I drove through the burn scar of a different fire from the previous summer. I noticed the thick grass crop and the brush skeletons and then, suddenly filled with extreme anxiety, I wanted to escape from the truck.
Read More »Health and Wellness
PTSD and Firefighters: Let’s Make 2017 the Year We All Understand it Better
Retired battalion chief Robert Avsec shares insights and comments from PTSD sufferers in an effort to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding PTSD and other mental health issues for firefighters and EMS personnel.
Read More »Past Writings on Firefighter Mental Health and Wellness Issues
Chief Robert Avsec has compiled a bibliography of previous articles and posts he's written on the subjects of firefighter mental health, depression, PTSD, alcohol and substance abuse, and much more. Firefighters and officers alike should benefit from the information contained in these articles.
Read More »Firefighter Health: Less talk and more action is required
I’ve always believed that the most important aspect of better firefighter health and safety is the person who uses the equipment: the firefighter. The personal behaviors of the individual firefighter will always have the greatest influence on firefighter health and safety.
Read More »Depression, like fire, takes many forms
Recently, we have seen an increase in awareness for the impact mental health issues have on fire service members. The following is a brief explanation of how depression, the most frequent aspect of firefighter mental distress, can appear.This also shows what all of us can do to help change the impact of depression on ourselves and others.
Read More »PTSD Sufferer/Survivor: The Challenges Moving Forward
Going public, speaking about it before groups of firefighters, having a “speaker” Facebook page for those who wished to follow my journey and how you can heal from PTS and PTSD, this created a whole new barrier for me in searching for a new job.
Read More »Primer for Firefighter Mental Health
My contribution of "sunshine" today is to post this "round up", if you will, of posts from this blog along with other sources that I've encountered over the past couple of months as I've become more informed and educated about firefighter mental health challenges.
Read More »PTSD: My New “Friend”
By: Nathalie Michaud After I received the diagnosis of my PTSD in late Summer 2014, I was partly relieved because now I knew why I felt and thought the way I did. It didn’t make it any easier to accept, but now that there was a name for it, a bit of the “ET” syndrome went away. I had choices: ...
Read More »Firefighters and Cancer
A powerful piece of prose about one firefighter's "come to Jesus" moment with firefighters and cancer. An equally powerful message about how everyone in the fire service needs to "get on the bus" concerning firefighting and the dramatically increased risk of developing cancer we--and our families--face.
Read More »Do you have 40 minutes for mental health–yours and others?
During our panel discussion we discussed a term that hasn't gotten much attention thus far in the firefighter mental health conversation: emotional or mental hygiene. We'll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or a nagging pain. So why don’t we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain: guilt, loss, loneliness?
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