SO. This is me.
According to my neighbour's 4 year old son. Today.
And to be fair, his depiction I find both insightful and flattering. Here I am all in a bit of a tiz, dishevelled, fringed with red, my head is almost upside down and there is a big cloud of intense rumination above me. Also, my ears (I think they are ears) are open. (Either ears or someone has -quite understandably- driven a screwdriver through my head).
What I love though is that a heart is there.
I've never done a blog before. I've only ever written about myself once and this was last year (to the day) when a local photographer and friend of the village suggested I told people who live locally more about what I do. He encouraged me to open up in a local magazine. It was so weird. It was literally just an article about me in a section called 'People'. I had no idea about who may read it and still don't know who has. I have no idea who will read this either! But thank you for being here on my first blog. The reason I was asked, I think, sums up a lot about life in Emergency Response and high risk occupations. My work is about supporting others' working lives that are shaped, influenced and touched by trauma and suffering. I guess it's not the kind of work that you chat with people openly about, down the pub, in the shop or in a field (which is where I have most social contact in this rural village life). When people who know me just as Jess (usually in wellies, sometimes in scrubs if I have wildlife rescues in), they are pretty shocked when others tell them that I work with police, military, ambulance services, the RNLI and so on. People are interested to a point and then there's this air of distance that then floats in around me - you can see the faces slightly shut down -and conversations fizzle out (politely of course). Then no one really dares ask too much about it again and will politely avoid any full-on chats unless they want some help or advice.
And I get it. Folks don't want to risk having to talk about grim stuff. Human suffering. The darker side of life. I know. Why would you out of choice? There's so much more out there, more pleasant, fun, entertaining things to engage with.
The thing is, for those of us who live* in this line of work (I choose those words carefully there*) we also deserve to engage in all the other non-traumatic, non-emergency, non-painful elements of life too- and for us, we need some understanding.
When our mind is in threat-mode, pretty much all our resources are focussed on that. Our brains get hard-wired, the more we are exposed to, as they become more and more efficient at doing what we ask of them. Sadly, this comes at great cost. We need to work extra hard to turn off this threat mode when we are safe to, so our brains can refocus on the lighter things in life and help us be the people we want to be. We are rarely ever trained or encouraged to become skilful in turning off the threat mode, to feel safe and at ease, to open up to all life has to offer. And so we shy away. We create nice clean versions of events, cover stories of what we do, in sufficient detail to entertain those interested enough to ask how we are, but not so much detail as to scare them off. We park our expectations for anything more. We keep the darker realities quiet and hope that others we work with 'get it' without us having to find the words. Sometimes this works well if we have close bonds with a partner, crew, team or unit. Sometimes, we work on our own. Sometimes we just aren't in the right place to establish those safe rapports or moments where we can find common ground.
Well. What I'd like to do is help all of us who live and work in roles that involve repeated trauma to have a space where we can be who we are. With our dark sides, our light bits, our intense thoughts, our casual frivolity, our vulnerability and humour.
A space where we can put down the hard stuff next to us -without judgement- and let ourselves engage with the lighter side of life, the curious, the random, the unique.
Stuff we don't have to control or fix.
Stuff that just is what it is.
If you think this might be a good space to spend a few minutes every so often and take a breather from trauma (without having to pretend that life is anything other than what it is) please join me.
Bye for now.