by Ronald Marler, Retired Police Academy Sergeant & SWAT Team Officer, ACBC Certified Biblical Counselor
The manifestations and types of PTS are not mutually exclusive. People can suffer from multiple types. The greatest focus has been primarily on intense and traumatic experiences and exposure. In law enforcement, at least numerically, there is a more common manifestation—a combination of stacking and emotional numbing. The consistent, almost constant, exposure to stressful and potential force-required situations while having to suppress any display of emotions has a lasting impact on most officers.
One of the illustrations we sometimes us is "us" and "them" categories. Young officers often have a very large "us" category, including the department, city government, courts, other social agencies, citizens—almost everyone but active criminals. As an officer’s career progresses, there is likely to be a steady decrease in the "us" category and steady increase in the "them" category. Early groups moved into the "them" category are courts, attorneys, judges, legislatures, and certain citizen groups. As the career continues, the "them" category continues to increase, now including other social agencies, the majority of citizens, city government, and police administrators and managers. Finally, toward the end of the career, sometimes the officer’s entire shift or squad may not be in the "us" category. The impact of the steady onslaught of stress and the need to suppress emotions impacts not only personal relationships but also a general perspective.
To think of it in the simplest terms, constantly suppressing emotions makes officers steadily less resilient. Anger seems to be an exception, perhaps because anger is a useful street emotion that provides focus, energizes, and helps overcome fear. The consequences of suppressing emotions fall most heavily on officers’ spouse and family. Officers rarely perceive a problem and are usually performing well at work and coming home after shift. But their spouse and family, if they have one, are experiencing a subtle but steadily increasing negative change in their relationship with their spouse/parent. Officers often become less communicative and less emotionally connected and involved. It is common for them to respond with short and vague replies to attempts at conversation with their spouse, but then they have long and animated conversations with co-workers. Eventually, the feelings of dissatisfaction the spouse and family have will start to impact the officer. Historically, law enforcement marriages fail at a higher rate than in the general population. Currently, it is more difficult to track marriage statistics because fewer couples get married, and couples that break up without being married don’t show up in marriage and divorce statistics.
All this is a source of great frustration to many counselors because these kinds of issues are very amenable to counseling but so few take that route. When a couple understands the true source of the growing tension in the relationship, it brings light and hope into what seemed like an unsolvable problem. The couple needs to focus on the biblical responsibilities of being a spouse and parent and give these responsibilities a greater priority than their feelings. What at first seems awkward and unnatural will become much more comfortable after some successes. The progression that needs to take place is actually very common. As the pattern of behavior changes and interactions become more positive and enjoyable, feelings will start to come in line with obedience to biblical roles. The long-term strengthening of the relationship will be helped by couple or family counseling and keeping the teachings of the Bible central in the relationship. Most couples find a doctrinally sound church essential and small group Bible study quite helpful.
In a conversation with a friend who is a retired Navy veteran and works with other veterans, we agreed that although people who enter service, military or public safety understand they could be seriously hurt or killed doing their job, no one really makes it clear they will also likely pay an emotional price for their career their whole life.
by Ronald Marler, Retired Police Academy Sergeant & SWAT Team Officer, ACBC Certified Biblical Counselor
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