over it, all right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Another thing that happened this week.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So I am out having coffee with another great friend of mine who I've met in my current job, and you know he was saying Aaron, I was listening to the podcast.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: He said and you mentioned that you know you miss helping people and you feel like you're not helping people.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: He said I just want to let you know that you're helping me.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: This relationship we have, this connection, this time we have together, is very, very helpful and you know, that was super impactful because sometimes you lose sight, sometimes we have a vision as to what it means to do X and anything short of that or different than that not even short, but different.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: We feel like we're not achieving the goal or we're not achieving what X is in our mind.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: But it was pretty cool to hear from my buddy and just have him say you know what?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You're helping me in this moment.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome, so that's way cool.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about this, guys.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about we're ultimately going to get to my why, but let's talk about trauma.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So trauma turns us into something that we're not right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It turns us into when we experience something in our world, something in our lives.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: It turns us into a person that we might not even recognize.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It might happen suddenly overnight.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It might happen suddenly with a certain set of circumstances, or this could be a slow fade over time and slowly you start to not even recognize the person you're looking at in the mirror.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And that's with life choices.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: We make things, that we do priorities, we set vices, we turn to.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: We tend to turn to the darkness in times of trauma At least a lot of people do I did and into that depression we start trying to find something that makes us feel better, and I can tell you that I've been there and done that and it's never too late to come back from that.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: You know, and I know there's somebody out there listening right now that can relate to what I'm talking about.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: If you look back and you find the time that you're weak, you're tired, you're thirsty, you're hungry and all of a sudden, those are the times and those weaknesses is when you, or those deficiencies, is when you find yourself seeking something, doing something, becoming the person that you don't even recognize, being stuck in a trauma cycle.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I heard it this week when I was listening to some other podcasts and reading some books, that being stuck in a trauma cycle it's like being stuck in quicksand.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You have to dig your way out.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And the way that you dig your way out is through that therapy, through that hard work, through that commitment to positive choices.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: And there's constant.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you've ever been stuck in sand or had your boot stuck in the mud, you pull it out, you relax for a second and it sucks back in, you know, two inches deeper than it was before.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: So there is that pattern in this recovery process which, if you guys have been around for more than a minute, you've seen that in my experience where I'm coming and going from you know good times, bad times, and I feel like sometimes I take one step forward and two steps back right and in doing that it's tough to ever feel like you're going to make it out on the other side, like there's going to be a fresh clean tomorrow.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I'm still stuck in that cycle, to be honest.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still stuck, stuck in the middle with.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I'm still stuck in the middle of that process.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you this last week, since my mediation hearing which I spoke about on last week's show, which was the end, the severing of all ties with my city, I am no longer attached to them at all.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The umbilical cord is gone.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I've felt a lot of weight off my shoulders this week and a lot of opportunity to reflect and open my mind and pray and seek some guidance from God, which is kind of cool.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about that.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: So here we go.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that right now, my rear view mirror is much larger than my windshield.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So, and that's the way I've been living, I've been living in the rearview mirror, looking backwards at what I used to have or what I used to do and missing and grieving that and we're going to talk about grief in a moment but my rearview mirror is much larger than my windshield and I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to drive backwards and if you've ever had the opportunity to drive backwards fast.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: It takes very little steering input before you're out of control and you're in the ditch.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And that is where I have been.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: That is where I've lived my life for the last two to three years.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: When I left the police department on April 5th of 2023, that was my official last day.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about my last day.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about those experiences that I had and then I'm going to get to my why, and you want to stick around for it, because somebody out there listening to it is going to be able to resonate.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: So my last day, I had been out of law enforcement for about 14, 15 months and I had been interning at my new company for about four months, not getting paid but just trying to see if this is something that I want to do with my future.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Whether I wanted to do it or not, I needed to leave law enforcement and April 5th ended up being the day that worked for everybody's schedules for me to sign my exit interview, go in and clean out my desk.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: And, if you remember, back in episodes one and two, I spoke about those final days and I spoke about how I left work on a Thursday.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: 14 months later, I returned to clean out my desk and I haven't had any contact with law enforcement or my office or my desk or anything.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So I walked back into my desk and as I sat down at my desk, emotions hit me.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: This is a big day for me.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: For me, I am leaving law enforcement.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving the city of Gresham.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: At this time, that's my thought going through my head right at this time, that's my thought going through my head right.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So I sit down at my desk and I look around left to right and I see memories.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I see moments of sheer brilliance, I see moments of terror and I see moments of incredible sadness and loss.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I've got victims' pictures up on my wall.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I've got funny memorabilia Wow, I didn't think this was going to happen Funny memorabilia from my coworkers.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I've got my patches from different law enforcement agencies, my challenge coins.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: I've got all my files are still there.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: It's like it's literally like there was a time warp and nobody else touched my stuff.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: And I sit back down all of a sudden.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the tens of thousands of pages that I've typed on this keyboard and all the cases that have been solved right here in this chair.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And it was a big thing to swallow, it was a big thing to say goodbye to that and um, but I I emptied out my stuff.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I threw a lot of stuff away because I just didn't want the pain of having to carry it out.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: You know, you see those movies or whatever.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: When people move out of their office and they have their three boxes, you know, and of all their shit, that's been their life.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't have that in me.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So a lot of my stuff got thrown away and I didn't care, I just wanted it to be done.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But then comes saying goodbye to the people, and the people is where the relationships really lie.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: While I didn't have a lot of friends at the police department, I had a lot of memories changing people's lives with these folks and saving lives and them saving my life Multiple times, you know.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And um so it was hard, it was a gut wrenching day to walk around and shake hands with these people.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Now, granted, it's been uh, two years, something like that, and I, you know most of those people I've never spoken to again, right, um so, but but in that moment it was very, very tough.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And as we're going through that, um, the naive me said, okay, well, I'm done with the city today, and you know I won't be looking back.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Little did I know I had two to three years of hell ahead of me, where I was going to be tied with an umbilical cord to the city and not be able to get that monkey off my back or that weight off my shoulders and move on.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But thankfully, thankfully, here's where the positive side is that is off my shoulders today and there's a new tomorrow, which is pretty freaking cool.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that looks like yet, but it's there.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Cool, I don't know what that looks like yet, but it's there.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: So, that being said, that rear view mirror is larger than my windshield.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Looking backwards at all the stuff that I was and what I had and what I used to do and the needle I used to move and living in the past, well, that's, that's what you see when you look in your rear view and it's really tough to focus on two things at once.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You know, if you, you can see about two to 3% of your entire field of vision with 100% acuity, meaning that if you hold your hand out in front of your face and you stare at your thumbnail, that is about the biggest area that you can clearly focus on at one time.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So if you try that right now, while you're driving, you look out, you stick your thumb in front of you, you stare at that thumbnail.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: That is about the most that you can see with full, clear vision.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Everything else is going to be slightly blurred.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: So when I'm staring in that rear view mirror, the rest of my life is partially or fully blurred.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I can't focus on it because all I'm doing is looking in that ginormous mirror.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: So I look back at that day and, in saying goodbye to my coworkers, I needed to.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll back up.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'd been doing therapy for about I don't know 18 months, 14 months, 18 months, something like that prior to going to that meeting, and one of the things that came up really opened up my eyes to what my why was.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Why was I so dedicated to helping victims?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Why was I so dedicated to working countless hours overnight, 30 something hours straight all the time?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Why did I push everybody so hard to get answers for victims?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Why did I work child sex abuse cases and child abuse cases and work these murders where these victims can't have a voice of their own?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Why, why, why, why.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Why do you do this?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Why do you run in the red all the time?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Aaron, aaron, slow down, turn you down to your intensity.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: They say you don't need to be this intense, you don't need to push so hard.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: But there was something in me driving me to do that, and I didn't understand what it was until I started going through therapy and that is something that was on my mind.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: It's something that's been on my mind for the last couple of years, and so I took everybody that day into the war room.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And the war room for us is a room.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's about 25 foot by 15 foot, 18 foot, something like that Tall ceilings.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: It's where we controlled and ran all of our major case investigations.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: There's TVs on multiple walls.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: There's whiteboards.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I spent countless hours standing in the front of that room running major crimes and homicide investigations.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And here I am for my final time, back up in front of that room, and I'm used to standing there looking out over a sea of people.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: But the difference in this time was, typically, I wasn't the center of attention, I wasn't the focus, I wasn't the one that myself or others were crying over.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: But this day, that was different, was different.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you this story because I feel like I need to let go of my why in order to move on with my future.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: So I stand up there and I'm in front of 20 of my co-workers, people I've worked with for a long time.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of respect for me and I have a lot of respect for them, and I'm talking about what the last 14, 15 months has looked like.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the therapy.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the realization that if you push too hard, you can literally kill yourself.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: You need to take care of yourself, take care of your blood pressure, rest, the importance of rest and meditation and healing and all of that.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And then I tell them this.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I tell them that my why, why do I do this?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Why have you guys been by me the whole time when I've been pushing us into the red for 21 years now?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: When I was 8, 9, 10 years old, 11, 12, 13 years old, from about, actually, from about 9 to 13, I used to go to Louisiana every summer and visit my aunt and uncle and I would fly down there by myself out of Alaska.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I'd stay with him for the summer and they lived on a big piece of property.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: There were several other houses on the property and I became friends with a kid who was I was say, if I was 10, he was 17, 18, something like that, 17 maybe, and his name was Larry Pecoraro and I was friends with him.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: I used to hang out at his house.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: His sister was cute, his dad was nice to me, they used to have crawfish boils and all that kind of stuff.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I would spend the night over there sometimes and a year or so I even down there three or four years.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: A year or so into it maybe my second year Larry started to molest me and he molested me in ways were bad and he forced me to do things and that was really tough.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Now, why is this important?
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: This is important because from the time I was 10 years old for round numbers to the time that I was 43, 44 years old, I never admitted this to anybody.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until during therapy where I admitted it and I spoke about it with one of my therapists, because it identified the why.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Why was I working so hard?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Why was I running in the red?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Because I wanted to fight back against what happened to me.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be a voice for those others who had been hurt along the way and I'm not the only one in my family that has been a victim of sexual abuse.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But now we're talking about me, and for so many years we didn't talk about my story.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: For so many years nobody knew about Aaron.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Nobody knew about it, and there's reasons why, for the delayed reporting, and I'll tell you in a second.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: So when I sat down with all those sex abuse victims throughout my career or those homicide victims for their family members that couldn't talk, I had an empathy for them, especially the sex abuse victims.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I knew what they'd been through.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I understood the reasons for delayed reporting.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I understood from a true firsthand perspective what it's like to be victimized, what it's like to have your choices taken away.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: You know, I would often say to my victims at some point somebody took away your ability to say no in your choices.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: As we sit here today, I am giving you that authority and power back.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: If you want to talk to me about this event, let's talk.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I am here.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I will die supporting you.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: If you decide three sentences in that, it's too much for you to handle.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: That is your opportunity to say no and we can always revisit this another day.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: That was my approach.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Why was it my approach?
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Because nobody ever gave me the opportunity to talk or nobody knew about it.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Nobody defended me.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Why did I delay report?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't report this because my dad would have killed him.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: My uncle would have killed him.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I felt guilty.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I felt responsible.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: If I didn't like him and didn't want to spend the night, then this would have never happened.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: If I didn't put myself in that position, then this would have never happened.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It's my fault for not telling anybody.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: If I'd have told somebody, then it wouldn't have happened again.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: These are all things that I'm thinking and feeling, as this 10-year-old kid getting molested by a 17, 18-year-old man.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: That was my why.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: That is the reason I pushed as hard as I did Fast forward till today.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: That is the reason I am grieving this loss so much, because I no longer get to be a voice at this time in my life for those people.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Like I said on last week's episode, I am not missing the badge or the gun.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I'm missing bringing justice and finding justice for those victims, just like I was.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: My drive was each one of those people that I got to help and my justification, my reason, was because nobody knew about me.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Now, during therapy, I spoke to my therapist about it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: At 23 years of marriage, 24 years of marriage, I disclosed to my wife.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: As I sit here right now, I don't think my kids know about this.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't told them.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: My kids definitely.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I mean the only person that knew when I disclosed this was my therapist, my wife and my partner at work.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: When I disclosed that day in the war room, I thought it was important to talk about my why.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: You know I had to close the door that day to a life that I was very passionate about.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I thought that my life, I thought that it was over.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Little did I know, my naive self, that it was going to be another couple of years, but now it's truly over.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Those umbilical cords are severed and I'm no longer with the city at all.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Now I need to change my focus and focus on things that I'm passionate about.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I need to find something new, whether it's new or whether it's in my life currently, but I need to find something that's important to me and I need to make moves in that direction.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: You know, and I think it's important for all of us to do that, I think it's important for all of us If we come to that point in life, that crossroads in life, where our old life, we used to do X, but we can no longer do X, so now we're having to do Y, and it's really easy to compare X and Y.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: You know well, I do Y now, but I used to do X and I used to do X, and that's why we live in the past and talk about those things, and I've been living in the past for far too long.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Start imagining yourself doing Y.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Start finding the passion and the purpose in your Y and that oh, this is Ys are getting confusing Letter Y.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Let's use letter Z, x and Z.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So I used to do X, I now do Z.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Find your passion and your reason for doing Z.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Slowly, the more you do Z and the more you focus on it, x will be smaller and smaller in that rearview mirror.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: It'll probably never go away, but at least it'll be smaller and more reasonable.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And you can, I can.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I speak for myself.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: It'll be smaller and more reasonable for me.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I will never forget what I did.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: For me.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I will never forget what I did.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of it, but I don't memorialize it.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Right now.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I've got nothing.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement in my house.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I got all my wards and stuff are in a box somewhere that are scattered all over the place and I could really care less.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: One day my kids will love them, but right now that's not a part of my world.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I really want to emphasize and memorialize.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to start focusing on what Z looks like, what the future looks like, what a new me looks like, because there is a new me and there's a new you in this.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I hope this is connecting with somebody.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I hope somebody out there right now is like can track with where I'm going and what I'm saying with this, saying with this.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't miss, honestly, as I sit here.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I don't miss the the, the reality of holding people's lives in my hands or the stress of holding, you know, those types of cases in my hands.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Um, I still want to help people and I'm getting help my buddy at coffee and I'm getting to help maybe even some of you through my pain, but you know, I just I don't miss the weight of the badge, if you will, you know.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Another thing I want to talk about is I was at church this week.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: On last week's episode I spoke about passing that crime scene on my left and looking at the police cars and, you know, having the flashbacks to helping people and the grief and the loss, if you will, of what it was like yesterday, figuratively speaking, and I spoke about it in the podcast, prayed about it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: This week had some release on that, which was pretty cool.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: But I went to church this week and they were having a conference for youth conference and they brought in a band.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: They brought in some members of a band, including a drummer, and there was a ton of resentment, you know, when I saw the drummer up on stage and he's playing and I'm like he's good.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But it's nothing that I couldn't do if I had an opportunity or a chance, and I would get to worship in my own church and give back to my own church.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And I would get to worship in my own church and give back to my own church and, to make matters worse, there was a drum class that he was putting on and I got invited to that and I just didn't respond and declined and wasn't going to go to it.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And I felt some anger, some angst, some anxiety there.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So I walk into the church, I see the drummer up there, I see the other members of the band on the stage, all this stuff that I used to be involved in, and I felt this anger and frustration.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: My wife said you know, I feel like you may be, you know you're having some of these hard feelings coming back and I'm like babe, I don't know what I'm feeling.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: I said but you know it's not good.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I I don't know if I'm mad at the guy or, you know, the leader up there who brought in this drummer, or if I'm jealous or what I am, but I said I got to get to the bottom of it and that stuck with me for a couple of days.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And then Sunday comes around.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I'm at church and I'm looking up on stage and the drummer's.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Down there the same band is playing.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: The band that played for youth is now playing for Sunday morning and I'm watching the drummer do his thing and I'm still frustrated and angry and I'm like God, can you please identify whatever this negativity is that I'm feeling, identify this and help me to resolve it, cause I can't feel his ways as saddening and dark on my heart and I need help.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And instantly it came to me.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Um, seeing that drummer on stage was no different than seeing that police car with the crime scene tape around it In the law enforcement world.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I am, I have, I have a loss.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving a loss.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving my career.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving what I did.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving the X when I look at that stage.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving a perceived loss, and the perceived is an important word.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving a perceived loss and the perceived is an important word.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving the perceived loss of what I used to do on the stage.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Do you realize that I've been playing drums in church longer than I was ever a cop and I was always such an integral part of the system and in the last few years that has changed and it's a really hard thing to swallow.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: We've spoke about that loss of identity before, but in this case it finally hits me.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm grieving this, I'm grieving the perceived loss, but is it really a loss?
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's an intentional separation.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I think I am intentionally separating myself from that world and if that's the case, this is a me problem, not a them problem.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I need to get myself right, or I need to get myself.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Not that I'm wrong, but I need to get myself leveled out, because me continuing to say I don't want to be involved in this takes away my right to be upset and pissed off when they don't invite me to the party.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So that was pretty cool to have that realization and epiphany and all those feelings of frustration.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: That realization and epiphany and all those feelings of frustration, displacement, anger, pointing blame, all of that stuff are in the stages, parts of the stages of loss, and we've all experienced loss in our lives, whether it's a loved one, whether it's a pet, whether it's a job, a career, an identity legs, whatever.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: We've all identified with some kind of loss.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So I started looking this week actually I was talking to my partner this week and she says, you know, I'm bawling on the phone with her and she says it was the day of the mitigation hearing and she says you know, you're experiencing, you know I don't know what they are, but the seven stages of grief and you know, you're at some part in there and that's what you're experiencing.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: You're grieving, your work, you're grieving, you know all this stuff, your law enforcement career and all this.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So I started looking up the seven stages of grief and listening to some audio books about it and I'll just go through them quickly as to what they are and they totally make sense in my world.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, this is a quote.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: The seven stages of grief are shock and denial a quote.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: The seven stages of grief are shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression, upward turn, reconstruction and working through and acceptance and hope.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: However, the idea that grief follows a specific order may not be helpful, because these can apply in any order.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Your grief is your personal journey.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Well, I can totally relate to shock, which is typically the first stage of this.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: The first stage of this shock is a feeling of disbelief.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I can't believe this is happening.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: When I went home that Thursday, I cannot believe this is going on and it was a very sudden loss.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I go to with broken ribs and I told I got PTSD and I knew in my mind that was the end of my career Totally unexpected, I get it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Denial I totally understand denial.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: It's a common reaction to a loss.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: You may try to convince yourself that everything's okay.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I've been there.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I've spoke about it on the show.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Anger, rage, frustration, resentment.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Experienced it at work, experienced it with the church.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Experienced it with the conversations I had with the powers that be the church, with this drummer that I don't even know, just pissed off at him because he's breathing the same air as me.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: That's totally not right Bargaining stage where I might try to regain a sense of control by engaging in justification, mental gymnastics and reasoning.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: So I've been there.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of there right now.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Depression, man, I get it, you all get it.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: We've all experienced that depression, depression, stage of grief that can occur after a loss.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: And depression is not loss and depression is rough because with depression other things can snowball into it.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: It can manifest into bigger issues, bigger problems, suicide, other types of things.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So depression is one you're really going to want to watch out for, and when you feel yourself starting to slip, isolate, insulate, dark hole, you feel like there's nothing but anger and rage and frustration in your heart.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Everything you see is through a dark lens or filter, which I've been there.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It wasn't too long ago.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I'd probably be there now if it wasn't for my medication.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: If you're feeling that way, that is depression.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Then there's acceptance acceptance that life has changed.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: That's where I feel like I'm at on this show right now.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Life has changed.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I have a future ahead of me and I don't know exactly what that whole future looks like yet, but the nice thing is I'll figure it out as I go.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Right, it's nice knowing that other people have grieved a loss, be it anything you know, from a job to a loved one or a spouse or a child.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: They've been through it.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: We all compare.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: They've been through things quote unquote worse than I'm going through.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: They've come out on the other side healed and been productive in life, and that's a really, really positive thing.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: You know, that's using their pain for a purpose that I can clutch onto and hold onto and that's pretty, pretty awesome.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: You know um this this week's episode, I really hope.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I always try to bring something educational, entertaining and provide value.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: This week, I hope that I provided value one.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I hope that you guys understand, um, that your rear view mirror should not be larger than your windshield.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I have spent the last three years looking in the rearview mirror driving backwards, ending up in the ditch time after time.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Now that I've had this mitigation hearing and I feel like the ties are severed, I feel lighter, I feel like there's hope for the future, and it's the first time I've felt hope in a long, long time.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I wanted to explain what trauma turns us into the darkness.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: It turns us into somebody we're not, and if you found yourself there, you are there, you've been there, you get it.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to stay that way.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Don't let it push you into that depression and things that you know suicide or or you know affairs, or alcohol or drugs or whatever.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: It may be Right.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Know that there's a way out of that.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And then I thought it was really important to explain my why.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I think it was important for me to explain the why so I can get it out there.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I can stop hiding from this, stop being ashamed of this and know that it's going to be okay.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: This has never been reported to the police.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: He's out there living a life right now.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I don't even know where he's at.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I guess in Louisiana somewhere, and uh, I don't know.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I got.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I just want nothing to do with it.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I want to avoid it.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Something else I never understood with sex abuse victims, but now I totally get it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: I want nothing to do with it.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like pushing it.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I'm just done Understanding that your ex may not be as important as you feel it is or perceive it is.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Start focusing on the Z.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: What does tomorrow look like?
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: You know this?
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Last week, at a Bible study that I go to, one of the questions was asked and this is prior to me go to the mitigation hearing.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: A question was asked have you ever experienced a miracle?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Everybody else was kind of sharing their little miracle stories and for me, what was on my heart is.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: My immediate response was no, because I'm so focused on my ex and what was going on right now in my world.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: But then there's this little voice called the Holy Spirit that's talking to me, asking me well, aren't you in the middle of one right now Getting out of law enforcement, this new chapter of life.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Isn't this a miracle that you're still alive, that you didn't die on the job, you didn't die in your cubicle, you didn't stroke out and you broke your ribs to get to the doctor before you had a heart attack.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Isn't this a miracle?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And then I'm like well, is it a blessing or a curse?
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Because I didn't know which direction it was.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: If it's a miracle, is this a blessing or a curse?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Where am I?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: At what side of the fence am I on on this?
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I wanted to see a miracle in it but, brought up in the moment, I'll be honest there was a hesitation to release the control, the fear, the worry, the anxiety.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: The controlling me wants to hold on to all of that.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: To release that fear would be to trust in something outside of my control, something that I can't see, and the faith to know that it'll be okay.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't have that in that moment.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like I have that right now, and I am so thankful to be separated and severed from the parasitic cancer that has been sucking me down for 21 years.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I am blessed to have helped all the people along the way All those people that I saw as I sat at my desk on April 5th 2023,.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: But all that came at a cost.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: The cost was nearly my life and my family, and I am so thankful that that parasite is gone.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, that is a deep episode.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of disclosure there.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: That takes Well.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: It's hard.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I love you guys.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: My pain, no matter if it was when I was 10 years old or 45 years old, was for a purpose.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you got something out of this.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're still with me.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, here's to a new future.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Here's to a new me.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I'm excited for tomorrow.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to be positive.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to be done with my ex.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And one last thing don't let your rear view mirror be bigger than your windshield.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Keep things in focus, ladies and gentlemen.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: That is the Murders to Music Podcast.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You.