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My Realizations After Law Enforcement: For Those Who Have Worn the Badge and Those Who Love Them.... · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

0:22
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, and thank you guys for coming back for another week of this wonderful thing we call the show.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: So, on tonight's show, I want to talk about, you know, it's been about three and a year, three and a half years since I've been out of law enforcement.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about the top 10 or I don't know, 14 realizations that I've had since leaving law enforcement.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to talk about it from the law enforcement perspective, but it doesn't matter where you're at, guys and girls.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're a police officer, if you're a pharmacist, if you're a tow truck driver.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I think we can all relate to what I'm going to say.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Just plug in your profession, plug in your environment.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: If I had to guess, it's probably not too far off than the things I'm going to talk about, right?
1:12
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to talk about it from law enforcement because I know I got a lot of law enforcement and first responders that listen to this.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, you guys are going to be able to relate exactly to what I'm saying.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you this: I am not talking at anybody or preaching at anybody because I don't have all this stuff figured out.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: But I do have a little bit of time under my belt doing some self-analyzation as to things that uh opinions that I've formed being immersed in my world and now on the other side of life, kind of looking back, if you will.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of at the peak, looking back down at what I used to know.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I think I can speak about the realizations that I've had.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully you can relate to some of what I'm going to say.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: But before I jump into all that, I want to reach out and say something to Pendleton.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Pendleton, you know who you are.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: You sent me a one-way message.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I would love to get you some information.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I've spoken to some people.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: I have some information for you, but you need to email me so I can communicate back with you.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: The way you reached out to me through fan mail, that's only a one-way portal.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: I can get those messages, but I can't respond.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: So anybody can email me at murdersthembertmusic at gmail.com.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Murders2music at gmail.com.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Happy to take your emails.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: If you have an idea for a show, if you have a question, if there's something I can do for you, you guys know how to get a hold of me.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: Also find me on all the social medias at murders2music, specifically the old Instagram.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh let's chat there, become a part of this conversation.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: So let's jump into tonight's show.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: So on a couple things I want to talk about.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be honest with you guys.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: You guys have been with me for a long time now and a lot of shows and a lot of history.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And anybody listening to this, I've got a lot of people that are like, hey man, I'm binging your show.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm listening to all of them.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: You guys know more about me than my family does, because I guarantee you, my family hasn't listened to all of these.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So you know more about me than a lot of my family does.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And you've seen a lot of downs.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you, guys, that after about three years, three and a half years of this, I'm on an upswing.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And it feels so good to be in the driver's seat of life.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: It feels so good to be passionate about coming home at the end of the day and seeing my family and hanging out with my wife and my kids and my dog.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's so good to have perspective when I go to work and realize that it's just have balance, right?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Have that life family balance.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I am in such a good place.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: I have not felt this much peace in my life in decades.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And it only seems to be getting better.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: So I'm definitely not out of the woods yet.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I am not, you know, I'm not so naive to think that a box can't be unpacked later this evening and all of a sudden, you know, I'm I'm back in that triggered state and I'm having to deal with it and work through it.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is I've got the tools in my toolbox, I've got the people around me, and I know what to do when those things happen.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: And if I don't, you got to know your resources.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I know where to go.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: So I'm in an awesome place.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk about uh what a great place I'm in for 30 minutes because nobody would ever even listen or care.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So let's jump into tonight's show.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So, since coming out of law enforcement, you know, law enforcement is what I knew for so many years, and it is what it was bred into me from the age of eight years old when I got into the first police car the first time on a ride-along.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: And then at 13 to 17, wearing a uniform, riding thousands of hours as an explorer with a police department, and then college.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: All I did was study law enforcement.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: All I wanted to do.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: By day I caught shoplifters at Walmart and Kmart, and by night I was going to college to become a cop.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Soon as it was over, right back into law enforcement, into a real uniform with a real badge this time, kicking ass and taking names.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: There was no gray in my world that was black or white.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: And if you fell on the wrong side of it, then I was all over you and I was putting you to jail.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, I used to joke I'd send my mom to jail, and I might have, I don't even know.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: I doubt it, but who knows, right?
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Given the right circumstances.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: But that's just how black and white that I was.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And I knew nothing else other than law enforcement.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: But now that I've come out, I've been out about three, three and a half years.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I've had enough time to process the emotions, to go through that grieving process to understand that, you know, in my case, I left because I was forced out due to PTSD and a medical condition, and I had have had time to deal with that diagnosis and deal with the grief.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to make some of the realizations since leaving law enforcement about the job and maybe misconceptions or misnomers or lies or something that I was told that I believed for so many years.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about those things.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't like a down on law enforcement at all, guys.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: This is really like everything I do, I'm gonna be educational, entertaining, or provide value.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And in this conversation, I just want to share.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I was somebody who was stuck.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I knew nothing other than being a cop that entire time from eight years old.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: All I knew was how to be a cop and how to do cop stuff.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And I thought there's no way I can be a valuable human being outside of this, but that's a lie.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's break into these things.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want to tell you is this may not be everybody's experience, but this is my experience.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Police agencies, no matter where you are, they claim you're a family.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: They claim that there's a thin blue line, there's a brotherhood, a sisterhood, and when the absolute chips are down, they're gonna come and wrap their arms around you and love on you and bring you back into the fold and raise you back up again from your broken state.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing farther from the truth.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: That is a realization I have.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: The police department is a governmental system, it is a business.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Short of dying in the line of duty, put yourself between the dollars and the department and see who the system chooses.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Now I am not bitter, but there is no thin blue line among cops.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: There's no brotherhood.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: There are individuals that compete against each other trying to find a way to tear each other down.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: In general, it is a toxic environment.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: If you are not in the room, then you are being spoken about, and you can count on that.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying there's not good humans out there.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: There are good humans that are wearing a badge, and there are good humans that have find a brotherhood and they find a balance.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: But my experience is those people all have a faith background.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: They find their roots in something other than the job or other than the blue line.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: The brotherhood they share is a natural bond between these people because of belief systems they have outside of law enforcement.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: The idea of the blue line and lifting each other up is, in my opinion, not true.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: That is a farsity.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: That is a fairy tale that we tell each other.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean we're not going to save each other's lives, but it means that as soon as we're done, we're going to talk shit about how you should have done better and not put yourself in that situation.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that I've realized is emotional intelligence.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence is key to life inside and outside of law enforcement.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: What is emotional intelligence, Aaron?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence is the ability to read others around you, to read the situation, but most importantly, read yourself.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: It's asking yourself and understanding, or maybe not even having to ask, but just understanding how you are responding to a situation.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: How are you absorbing the circumstances around you, the situation that you're in?
9:54
SPEAKER_00: And either identifying the control or the lack of control that you have.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: You see, I was lacking emotional intelligence in some aspects of law enforcement because I absorbed everything.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Everything I did or I was involved in, I absorbed.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: I was prideful and I responded one way.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: I was the best, and if not, I was the loudest and the most defensive voice in the room.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: I got my way.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: I was able to bully my way into situations because of the way that I responded to them.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: It was my go-to.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: It was my go-to response.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't able to take in my environment.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't able to read the people around me, read the room.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Really, I believe people just got out of the way and allowed me to do what I needed to do because I was loud and obnoxious at times.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't I able to read the room?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think as I think about that and as I think back to the therapy, my nervous state, my nervous system, first of all, not blaming it all there, but it was in a really weird place.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I was in fight or flight.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: I was fighting or I was sleeping.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And that is fighting emotionally, fighting for space, fighting for something to prove myself, whatever it may be.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: The other thing I had going against me, which I mentioned a moment ago, was my pride.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And then I everything I did was performance-based.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't able to read the room because I needed to be the best.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck in a bad nervous state.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: And everything I wanted to do or needed to do was performance, so I could get that attaboy, I could get that goal, I could solve that case and have some accolades that just pumped me up inside.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: It was my reward system and allowed me to rinse and repeat and do it all over again.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Being loud and obnoxious, the last time worked, let's do it this time.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: That's the way that I felt.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not going to say that and minimize that I was good at my job.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that it's okay to be good at the job, and I think it's okay to have that passion to push through and persevere.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: That is needed.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: But the emotional intelligence piece is the piece where I didn't recognize the world around me or how I was influencing it or how it was influencing me.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence is key to life inside and outside of law enforcement.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And emotional intelligence is key to life in our everyday world.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence plays out.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: For example, you have a friend that was diagnosed with cancer, and that friend changes their lifestyle.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: They distance themselves from people, they isolate or insulate or bring their family close to them.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Lack of emotional intelligence would say, Why isn't Tommy my friend anymore?
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't he hang out with me?
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And we say, it's easy for us to say, I would never think that, but you would, because if you're close to somebody and all of a sudden they change, you start blaming yourself, or you start blaming them, or you turn your nose about them, or whatever it may be, instead of the emotional intelligence and realizing they could be on their deathbed, or they don't know if they're guaranteed tomorrow.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So therefore they have to limit the things in their life they're it they are involved in to make room for the things that are important, being the family or whatever it may be.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: So lack of emotional intelligence says, you know, why are they doing this to me?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Why am I a victim here?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence says, looking at it from their point of view, maybe they're taking in the things that are most important to them.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And I how can I support that?
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Emotional intelligence.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Something else I've realized since leaving law enforcement is I am not my job.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: I am not as important to my job as I think I am, and I am replaceable.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: You see, when I was a cop, I thought that I held the keys to the universe.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: I thought that the world revolved around me.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And if I were to leave, then they wouldn't get anything done.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: I've said on this show several times that if there was something sexy going on in my city, I was involved in it.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: And that is not necessarily untrue.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't involved because I'm the only one that could do it.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: I was involved because I was the integral part of the team and I was effective at my job, but they could do it without me.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: You know how I knew that?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Because when I left on that Thursday with some broken ribs and I never returned to the office again.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: When I left, I had dozens of reports pending.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: I had multiple open homicides pending.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: I had just made seven arrests or five, six, or seven arrests, I can't remember anymore, in a cartel murder, and I hadn't written a single report about it yet.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: But I never come back to work and all those cases got solved.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: All those reports got written, everybody was able to do it without me, and I wasn't the keys to that universe.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: That is when I realized that I am not as important as I think I am.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: If I was my job, what would that say about me if I didn't have my job?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Like on the Friday of that week, where I was no longer an effective police officer ever.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: That would mean if all I had was my job, that would mean I was useless, right?
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Or you're useless.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: If all you have is the career that you're in right now and your kingdom that you've built, and your corporate office, and your top of your tech job, and you are the top of the top of the top companies in the United States in tech, and you're sitting in this little glass palace and everything is good, man, you feel like you are the bomb and you're on top of it.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: What happens when that goes away?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Or what happens when all that stress breaks you down mentally and destroys you from the top down?
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden you find yourself enable to work in that environment or unable to function in life and you have a nervous breakdown, then who are you?
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Once you heal from that and you recover, then who are you?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: If you are your job, then that would effectively mean you were useless without the badge, or useless without the title, or useless without the business cards, or useless without the pay.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: An important factor is understanding who you are as a human being underneath.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Who is Aaron as a human being underneath the job, underneath the title, underneath the badge, underneath the uniform, underneath the suit, whatever it may be?
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Understanding the skills that I possess and how they contribute to the world around me is what has made me an effective human being outside of law enforcement.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: And that is how you can serve the world.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: You are not your job.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Your job doesn't love you near as much as you love it.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: What skills do you have that you can contribute to the world?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And how can you serve the people around you if all of a sudden you never went back to work?
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Another thing, you need to focus.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: I needed to focus on what I could and could not control.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, going back a couple of that emotional intelligence when I would absorb everything around me, whether it was administrative changes or politics or overtime or supervisors that don't know what they're doing, or conflicts in the workplace, or rumors, it was so easy for me to allow it to victimize me.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: And when you're when I was living in that world and all I had was surrounded by the negativity around me, it was very easy to become a part of that system, to become part of that toxic environment and to get the victimized state.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Admin doesn't know anything, they haven't been on the road forever.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Why are they doing this to us?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the politics, defund the police, they say.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Man, that sucks.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: It's coming weight down my shoulders.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, overtime.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: They're forcing us into patrol overtime.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: We got to get in a uniform.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, do they know who I am?
17:55
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to get into that victimized state.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can't control any of those things.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't control the good or the bad that was going on me.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: I remember once I was in an office complaining, and there's a guy who I'm not particularly fond of, and but he's he's a decent dude.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm just he's just not my cup of tea.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: But we're in this office, and there's three or four of us, and uh, I wasn't in my unit, I was on patrol at the time, and I was complaining about politics in the department, and I was complaining about the way they were doing us, some bitch, I don't know what it was.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Aaron, listen to yourself.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: He's like, you can't control anything that you're talking about.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: So stop worrying about it.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Stop letting it consume you, stop getting worked up and spun up and spooled up.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And my response to him was like, go screw yourself.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: This is affecting me, and I have a right to voice my opinion.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And I fought back.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Hindsight, going back 15 years, 14 years, it totally makes sense what he was saying.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And he was so smart to bring that up at the time.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: I was willing to victimize me, and I didn't realize how little control I had or really how much it didn't matter.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Focus on yourself, focus on your well-being.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And every now and then I had to do a gut check to realign my priorities.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And while I was in, I didn't realize this.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that I needed to realign my priorities.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: I thought my priorities were in the right place.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Hindsight being 2020, it's super important for gut checks and to realign your priorities when things feel out of balance.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: This next one, I think, is the biggest one that my wife probably noticed first.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's that suit of armor that I put on.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: That suit of armor where I was living in condition red all the time, meaning I'm ready for a fight, I'm looking for a fight.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: My back is against the wall, I'm paranoid that the world is going to kill me, I'm carrying multiple guns and knives, and that is just the way that I am.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That is a cop, that is the way that I am, and the way I'm always gonna be.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, over time that started to dissipate and turn down the intensity.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that I'm not aware of my surroundings.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that I don't sometimes carry a gun.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: What it means is that suit of armor we put on is a way to protect ourselves.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care how badass you are, if you wanted to lose that or if you wanted to tone that down a little bit, or the the terrible term for me is turn down the intensity a little bit, that can happen and it can go away and diminish over time.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: You will always be that person that is aware of your surroundings.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to live in such a hyper-vigilant state that it takes its toll on you.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: The world is not out to kill you, unlike what they teach you at the academy, unlike the unwinnable scenarios.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, in canine academy, we used to do these scenarios, and we'd have to go in, we knew there's a bad guy in a room, we send our dog in, our dog doesn't find the bad guy, so we have to go in after him.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: And we come in through that front door, through that threshold, and we're clearing the room like we've been trained, and there's no like new rookie officer coming into canine academy.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: We've all been doing this a minute.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So we know our tactics, we're sharp on them, and we come into the room, we're clearing these rooms, and all of a sudden we get popped on top of the head.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're in a warehouse environment, and on the rafter, three or four rafters up, there's some dude up there hiding that shoots us on the top of the head.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: That is an unwinnable scenario.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Could have we seen them?
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Sure, we could have.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: But that is not realistic.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: But those scenarios is what sets us up to believe that the world is out to kill us and get us, and that that increases that psychological hypervigilance that we have all the time.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you that that stuff can go away.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: That part of your being, that over hyper-vigilant, fight-and-flight free state, all that stuff that we experience by doing the job over and over again and the training and everything else, that can be diminished, and you can realize that we live in a balanced world and not everybody is out to get you.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: For me, that has been such a blessing because as I go into restaurants, I no longer have to be paranoid about where I sit or, you know, I can have people behind me and I'm not freaking out, it's not sending me into some panic state, and it's really, really nice.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: It's a much more relaxing way to live my life, which is pretty cool.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: The next thing is therapy.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Therapy is your friend, literally.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Finding a therapist for me that was competent in my field, that understood trauma, that understood the body's response to trauma, and in my case with had a faith-based background, worked.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: It was so nice to have somebody that I could talk things through and that understood what we were going through in law enforcement, or what we are going through in law enforcement, or what we are going through post-law enforcement that may, you know, be a hitch in our gide up or slow us down or be a stumbling block for us.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Therapy for so many years was a bad word in law enforcement.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: It came with the stigmatization that we were broken or that we were weak or that we were soft.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: PTSD would oftentimes come along with that therapy.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Again, a cop-out.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: I was the worst.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: I thought PTSD was an absolute joke.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was a cop out for the week.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was a bandwagon everybody wanted to get on so they didn't have to do real police work.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Little did I know that that was not true.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: It was my ignorance and my naiveness.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, now, hindsight being 2020, I feel so horrible for all those times that I made fun of people claiming PTSD or were uh experiencing PTSD.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And the whole time, uh, I thought I was right.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Again, lacking that emotional intelligence.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times, myself included, would find a therapist and it didn't work.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: So we go into this and we tell our story, and it might be a week, it might be six months.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: We tell our story, we go through the whole thing, and then we realize, okay, we're really not gaining any ground here.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: We're not winning, we're not coming to any, you know, epiphanies or revelations, and all of a sudden we realize that, you know, we need to separate ways.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy in that moment to find ourselves turning away from a therapist, say, Well, I gave it a shot, it didn't work, and I'm done.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it is worth fighting that uphill battle.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: It is worth fighting the uphill battle to start over, to find somebody else.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Once you find somebody that connects with you and can help navigate through this thing we call life, your life can be so much better.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: You're so much of a better father, husband, friend, wife, whatever it may be.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And not only can you be better for yourself, but you can be better for those around you.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: You can add value to other people's lives.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: What made us good at our jobs, what made me good at my job was my ability to move a needle and impact the people around me.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I got into this lie.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: I believed this lie that the only way I could impact people around me was through law enforcement, through solving their murder, through whatever.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: It took my therapist and it took exposure and it took time for me to realize that I was given gifts to help people, to understand, to connect to people at a deeper level and to listen.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: So many times, all we want to do is talk as I sit here and talk on this podcast.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: But so many times all we want to do is talk.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: And really, we just need to be able to listen.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And the ability to listen to people, to connect with them, it allows us to impact them in their lives.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: We don't need a crisis to impact people.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: We have been given the gift to listen, to love, and to learn about those in our circles.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: That will lead to fulfillment, not only for them, but also for you.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: When you feel like you've connected with somebody on a deep level, that is a way for me, my experience, that is a way for me to feel fulfilled that I'm doing what I need to do and that I'm using the gifts and talents that were given me.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, we often think in law enforcement that we're stuck with where we are, and I'll talk about this in a second, but we're stuck in the skill sets.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: We're a traffic cop, we're a homicide guy, we're a pharmacist, we're a whatever.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And those are all the skills we know.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: There is a world so far left of center or right of center from where you are right now that you can be working in.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: At what point in my career, if you would have bet me a million dollars four years ago, if you'd have said, Aaron, four years from now, you're gonna be selling plumbing parts and plumbing supplies, and you're gonna be happy and content doing it.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: I'd been like, you are full of crap, you're crazy, and uh, I would have lost my million bucks.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: So know that your skills are relatable in the outside world.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Connecting with people, letting go of your trauma through therapy is worth it at the end of the day.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, another thing I think about is law enforcement is gonna wear you down.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Law enforcement will wear you down.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been in it for any length of time, or you're a firefighter, or your first responders, or whatever other career field, it's gonna wear you down, both mentally and physically.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, I encountered, and I can say we encounter trauma, we encounter life and death every single day.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: If it's not happening to us, if somebody's not trying to kill us, somebody around us is dying.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: We work long hours, we break up families, we take people's rights away, we arrest them and send them to jail for the rest of their life.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: We work in a toxic environment every single day where people, our own peers, are out to eat us alive.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: We can't trust the people around us.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: This course is going to break you down over time.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: We, as law enforcement, me, I was bad at taking breaks or finding a balance.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't take a break because my world was so intense Monday through Thursday that my weekend, Friday through Saturday, I was still trying to decompress.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: The phone was ringing, I was never really off duty, and then right back at it Monday.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: When I had a therapist early on coming out of law enforcement, that he and I, well, he was not the right fit for me, but he did say one thing that really made sense to me.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: When I was struggling with being quote unquote broken, quote unquote PTSD, quote unquote, affected, and I couldn't understand it.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm struggling with it.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Doc, I am not broken.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I am, I can do this.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: I've got more, I'm wearing a Superman shirt for Pete's sakes during this meeting we had.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I can get back in there.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: I got more lives to save and murders to solve and children to defend.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Aaron, he's like, How long have you been doing this job?
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, 20 years, 21 years, something like that.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Have you ever slowed down or have you been this intense the entire time?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I've been this intense the entire time, but I can keep doing this.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason for me to slow down.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Aaron, what if you had the most pristine sports car engine and you ran it in the red for 20 years?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: You never serviced it, you never slowed down, you never stopped to maintenance it or change the oil, you just kept going, going, going.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And when it would slow down to it for a corner, you'd power right back out of it.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: He's like, what would happen to that engine if you never slowed down for 20 years and just kept running it red hot?
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, it would break.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, why are you any different?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: That is an example that he used that helped me understand where I was and why things were happening to me that they were.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And that was the start of the change for me.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: That was the start of me finding a healthy mental health balance.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And no matter where you are, it took me 20-something years before I was able to even start wrapping my mind around it.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you are in your career, it is never too late to start finding balance and mental health and understanding your priorities of life and what is important to you in your world.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: What's important to me in my world?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Family.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: My family is the most important thing.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: And we often take them for granted.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: We often go to work for 12, 14, 16 hours.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we pick up extra shifts so we don't have to go home and face the world that we're allowing to crumble underneath us.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: We crap on our family and we just expect them to be there when we get home.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: When we come home, we're short, we're angry, we're snarky, we're swearing, we're yelling, they're walking on eggshells.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: We think that's okay for them to live in that situation, circumstance, and situation.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, I've never done that.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Ask your wife or your kids, or your husband or your kids.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you, sometimes we bring home, and if you really think about it, the worst of ourselves and give that to our family.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Again, no matter the career.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: If you are out there working day in and day out and you're giving your all and you are performance-driven and you are goal-oriented, and you just wanna, you just want to do the best for the company and make a name and climb to that top of that corporate ladder, there's only so much of you to give in a day.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And when you come home, the family, the ones that actually love you, because your job doesn't love you, the ones that actually love you, your family, they get the absolute worst of whatever you have left to give.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: We can often justify this by saying things like, that's just the way that I am, it's the way life is.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I have a stressful job.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Um saving other people's lives.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: You're saving other people's lives at the detriment of your own family while you're killing off your own people that love you.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: That is frankly unacceptable.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way I lived for so many years.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: What have I learned coming out of law enforcement realization that family is the most important?
31:34
SPEAKER_00: They're the my family is the reason that I am still alive today and that I am healthy and happy and have a great home.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: It's because of my family, not because of what I contributed to it.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: If it was up to me, I would have destroyed my family 47 times.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: It's because my family had faith and they loved me and they stuck through me, is why things were good.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Don't shit on your family.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Something else I've learned since coming out of law enforcement is brain.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And we'll call it brain training.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: We are destined to remember the negative.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Try to remember the gifts you got for Christmas two years ago.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: It may be really, really hard for you, but now think back to Christmas two years ago and think about the fight that you got in or the disagreement you had with your wife or your husband or your spouse or your uncle or your nephew or your niece or your aunt or your child.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Those details are crystal clear.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Our brain tends to hold on to the negative things.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: The positive things, yeah, they go.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: But the negative things where we feel like we've stumbled or we've been a part of something negative, those are the things that stick with us.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So now put yourself in that line of duty where we're surrounded by negative emotions, thoughts, environments.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is perceived as a bad person.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: The world sucks.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: We must train our brains to focus on positive things, peaceful things, and things outside of law enforcement.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: This comes back to having balance.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Having balance in law enforcement, or as a law enforcement officer or any professional out there, if all you do is surround yourself with your work buddies, well, I get it, you got to have that camaraderie.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: But if all you do is work surround yourself with your work buddies, that is going to be this lifestyle you get into.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard to shake that negativity.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: You must train your brain, focus on positive, focus on peace, focus on balance.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: That is something I've learned since coming out of law enforcement, which I didn't even understand or recognize while I was on the job.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: People need people.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
33:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, in law enforcement or in a work environment or a team environment, we are just that in a team.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: And we need to start asking ourselves, what can I do to help and support the people around me, the individuals around me?
34:04
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy when we work closely with the team, we depend on each other.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: We may be, it could be in a corporate office, it could be in law enforcement, we may be saving lives, or we may be curing cancer, whatever it is.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: We work on a team, and it's so easy to have that team concept.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: But with that team concept, it's also easy to lose sight of the brothers and sisters that are to your left and to your right and what they may be suffering with on a human level.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, for me, I remember 2012 when I was in a really depressed suicidal state, and I'm in the office crying every night getting dressed out in the locker room for two months, three months.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm bawling.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: And it was about that time in my life that I've got a gun in my mouth.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the other half a dozen, 10 people around me getting dressed out for shift with me.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: They're like within, I don't know, arm's distance from me.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: They're watching me baw, and nobody said, Hey, Aaron, what's going on, dude?
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Because we were a team, but we were scared of facing the individual.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: I've learned since coming out of law enforcement that people need people and we need to connect with them on a people level.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And if we see something, we need to say something.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: People need to know that we are there for them.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: I work with a guy who is a great human being and he always sees the good in people.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: He always tries to see good in situations and he tries to view things from other people's perspective.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: He has empathy.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: And I wish there were more people like that throughout my law enforcement career that could see the good in people, that could help us feed from that positive perspective and would also look at the individuals.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: If I'm having a down day and he sees it now, he asks me about it.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: That is such an awesome environment to be in because it was never that way before.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: And I just think that we need people in our worlds.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: We need positivity.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: Negativity kills us.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: It kills you as a human being or me as a human being, it kills morale, it tears down teams, the systems that surround us are going to die.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But why?
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Because it's an easy, easy bandwagon to get on.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get on the negativity bandwagon and bitch about things that don't matter.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to gossip about other coworkers and life around us.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to support the bitch.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you or your company, or if you're a cop, cops will really relate to this?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: You hear a rumor, you hear that command is going to do something.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And you take that back, and all of a sudden it's a fact.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And you portray this, or your coworker, or your partner portrays this as a fact.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Before you know it, you have the entire unit gathered around a squad room table, having a discussion and making a rumor into absolute fact and gospel and narrative.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: We get so worked up over things that we don't even know that are true.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: And then once it's there, once we've planted this idea in our mind, they could come to us.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: The people in charge, the decision makers could come and say, Hold on, you guys are way off base.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: That that there nothing like that is even happening.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: And completely dispel it, but in our minds, because of the negativity we live in, we're always going to believe a little bit of that is true.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're lying, sons of bitches, and they're really going to do this to us and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And we continue to believe this.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: And we, it's, it's hard.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to let this thing die in our minds.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the world we live in.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Negativity kills us.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: We have to find a way to shed that, to not be a part of the problem, but to be a part of the solution, to set that free.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: We need to find a way to balance ourselves.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: We need to find a way to believe the positive in this world and the truth and see the light, not the darkness.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And for so many years, even coming out over the last three years, all I focused on was darkness.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And that is something that is deadly.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: There's two more things I want to talk about.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: One of them is PTSD, depression, vices, drugs, affairs, all the stuff, the coping mechanisms that we in law enforcement, first responders, and a lot of other careers employ in our lives to make us feel better or to get over a hurdle or to justify our wrongdoings.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you, they don't care who you are.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And no matter who you are or where you are or how impervious to this you feel, you are susceptible to it because there are changes happening inside that can affect even the strongest people.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: We are getting broken down inside, but we may not even believe it ourselves.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: We are chameleons at hiding our problems and hiding our secrets and hiding the things that are affecting us.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: We get paid to be professional chameleons.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: And as human beings, we don't want people to see what's affecting us.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: We want to be seen as strong and we want to be seen as wholesome and as right and as rock stars, not as weak, broken, hurt individuals that need help.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: It is so hard to ask for help.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And our image or our outward view of what people think of us starts at a very early age.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: If you go into a kindergarten class, you remember yourself going to the kindergarten class, you walked in and immediately, day one, after mom got done crying at the door, you looked around, you surveyed that room to see who the cool kids were and you set yourself up with them.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Not because you knew them.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know Timmy, Johnny, or Jocelyn, whatever her name was.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know them.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Katie, I think was her name.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know them, but all you knew is they looked cool, and that's what you wanted to associate with.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: So we do the same thing as adults.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: We camouflage ourselves into groups of people, into our job, into our lives.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: We're chameleons and we hide.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: The difference between that kindergartner and us as functioning adults is by the time we become function adults, we have some real problems in our world.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's very easy to suffer from PTSD, depression, vices, drugs, affairs, whatever it may be, hide them from everybody around us and allow that to tear us down.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: If you fall into these things, it is not the end of the world.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: There is hope and there can be change.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: You're not the only one suffering from it.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: No matter what those things are that I just mentioned, those vices are.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: If you work in a group of 10 people, somebody else in that group is going to be experiencing the exact same thing that you are, or have that same set of circumstances or experiences, and you guys can help each other out.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Finally, I want to say this the job will change you, but it does not have to define you.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: I know you've heard that before, but it's true.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Listen to it again.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: The job is going to change you, but it does not have to define you.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: There is life on the other side.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: You have skills outside of your current role that are relatable in the real world.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: There are people out there that can help you find those.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: You are never stuck.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: You're not stuck in the blue line, you're not stuck in the family.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Be smart enough, have enough emotional intelligence to understand that your world does not have to stay the way that it is if you don't want it to.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: The job will change you, but does not have to define you.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, that's like, I don't know, 10, 12 things that I have realized since leaving law enforcement.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Every time I go to therapy, I make notes.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And I take those notes and I write them down and I study them and I realize what did I learn today?
41:39
SPEAKER_00: And going through pages and pages and pages of my notes, these are some things that I deduced down.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: These are beliefs that I had in law enforcement when I did my career that I thought were the absolute gospel.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they were just a story and a narrative that I made up in my head and chose to believe.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: He's a cool dude.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh he's got a full-time comedy show and all that kind of stuff.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be a lot of fun.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: So if there's anything you guys want to hear, please feel free to shoot me an email.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Join me on Instagram at Murders2Music.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: That's all spelled out.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Be a part of this conversation.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody that has been emailing me, thank you guys so much.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: I love you guys so much.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, something I said today can resonate with you.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, that is a Murders to Music Podcast.