Conrad Weaver (00:01.58)
Well, Tracy, welcome to the First Responder Wellness Podcast. It's great to have you on the program.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:06.831)
Thanks Conrad, happy to be here.
Conrad Weaver (00:08.962)
Yeah, tell us a little bit about who you are and what do do.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:13.275)
Well, I am a retired firefighter from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I was on for 23 years with our city fire department. And we had experienced the line of duty death. And following that incident, I ended up experiencing a lot of darkness. It created a lot of trauma for me. It hit me pretty personal. It was at a
Conrad Weaver (00:36.63)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:42.171)
training scenario that was my responsibility. I was actually a training officer with our training academy. And so I had a little bit of guilt that was kind of mixed in with it as well. So following that, plus there was 20 years of accumulated trauma that firefighters and first responders get as far as
Conrad Weaver (01:07.822)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (01:11.107)
you know, that goes plus having this huge incident that happened. I was finally diagnosed with PTSD. I went for about a year and then it really started to hit me and I went downhill. I became very suicidal. Several, several times that I was right on that brink. I don't know what it was that kept me from not doing it. And actually I take that back. can, I can easily tell you why I did.
Conrad Weaver (01:31.886)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (01:40.827)
and that was because I didn't want any of my brothers or sisters to find me. Otherwise, would have been a dumb thing. I feel if I was somewhere else, I probably would have. But I had withdrawn myself from family and friends. Like I said, it got really bad. And finally, it got to a point where I went to work and my chief that
Conrad Weaver (01:44.877)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (02:10.754)
I had at the time, he asked me, he was like, what's going on? You're not doing right. And I actually had problems with my neck physically. And he ended up sending me home because I had so much pain in my neck. And then later on, I find out that that neck problem has a lot to do with it, know, up here. And eventually I was written out
Conrad Weaver (02:34.422)
Okay, yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (02:40.218)
for crying in the office and or being.
Conrad Weaver (02:44.13)
Like you were reprimanded, like a written up reprimand for crying?
Tracey Wilkinson (02:48.546)
Yeah, it was kind of a slight, you know, underhand slight to kind of throw it in. They used an excuse. They gave me a task assignment to, because I was at this time on light duty because of my neck. I guess I should clarify that. And they had given me a task assignment that was not what I did. And they knew I didn't know what I was doing. I told them I will do my best.
I see what I can come up with. And they wanted me to revamp our audio video lab. I'm not an audio video tech person. I'm lucky to manage Google and everything else. So I know what I need to know to get in by. And it was in this write up that they're saying that I wasn't accomplishing my tasks. At the very end says that I had been seeing crying.
in the office.
Right before that, I had gone to my assistant chief and I told him, chief, I need help. And that was the catalyst. That's when that day ended my career. That was the end of it. And then there was a couple meetings after that with my chief. He came back, he said, the chief told me to go to EAP, which is
Conrad Weaver (04:06.7)
Wow.
Tracey Wilkinson (04:19.962)
the employee assistance program we have, which I already had, and to submit all my things to risk management, which would cover it as a city thing.
So I got on that and never had any answer, never any response, nothing. And I had been told then after I was told or after in my write-up that I had been seen crying in the office that if I ever mentioned anything about hurting myself, that the chief would see me unfit for duty and get rid of me. He would.
Conrad Weaver (05:03.02)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:03.972)
want to fire me because he would see me unfit for duty. And I went for several months. Like I was so lost. I can't even, even thinking back now, I can't even describe how I felt at that time. But I knew I had reached a point that I couldn't trust myself enough to even be able to have
Conrad Weaver (05:06.295)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (05:23.724)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:32.76)
my crewmates be able to trust me. I mean, we're supposed to trust each other with our lives. And there's no way I could.
Conrad Weaver (05:36.407)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:45.452)
allow them to trust me when I can't trust myself. Because if anything had ever happened, I would never be able to live with myself, especially knowing I couldn't.
Conrad Weaver (05:48.461)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (05:54.478)
At this point, how many years in were you?
Tracey Wilkinson (05:59.875)
At this point, I was at 21. So I had 20 years on the back of an engine in combat. And then at 20 years, I went out to our training academy as a training officer. knowing what had all gone on and taken place out at the academy, I knew if I were to ever go back, I would not be able to go back to that environment with the
with the leadership and supervision that I had at the academy. It was just not gonna happen. So I knew I was going to be going back to combat, therefore knowing what needed to be done for myself, for my crewmates to trust me. And like I said, I couldn't trust myself. And I finally made the call to...
Tracey Wilkinson (07:01.102)
I finally made the call to just say, get ahold of the chief and said, I want to request my attention hearing. And that was the hardest send button for an email I think I've ever sent. like I'll go back to it, chief, I need help. And it ended up being, I felt like it was the chief I give up. And in the big picture, looking back now,
I know I didn't give up. I just, I had to save myself because if I stayed where I was, I literally was going to die. It wouldn't have been a proverbial die. It would be a true death. And I had a newborn baby at home and
fighting for it for so long and trying to get myself out of the darkness, it just doesn't happen. So this was in 2019 when I was off, like I said, for my neck because it all started to be a somatic issue. All of my head stuff was coming out somatically and I ended up having a neck surgery. This was all during 2019. So then I pensioned off in October of 2019.
I had my first neck surgery in May of 2019. I pensioned off in October of 2019. So then it was just kind of a void. I couldn't even tell you what happened between October and February or January of 2020 because I finally officially signed off of the fire department in February of 2020. But in January
Well, no, I take that back. was March of 2019 when I finally asked for help that, um, and nobody was giving me help. I took it upon myself to go out and get my own help. I started therapy right away and I did basically everything you could do without going inpatient. I skipped the inpatient and went straight to what you do after inpatient and did
Conrad Weaver (09:24.46)
Okay.
Tracey Wilkinson (09:26.362)
Intensive outpatient therapy, got on with seeing a new therapist. To this day, I see a therapist every week. And this has been how many years ago, but I give my life to starting that therapy, but I had to start it myself. And in January of 2020, I decided
I'm gonna go back to school. And my therapist said, you are absolutely out of your mind. And I said, you're right. That's why I'm here. And I ended up going back to school and I decided I wanna study psychology. And I had to know what was wrong with me. I had to find a new focus, a new purpose. And everything,
Conrad Weaver (10:02.573)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm
Conrad Weaver (10:23.703)
So was your, was your desire to study more inward focus like, okay, let's look at myself and see what's going on. Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (10:30.328)
Yes. Yeah. That's what drove me. I mean, I had, I was 21 when I came on the fire department and it's all I ever knew. I grew up in a first responder household and my mom was a retired firefighter. My brother's a retired police officer. My sister-in-law is a police officer. My cousin's a firefighter out in Vegas. My uncle was a firefighter when I was a kid. So it's, it's been in my blood. It's,
pretty much all I've ever known. And when I ended up deciding to go back to school, I had to figure out a new purpose because before the fire service was my purpose. And that's something that I've learned with my healing is that one thing that you need to try to do is not make your purpose, your personal purpose something.
You need to find a personal purpose within yourself rather than focusing on something outside of yourself. Right. Don't make it who you are. Don't make the fire service or the police service or whatever. Don't make that who you are. It might be what you are and you might love what you do and you love, you know, the service that you provide, but it doesn't mean it's the only thing you do.
Conrad Weaver (11:37.217)
like your job or something.
Tracey Wilkinson (11:57.115)
because there's times that you're needed, you as a person are needed, not the firefighter, not the police officer.
Conrad Weaver (12:05.421)
Because if you step outside of that, then who are you?
Tracey Wilkinson (12:10.646)
Exactly. And I had no idea. I had no clue. None at all. I was so lost that I couldn't tell you which way was up and down. And like I said, my therapist told me I was crazy. And I said, you're
Conrad Weaver (12:28.877)
So what did studying psychology and going into that, what did it teach you?
Tracey Wilkinson (12:34.006)
It taught me, I started learning a lot of things about development and just.
how a person develops and ways to approach.
Tracey Wilkinson (12:55.066)
of gets into the feely feely part of it. But it starts focusing on the brain. And I didn't study a specific discipline. So in a lot of times, people get confused if you think of psychology versus like neurology, because people think mental health, they think psychology, but they're wondering about the neurology of it.
Conrad Weaver (13:16.653)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (13:25.022)
And that can be very confusing. And after I finished my bachelor's degree in 22, because I I finished it, I continued on and I finished my master's. I just graduated back in October. So I was able to push myself through, but it was because when I got done with my general psychology degree, my bachelor's,
there was still more that I needed to know. And then that's when I started getting into how to diagnose people and more of a clinical side of it to understand how and why people are the way they are based on what's going on up here. And that's the stuff that really started to fascinate me.
Conrad Weaver (14:16.845)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (14:22.906)
You know, my undergrad, was more of a basis of development. Um, and then my grad school was more about, okay, what are we going to do? And are we, what causes this or that or whatever? Um, I just chose to not continue to get my, uh, to be a therapist. Um, I was tapped. had to be done with school for a while because that's like, that's another 3000 intern hours and.
Conrad Weaver (14:52.119)
Yeah, that's a lot.
Tracey Wilkinson (14:52.544)
I, yeah, I would get, yeah, I did my PhD before I finished, finished to be a clinician. But I really,
Conrad Weaver (15:00.717)
I want to go back a little bit to where you told the chief that you need help and they basically just said, see ya. I mean, a first responder agency is there to help the community, They respond to emergencies. You responded in your 20-some years, you responded to thousands of emergencies. People in trouble, people who needed help.
It's astounding to me as an outsider now looking into an agency like this and saying they can help everybody else, but they don't help their own. Why?
Tracey Wilkinson (15:45.263)
That is, that's the million dollar question. I wish I knew as well. Peer support teams are becoming much more popular, which is great. And this is the one thing that I've started to notice because of what I have learned, going back to what you asked, what I have learned through my schooling and how certain things need to be addressed.
Conrad Weaver (15:58.178)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (16:14.138)
I've researched so much. I've read more medical journals and articles in the past four years, five years, than I didn't even know I was capable of finding. Things I didn't even know had been researched. But the peer support thing, it's great, but it's different than different than therapy, obviously.
there's critical incident, the briefing teams, which I am actually a member of our regional team. I had been part of the team years ago. And then after our line of duty, I stopped doing it. I just couldn't, I couldn't engage in anything like that because I was now on the other side of the circle, you know? just this past winter,
Conrad Weaver (17:05.599)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (17:13.54)
finally found that I'm to a point now that I can re-engage myself because I want to be able to help with that part of it. And people get that confused, the difference between a debriefing team and a peer support and therapy. And like you said, why don't we help each other? And I think a lot of it has to do with fear and not being educated. I think not being educated is
Conrad Weaver (17:39.277)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (17:43.355)
really the big thing. And my goal is to now that I'm done is I want to educate people. I want to go out and I want to speak and provide education to say, this is what's wrong with you. This is why it happened. And this is how your brain is broken. We always hear about the proverbial bucket that gets filled and we can only hold so much until that bucket over fills.
Conrad Weaver (18:08.791)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (18:13.019)
And I can explain that to you now. I can draw a picture. It's a really bad picture, but I can draw you a picture of the brain and I can show you the little path of everything and how this information follows through and how that bucket overflows. And I'm totally fascinated by it. But what I've learned about that is what I want to go.
Conrad Weaver (18:36.397)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (18:40.987)
share and educate other people with. And like I said, I think the lack of education is really the biggest key. Peer support groups, take education courses or they might go out and like I know IAFF, they have at the Center for Excellence, they have their peer support program.
certification that you can get there. I've never been there, so I don't even know what it is, but I've done a couple of classes online. From what I would deliver educationally and what that material delivers educationally, some of it is very parallel, but there's a lot more that can be known and done. I tell people that
I feel like I have a lot to offer because if you are an alcoholic and you went to AA and the person at the helm that's facilitating, do you want somebody that has never been an alcoholic or never had a drink? Do you want that person facilitating your meeting?
Conrad Weaver (19:52.663)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (19:56.366)
Hmm. No.
Tracey Wilkinson (19:57.781)
or if you break your leg, and this one's even hard, because I can relate to this as well, I broke my leg and it was a bad break. And when I started my physical therapy, my physical therapist, he worked me through the exercises and kinesiology of what he, know, how to get my leg back to where it was supposed to be.
versus my personal trainer that I had hired who had also experienced major injury, they were totally different. The way one trained me versus the way the other one did, they were totally different. And I feel if I would have stayed primarily with the physical therapist, I don't think that I would have healed the way that I did. Probably even set up for more injury.
Conrad Weaver (20:36.556)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (20:51.447)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (20:56.428)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (20:57.399)
It's one thing that I'm afraid of for first responders because it's a part of the game. It's the nature of it. You're going to experience trauma. There's no way around it. We sign up to go experience people's worst day of their lives. And their worst days might just be another day for us, but we still absorb that trauma.
Conrad Weaver (21:09.355)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (21:16.993)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (21:22.721)
Right?
Conrad Weaver (21:26.903)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (21:27.651)
And that trauma affects us somehow, some way, even if it goes back and it attaches to some childhood memory, that's just the way the brain works and the way that you start reprocessing old memories and you know, how, how you relate to certain things. It's weird how it brings all of this different stuff back. And all of sudden you have no idea what's going on. You don't know why your bucket's overflowing.
Conrad Weaver (21:37.515)
Mm-hmm. Right?
Tracey Wilkinson (21:57.775)
You don't know why you just made a car wreck with a mangled family that's unrecognizable, but you make a kid that fell off his bicycle with a bad bloody nose and the kid is the one that set you over the edge. And that's where
Conrad Weaver (22:14.752)
Hmm. Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (22:21.913)
I think that's where fallacies are that you didn't experience that much. It was just a bloody host, but it wasn't. It was an imprint from something else. And we experience a chronic fill. Our bucket is chronically being filled.
Conrad Weaver (22:27.51)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (22:33.536)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (22:38.25)
Yeah. It's that cumulative effect of all those different things that you've experienced over the years, right? Yeah. So if you could go back to your 21 year old self, what would you tell yourself? Knowing what you know now about psychology and about development, what would you tell yourself?
Tracey Wilkinson (22:58.267)
There's a lot of things I tell myself because I was kind of reckless when I was 21.
I think I would.
I would definitely express the importance of wellness, of finding grounding techniques. Those are ones that I have really, really found to kind of do what they say, they ground you. Even simple things, ice packs.
Conrad Weaver (23:36.714)
describe one of those, describe one of your grounding techniques.
Tracey Wilkinson (23:40.539)
One that I found that is super simple, it's ice packs. Ice packs on your neck, on the back of your neck, ice packs. And one other thing, one of the best ones in research proves that the three best things to
to be able to, or I'm sorry, the two best things for relieving stress is one, being outside with nature, and two, petting animals. Super simple. And a lot of them you have, you just take for granted. So if you understand what it is, rather than just doing it and not knowing, so it is a more,
Deliberate and I know that I'm upset. I know that this has affected me. I Can do these things these grounding exercises? That's one way that I could address my own wellness but hands down I would say whether you think you need it or not get a therapist. I think therapy is essential Which draws, you know a problem with organizations
that
How are you going to force somebody to go to therapy? You can't. You just can't. Therapy is expensive. I mean, it goes without saying. And personally, I believe that an organization should be responsible for having therapy available more than just an EAP that with, and some, I guess I should take that back.
Conrad Weaver (25:22.774)
Right.
Tracey Wilkinson (25:42.499)
because some EAPs are very, very good. have, you know, if you need something, you go to them, period. I know here in Fort Wayne, have something you have to deal with. You only have a limited amount of EAP visits you can go to. And then they'll refer you on to somebody. But I think therapy needs to be probably looked at to be...
It just needs to be more available. Somehow it needs to be more available.
Conrad Weaver (26:15.114)
I had a therapist on the show a couple of weeks ago who is actually embedded in a, a, a sheriff's department. She's a part of the agency. She's hired by the agency. And she said it took a minute for the officers to trust her, you know, but once they found out that, you know, she's one of them and understands, and you know, she now, she does multiple roles in her, in her.
Tracey Wilkinson (26:31.811)
Yeah, I bet.
Conrad Weaver (26:43.66)
you know, job there, she goes on, you know, bad calls, she's there on scene, but then she's, you know, walking the halls and talking to people and going out to the courtyard and talking to an officer who may have been on that bad call and now is, is needing to talk. so, but she said it took a minute, but having that person in house, you know, makes a huge difference for people that it becomes part of.
Tracey Wilkinson (27:08.56)
Yes.
Conrad Weaver (27:13.164)
who you are, becomes part of your, the DNA of your agency.
Tracey Wilkinson (27:19.279)
And that's like with the, with the fire service in a way we have, we have therapy every day and that's usually two times a day. It's usually first thing in the morning when you get there and you sit down at the table and you drink your morning cup of coffee, your cups of coffee. And then usually at dinner time, if you're with a crew that, you know, eats dinner together, I know with me, all the crews I ever ever worked with, we always sat down and had dinner together and you just.
Sometimes you'll talk about incidents. It'll be, you you'll get some bad stuff out. Otherwise it's just dinner and a show. You just laugh, you connect with each other, you have each other to bounce things off of. But sometimes, I mean, it still goes back to the macho image. That doesn't bother me. Hey kid, you know, you just have to suck it up.
Conrad Weaver (28:15.786)
I call it the suck it up culture.
Tracey Wilkinson (28:18.157)
It is, it is. I look, I'm a Gen Xer. you know, I was latch key, you know, don't come home until the streetlights come on. And even if I did, may not have known I was home to begin with, but it's, you know, survival of the fittest. But there are things that you have to learn to adapt to experiencing because that's
part of the adaption that you have to make.
because of the job itself.
Conrad Weaver (28:55.5)
So what you said early on that you were suicidal at some point, what saved your life?
Tracey Wilkinson (29:05.403)
my, my wife and my daughter, which ultimately I ended up going through a divorce because, how much I had changed and she just didn't, she couldn't, she couldn't handle it. And other things happened and she walked away and, but the first night that I, I knew I.
It was happening. And I had a bag full of pills because I had been prescribed so many different things that just weren't working. And I didn't just want to flush all my unused pills down the toilet and have a whole bunch of happy fish floating around. But we had gone to a Christmas party and this was
This was the December right before I asked for help. And this was when I woke up and I knew I needed help. And we were at the Christmas party and I started drinking in the afternoon and I busted open a brand new bottle of Wayne Gretzky whiskey. And if you've never had Wayne Gretzky whiskey, if you like whiskey, it's very smooth. You get it up in Canada. I've never seen it sold in the States.
But for a long time, I've always said, Wayne Gretzky saved my life because I drank the whole damn bottle of whiskey that night. And I don't know how I didn't end up in the hospital. I have no idea. But we got home from the party. I passed out. I woke up and my wife was laying there and I lost it. I knew right then that
Conrad Weaver (30:41.665)
Wow.
Conrad Weaver (30:46.412)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:02.011)
I needed help because I didn't want to be there. Like I said, we had a newborn baby at home and that was, I didn't want to leave my kids. I also have a 30 year old son. I don't want to put that kind of weight on their, you know, on them. I couldn't imagine losing a parent like that. My brother and I say we're orphans because we lost both of our parents.
Conrad Weaver (31:03.372)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (31:21.086)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:31.675)
back in 24, they both passed away.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:38.947)
But that was all natural, you know? So I know how painful that is. Losing a parent by suicide? I couldn't imagine. So I didn't want to put that on them. And then...
As these ideations continued in my head and they kept getting worse and worse.
It was because I didn't want other members, other first responders to find me. And it wasn't so much.
Well, I mean it was the firefighters on on my department because that would be who would probably make an incident that I would be involved in but even outlying County departments I had been Adjunct an adjunct instructor for the state For years and I had students all over surrounding areas, so Who knows who was going to make show up?
Conrad Weaver (32:37.184)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (32:40.739)
and make the run on me if I decided to eat a bullet or pull out in front of a semi. And I could not bring myself to do that to them. And that didn't stop me from putting a gun in my mouth. I held a gun in my mouth several times. It was not loaded, but I actually put a gun in my mouth and I fired, know, pulled the trigger a couple of times.
Conrad Weaver (33:00.428)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (33:08.438)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (33:08.571)
I just had to see what it was. every time I did, all I could think of was, I am so sorry, my cats just knocked something down and came toting, they came tearing out of here, woo! But yeah, I couldn't bring it to the people that would lose me is really what it was.
Conrad Weaver (33:24.817)
It's okay.
Conrad Weaver (33:37.59)
So what needs to happen in our first responder community to make a difference for people like you?
Tracey Wilkinson (33:53.029)
Good question.
Tracey Wilkinson (33:59.612)
Like I said, I think there's steps that are being taken because it's more on a forefront and the importance of mental health is more on a forefront now than what it's ever been.
You know, I said I'm a Gen Xer, so kids are much softer today than they were, you know, back then. But a lot more is recognized as far as how your brain is affected. And
peer support groups are great, but I think a lot more education needs to be given. I think more in depth education needs to be given and more resources need to be provided. Because people, mean, as the generation is starting to overturn, you always hear about old guys. I hear about the guys that never had the SEBAs and
You know, they still had rubber boots and long coats. And I couldn't imagine being a firefighter back then. Well, we're getting into generations now that they're going to say, these guys, they didn't have any help for people to talk to. They had no idea what was happening to their head. And I can't imagine what it was like to be a firefighter or a police officer or a medic back then. And I hope that
that that is the phrase that, you know, and the mentality that's going to happen because of the transition of the resources that can be available or the steps being taken with looking out for each other and actually stepping up. takes, when I met you a couple of weeks ago, you made a very profound suggestion.
Tracey Wilkinson (36:01.531)
And it was funny that you did because, um, it's something that I've, I started doing. It's not too long ago. Um, before you would, yeah, I heard you say this is once a month, getting your phone, find a few names, text them and say, Hey, I was thinking about you. How are you doing? So you gotta do, and I did, I've done it to a couple people and
Conrad Weaver (36:25.014)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (36:30.735)
The response that I got was...
It was raw. was true. And I've had other people reach out to me. One of my really good friends. I'm like, hey, we should get together for lunch. We got together for lunch. Even if it's awkward, if you have an old picture or you can think of something funny, say, hey, dude, you know, I just thought about this. Do you remember when? Just so they know.
Conrad Weaver (36:37.438)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (36:55.51)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:01.036)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (37:03.439)
that you're thinking of them. Somebody had them in their mind that day. And that, I think that is one of those things that's overlooked that is so simple that can be done. And it's gonna be small changes like that, that it's gonna have to be necessary for those changes in the service to get better.
Conrad Weaver (37:04.48)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:08.961)
Yeah.
Conrad Weaver (37:14.604)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:31.735)
Yeah. I heard someone speak recently and he was saying that, you know, 20 years from now, it's likely that everyone on the team will be trained peer supporter. It'll just be part of what we part of the trainings. This is what we do. And so why not start there now? Why not start working on that now? This train everybody that comes through at the Academy. Hey, you're a peer supporter. You're a peer.
You have fellow firefighters, you have fellow officers, you have fellow people that you're going through the academy with, these are your peers. Here's how you can support each other when things go south. And even when things are just normal, because things pile up, right? I think that should be a standard part of the training at the academy. I mean, why not?
Tracey Wilkinson (38:10.925)
And I, yep.
Tracey Wilkinson (38:21.563)
And I agree with that. I agree with that. know, and being, having been an instructor, I see the value in that. And like the one class that I did teach when I was at the academy, excuse me, and all of the classes for that matter, they've always had the critical incident team come out and speak and kind of give their little spiel.
about what they do and the importance of it, of the team and being activated when they're needed. And it puts that idea in their head that, okay, there's a real deal to this world that we're stepping into that it's not gonna be all fun and games, that some of this stuff's gonna mess with us. But there's still that cloak.
that kind of hides it. So like you said, as far as opening that up and teaching these kids as they're coming in how to support each other, you don't have to be a first responder to support somebody. However, in our service, it's going, you're going to have to be, you have to be knowledgeable of what's happening. So it's going to be something that you can teach somebody how to support another person.
I believe that that is something that you can do. That's a possibility. Because there are plenty of apathetic people that they could care less how you feel. They don't think that PTSD is a real thing. They think it's a scapegoat. I have been completely shunned by more than not on my own department because of what has happened to me.
Conrad Weaver (40:19.98)
Wow.
Tracey Wilkinson (40:20.411)
I've heard people say that I used the line of duty death as a scapegoat. That I just didn't want to work anymore. That everything was made up. I can't make up the, I couldn't make up my life deterioration.
if I wanted to because I am 100 % a different person than what I was just six years ago. And well, I guess it'll be, wow, it's gonna be.
going to be nine years. Wow, this year, it'll be nine years since that since that incident that really set me set me over. And it goes fast. mean, they say it goes fast. I think the older you get anything. Everything goes faster.
Conrad Weaver (41:17.524)
Yeah. The older you get, the faster it goes. Because I know every night when I'm getting ready to crawl in the bed, I'm like, wait, I just did this a few minutes ago. You know what? Another day went by.
Tracey Wilkinson (41:32.727)
Exactly. So yeah, it's, you know, as far as, you know, teaching somebody how to support another person, you can do that. Not obviously, not everybody's going to do that. But that's where you're going to have to have mentors in the service that help the new guys.
teach how to mentor or I'm sorry, teach how to support within the realm that needs to be supported. then in the big picture, you have to think that it's not only experiences that you, trauma experiences that you have at work. You can be having problems at home with your spouse, with your partner, your
Conrad Weaver (42:03.67)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (42:22.016)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (42:29.243)
kids, you could have a gambling addiction, a gaming addiction, a sex addiction, an alcohol addiction. There's a list of things that you can be having problems with that you're bringing to work. And that's where things start getting a little dicey as far as how are you going to be dealt with? Like, how is your administration going to support you? Because this isn't stuff that's from work. Well,
It could be from work.
Conrad Weaver (43:00.372)
some of those could be symptoms of what's going on at work. It could be a result to try to cover up the pain that you've experienced from the things that you've experienced at work.
Tracey Wilkinson (43:06.349)
Exactly.
Tracey Wilkinson (43:13.079)
Exactly. And that's one of the things that happened to me going back to my next surgery that I had, my stuff that was going on up here started to become so somatic that I mean, granted, had, deteriorated, you know, deteriorating discs in my neck because I wore a eight pound helmet on my head for 20 years. That's going to do it. But,
That's a weak spot in my body that my brain found to, it found a physical modality to escape my body. And instead of me being sad or angry or, you know, different emotions that you might think of that you would be able to release, it made you hurt, made me physically hurt. And that's what a lot of people, bam.
I hurt so bad. because your brain's telling you something. Your brain is trying to unleash something that you're thinking that you may not be thinking that you're thinking. And I'm actually considered a treatment resistive person. I've been through about every kind of treatment you could almost think of. mean, there's a few more invasive ones that I haven't, but just last week, like I said, this has been
It's been nine years. It's been six years since I signed off, but it's been nine years since the top of, know, when my PTSD was diagnosed. It was eight years back in December when I was diagnosed and I'm still treatment-resistant. I manage my medication.
Conrad Weaver (44:54.604)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:04.283)
on a regular basis, it gets adjusted. So I tell people I live life better through chemistry. Sometimes it's better for you, more better for you than it is for me. I'm an addict. The only difference is mine's covered by insurance. Because if I didn't have this medication, to be able to balance what I have going on up here, I wouldn't be able to function.
Conrad Weaver (45:33.644)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:34.271)
and I would be right back to where I was before.
Conrad Weaver (45:37.164)
So how do you deal with those people in your past life who are like, you know, it's just a bunch of bullshit.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:46.928)
Well, I've kind of, I write them off. mean, I, at first it really, really bothered me. I, I used to care much more about how people felt. Because it really did bother me that people thought that I was using it as an excuse or that I just wanted to quit working or, you know, whatever, you know, whatever they had to say about me.
Because that was not the case. Because as a firefighter, that's who I was. I mean, my whole life was thrown into being a firefighter. I I had fire stuff everywhere.
But now that I'm more clean up here, that I've started to regulate this up here, I understand that people don't understand. And this.
Conrad Weaver (46:47.148)
Do you think some of those people that are the negative voices perhaps are dealing with their own stuff and they're not ready to admit it?
Tracey Wilkinson (46:57.307)
I think some of them, and I think some of them are simply people that just don't deal with it. I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. They just don't have to deal with the imbalance in their brain that other people do. I mean, they might just be super strong and resilient and certain things just don't bother them.
Conrad Weaver (47:23.82)
Perhaps they don't understand how other people's brains are different and operate on a different level.
Tracey Wilkinson (47:28.517)
Right. Right. Because it truly is, PTSD specifically, is truly a physical injury. And that's one thing that I do if I give a presentation and I draw my little brain, I show you the parts that get broken. And that's where the bucket is, where that proverbial bucket is, and how it breaks.
Conrad Weaver (47:53.526)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (47:57.978)
and how your body breaks down because of it. And people don't, like I said, people don't understand it. And once they start understanding that and kind of rewinding to empty the bucket and get rid of the things that you don't need anymore, if they just understood it a little bit more for other people. I know it's soup,
It's dumb to even think it would ever happen, but it would be nice if people could just be kind and respect each other, that people had issues and leave it at that. You know, just leave it at that. And
Conrad Weaver (48:46.868)
If you could go back to your entire department, your agency that you work for, and you could have a 20 minute talk with them, what would you tell them? What's the one thing you'd tell them?
Tracey Wilkinson (49:00.123)
Good question.
Conrad Weaver (49:01.674)
Besides, like, F off.
Tracey Wilkinson (49:04.443)
Are you talking about the like the people in the department or the administration?
Conrad Weaver (49:10.354)
administration, if you go back and talk to the leaders, what would you say?
Tracey Wilkinson (49:12.344)
Ooh, ooh, that's a good question, because,
Tracey Wilkinson (49:23.343)
I honestly, I'd want to know why. I want to know why they are so.
you know, so anti mental health, because our chief is very anti mental health. And it took over 10 years for him to work with our union and back and forth to get our peer support up at peer support team up and running. He just he didn't believe it was real. We don't have to deal with this. And
When I was going through my pension process, he avoided me like the plague and he, he never, he never addressed me. He, yeah, he is, he's ignorant. He is a truly ignorant person. And if I could tell him something, I would, I would simply want to sit down with him and explain. I would want to explain the brain. I'd want to explain to him.
how this affects the brain and how because of that effect, how it affects your firefighters.
therefore the importance of mental health wellness.
Conrad Weaver (50:40.353)
Yeah. So what are you doing today on a daily basis to take care of you?
Tracey Wilkinson (50:51.727)
I just try to take things easy. I try to do things day by day because I'll be honest, I still have really, really bad days. And recently I've been pretty dark. I started having problems with my neck again. I went to an orthodoc. Everything's fine with my neck, fusions and everything. Cause I ended up having two neck surgeries then.
But everything's fine there. So I ended up at a neurosurgeon and I'm having, well, I had a vagal nerve stimulator implanted. I've got my little band-aids there. And it's going to actually address my PTSD from a neurological standpoint and could potentially get me off of my medications or some of my medications. So.
Conrad Weaver (51:47.927)
So what does that do? Is that attached to the vagus nerve?
Tracey Wilkinson (51:52.54)
Yep. And one thing that I have because of my PTSD is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. So I will have a seizure, but I don't have epilepsy. And they're scary. And again, it's one of those whatever, those aren't even real. Yeah, yeah, they are.
So that's what this is supposed to help me with is with my seizures and just different ways that it kind of unscrambles the scramble in your head. But yeah, I try to take things day by day. I try to find projects. I'm OCD. So sometimes my OCD gets OCD and I get thrown into something and I just stick with it.
And then when I'm done with him, I'm I like to spend time with my daughter. She's eight and a half now. So, you know, I spend time with her. I'm engaged. We like to go do things together. You know, we've traveled quite a bit. I'm I just got a puppy and I'm training him to be my service dog. So that takes a lot of time, especially with a four month old puppy.
And but, you so I'm putting a lot of focus on that.
Tracey Wilkinson (53:25.915)
I'm just, I guess I just take it day by day. That's really all I can do. Because if I get too worked up on too much, I start sliding down that slippery slope. Because it doesn't go away. It hasn't for me. And that's not to say for everybody. People say that PTSD can be cured.
Conrad Weaver (53:37.984)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (53:52.74)
my take and other research that I've found that PTSD, it can't be cured because it's not a disease. But PTSD can be managed. Same with depression or, know, it's simply a disorder in the brain, but it's not a disease. It's just something that you have to treat.
manage and I manage it I just have to adjust to make sure those wings don't you know fly me out of the sky.
Conrad Weaver (54:35.166)
How are you sleeping?
Tracey Wilkinson (54:37.177)
I sleep awful. Awful. I'm the... Yeah, sleep is awful for me. I don't sleep well at all. I wish I could.
Conrad Weaver (54:46.998)
Would you be interested and willing to talk to my friend Dan Jarvis? So Dan was featured a small bit in my film and he has the thing that he calls the Trauma Resiliency Protocol that he takes people through. And it is transformative. It's something that, there was a police officer that he took through a couple months ago now that never slept, just had horrible sleep.
The first night after he went through this protocol, he slept 18 hours.
Conrad Weaver (55:25.896)
It's, and Dan does this. He has people trained all over the country to do this. He does it for free for first responders and veterans. If you are willing to talk to him, give me your phone number. We'll do it off, the air. And I'll, I'll text you and him and he'll be back to you. If he's not working with someone, he'll get back to you within an hour and you guys can be talking. It's, it's, it's amazing what
Tracey Wilkinson (55:47.109)
Okay. Yeah. No, was, yeah.
Conrad Weaver (55:52.156)
his thing does and he really and he has an organization called healing the heroes and that's what he does.
Tracey Wilkinson (55:57.531)
Okay. Yeah, definitely. I'd be interested in talking to him.
Conrad Weaver (56:02.54)
Cause if you're having trouble sleeping, going through that may be part of the answer.
Tracey Wilkinson (56:09.219)
Yeah, and that's actually one of the things that this vagal nerve stimulator helps. It helps kind of regulate sleep. It kind of adjusts the neurochemicals and it's kind of weird to... It's kind of like a pacemaker for your brain. It's a very generic term to explain it.
Conrad Weaver (56:15.446)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (56:34.028)
Yeah. Well, Tracy, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you. I'm glad you're still here, that you're with us and that you are making a difference out there, helping others. And let's continue to work together to do that and to, to save lives, you know, starting with our own, right? And that's, that's where it's got to start. And then I love that you are reaching out to people on a regular basis. That's
Tracey Wilkinson (56:41.115)
Thanks.
Conrad Weaver (57:02.508)
That to me is one of the best things we can do for each other is to reach out and in touch basis. So I really appreciate you being on the program today.
Tracey Wilkinson (57:08.251)
Yeah, I agree. Well, I appreciate you, Kyra. I appreciate you inviting me on.
Well, Tracy, welcome to the First Responder Wellness Podcast. It's great to have you on the program.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:06.831)
Thanks Conrad, happy to be here.
Conrad Weaver (00:08.962)
Yeah, tell us a little bit about who you are and what do do.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:13.275)
Well, I am a retired firefighter from Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I was on for 23 years with our city fire department. And we had experienced the line of duty death. And following that incident, I ended up experiencing a lot of darkness. It created a lot of trauma for me. It hit me pretty personal. It was at a
Conrad Weaver (00:36.63)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (00:42.171)
training scenario that was my responsibility. I was actually a training officer with our training academy. And so I had a little bit of guilt that was kind of mixed in with it as well. So following that, plus there was 20 years of accumulated trauma that firefighters and first responders get as far as
Conrad Weaver (01:07.822)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (01:11.107)
you know, that goes plus having this huge incident that happened. I was finally diagnosed with PTSD. I went for about a year and then it really started to hit me and I went downhill. I became very suicidal. Several, several times that I was right on that brink. I don't know what it was that kept me from not doing it. And actually I take that back. can, I can easily tell you why I did.
Conrad Weaver (01:31.886)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (01:40.827)
and that was because I didn't want any of my brothers or sisters to find me. Otherwise, would have been a dumb thing. I feel if I was somewhere else, I probably would have. But I had withdrawn myself from family and friends. Like I said, it got really bad. And finally, it got to a point where I went to work and my chief that
Conrad Weaver (01:44.877)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (02:10.754)
I had at the time, he asked me, he was like, what's going on? You're not doing right. And I actually had problems with my neck physically. And he ended up sending me home because I had so much pain in my neck. And then later on, I find out that that neck problem has a lot to do with it, know, up here. And eventually I was written out
Conrad Weaver (02:34.422)
Okay, yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (02:40.218)
for crying in the office and or being.
Conrad Weaver (02:44.13)
Like you were reprimanded, like a written up reprimand for crying?
Tracey Wilkinson (02:48.546)
Yeah, it was kind of a slight, you know, underhand slight to kind of throw it in. They used an excuse. They gave me a task assignment to, because I was at this time on light duty because of my neck. I guess I should clarify that. And they had given me a task assignment that was not what I did. And they knew I didn't know what I was doing. I told them I will do my best.
I see what I can come up with. And they wanted me to revamp our audio video lab. I'm not an audio video tech person. I'm lucky to manage Google and everything else. So I know what I need to know to get in by. And it was in this write up that they're saying that I wasn't accomplishing my tasks. At the very end says that I had been seeing crying.
in the office.
Right before that, I had gone to my assistant chief and I told him, chief, I need help. And that was the catalyst. That's when that day ended my career. That was the end of it. And then there was a couple meetings after that with my chief. He came back, he said, the chief told me to go to EAP, which is
Conrad Weaver (04:06.7)
Wow.
Tracey Wilkinson (04:19.962)
the employee assistance program we have, which I already had, and to submit all my things to risk management, which would cover it as a city thing.
So I got on that and never had any answer, never any response, nothing. And I had been told then after I was told or after in my write-up that I had been seen crying in the office that if I ever mentioned anything about hurting myself, that the chief would see me unfit for duty and get rid of me. He would.
Conrad Weaver (05:03.02)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:03.972)
want to fire me because he would see me unfit for duty. And I went for several months. Like I was so lost. I can't even, even thinking back now, I can't even describe how I felt at that time. But I knew I had reached a point that I couldn't trust myself enough to even be able to have
Conrad Weaver (05:06.295)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (05:23.724)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:32.76)
my crewmates be able to trust me. I mean, we're supposed to trust each other with our lives. And there's no way I could.
Conrad Weaver (05:36.407)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Tracey Wilkinson (05:45.452)
allow them to trust me when I can't trust myself. Because if anything had ever happened, I would never be able to live with myself, especially knowing I couldn't.
Conrad Weaver (05:48.461)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (05:54.478)
At this point, how many years in were you?
Tracey Wilkinson (05:59.875)
At this point, I was at 21. So I had 20 years on the back of an engine in combat. And then at 20 years, I went out to our training academy as a training officer. knowing what had all gone on and taken place out at the academy, I knew if I were to ever go back, I would not be able to go back to that environment with the
with the leadership and supervision that I had at the academy. It was just not gonna happen. So I knew I was going to be going back to combat, therefore knowing what needed to be done for myself, for my crewmates to trust me. And like I said, I couldn't trust myself. And I finally made the call to...
Tracey Wilkinson (07:01.102)
I finally made the call to just say, get ahold of the chief and said, I want to request my attention hearing. And that was the hardest send button for an email I think I've ever sent. like I'll go back to it, chief, I need help. And it ended up being, I felt like it was the chief I give up. And in the big picture, looking back now,
I know I didn't give up. I just, I had to save myself because if I stayed where I was, I literally was going to die. It wouldn't have been a proverbial die. It would be a true death. And I had a newborn baby at home and
fighting for it for so long and trying to get myself out of the darkness, it just doesn't happen. So this was in 2019 when I was off, like I said, for my neck because it all started to be a somatic issue. All of my head stuff was coming out somatically and I ended up having a neck surgery. This was all during 2019. So then I pensioned off in October of 2019.
I had my first neck surgery in May of 2019. I pensioned off in October of 2019. So then it was just kind of a void. I couldn't even tell you what happened between October and February or January of 2020 because I finally officially signed off of the fire department in February of 2020. But in January
Well, no, I take that back. was March of 2019 when I finally asked for help that, um, and nobody was giving me help. I took it upon myself to go out and get my own help. I started therapy right away and I did basically everything you could do without going inpatient. I skipped the inpatient and went straight to what you do after inpatient and did
Conrad Weaver (09:24.46)
Okay.
Tracey Wilkinson (09:26.362)
Intensive outpatient therapy, got on with seeing a new therapist. To this day, I see a therapist every week. And this has been how many years ago, but I give my life to starting that therapy, but I had to start it myself. And in January of 2020, I decided
I'm gonna go back to school. And my therapist said, you are absolutely out of your mind. And I said, you're right. That's why I'm here. And I ended up going back to school and I decided I wanna study psychology. And I had to know what was wrong with me. I had to find a new focus, a new purpose. And everything,
Conrad Weaver (10:02.573)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm
Conrad Weaver (10:23.703)
So was your, was your desire to study more inward focus like, okay, let's look at myself and see what's going on. Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (10:30.328)
Yes. Yeah. That's what drove me. I mean, I had, I was 21 when I came on the fire department and it's all I ever knew. I grew up in a first responder household and my mom was a retired firefighter. My brother's a retired police officer. My sister-in-law is a police officer. My cousin's a firefighter out in Vegas. My uncle was a firefighter when I was a kid. So it's, it's been in my blood. It's,
pretty much all I've ever known. And when I ended up deciding to go back to school, I had to figure out a new purpose because before the fire service was my purpose. And that's something that I've learned with my healing is that one thing that you need to try to do is not make your purpose, your personal purpose something.
You need to find a personal purpose within yourself rather than focusing on something outside of yourself. Right. Don't make it who you are. Don't make the fire service or the police service or whatever. Don't make that who you are. It might be what you are and you might love what you do and you love, you know, the service that you provide, but it doesn't mean it's the only thing you do.
Conrad Weaver (11:37.217)
like your job or something.
Tracey Wilkinson (11:57.115)
because there's times that you're needed, you as a person are needed, not the firefighter, not the police officer.
Conrad Weaver (12:05.421)
Because if you step outside of that, then who are you?
Tracey Wilkinson (12:10.646)
Exactly. And I had no idea. I had no clue. None at all. I was so lost that I couldn't tell you which way was up and down. And like I said, my therapist told me I was crazy. And I said, you're
Conrad Weaver (12:28.877)
So what did studying psychology and going into that, what did it teach you?
Tracey Wilkinson (12:34.006)
It taught me, I started learning a lot of things about development and just.
how a person develops and ways to approach.
Tracey Wilkinson (12:55.066)
of gets into the feely feely part of it. But it starts focusing on the brain. And I didn't study a specific discipline. So in a lot of times, people get confused if you think of psychology versus like neurology, because people think mental health, they think psychology, but they're wondering about the neurology of it.
Conrad Weaver (13:16.653)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (13:25.022)
And that can be very confusing. And after I finished my bachelor's degree in 22, because I I finished it, I continued on and I finished my master's. I just graduated back in October. So I was able to push myself through, but it was because when I got done with my general psychology degree, my bachelor's,
there was still more that I needed to know. And then that's when I started getting into how to diagnose people and more of a clinical side of it to understand how and why people are the way they are based on what's going on up here. And that's the stuff that really started to fascinate me.
Conrad Weaver (14:16.845)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (14:22.906)
You know, my undergrad, was more of a basis of development. Um, and then my grad school was more about, okay, what are we going to do? And are we, what causes this or that or whatever? Um, I just chose to not continue to get my, uh, to be a therapist. Um, I was tapped. had to be done with school for a while because that's like, that's another 3000 intern hours and.
Conrad Weaver (14:52.119)
Yeah, that's a lot.
Tracey Wilkinson (14:52.544)
I, yeah, I would get, yeah, I did my PhD before I finished, finished to be a clinician. But I really,
Conrad Weaver (15:00.717)
I want to go back a little bit to where you told the chief that you need help and they basically just said, see ya. I mean, a first responder agency is there to help the community, They respond to emergencies. You responded in your 20-some years, you responded to thousands of emergencies. People in trouble, people who needed help.
It's astounding to me as an outsider now looking into an agency like this and saying they can help everybody else, but they don't help their own. Why?
Tracey Wilkinson (15:45.263)
That is, that's the million dollar question. I wish I knew as well. Peer support teams are becoming much more popular, which is great. And this is the one thing that I've started to notice because of what I have learned, going back to what you asked, what I have learned through my schooling and how certain things need to be addressed.
Conrad Weaver (15:58.178)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (16:14.138)
I've researched so much. I've read more medical journals and articles in the past four years, five years, than I didn't even know I was capable of finding. Things I didn't even know had been researched. But the peer support thing, it's great, but it's different than different than therapy, obviously.
there's critical incident, the briefing teams, which I am actually a member of our regional team. I had been part of the team years ago. And then after our line of duty, I stopped doing it. I just couldn't, I couldn't engage in anything like that because I was now on the other side of the circle, you know? just this past winter,
Conrad Weaver (17:05.599)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (17:13.54)
finally found that I'm to a point now that I can re-engage myself because I want to be able to help with that part of it. And people get that confused, the difference between a debriefing team and a peer support and therapy. And like you said, why don't we help each other? And I think a lot of it has to do with fear and not being educated. I think not being educated is
Conrad Weaver (17:39.277)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (17:43.355)
really the big thing. And my goal is to now that I'm done is I want to educate people. I want to go out and I want to speak and provide education to say, this is what's wrong with you. This is why it happened. And this is how your brain is broken. We always hear about the proverbial bucket that gets filled and we can only hold so much until that bucket over fills.
Conrad Weaver (18:08.791)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (18:13.019)
And I can explain that to you now. I can draw a picture. It's a really bad picture, but I can draw you a picture of the brain and I can show you the little path of everything and how this information follows through and how that bucket overflows. And I'm totally fascinated by it. But what I've learned about that is what I want to go.
Conrad Weaver (18:36.397)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (18:40.987)
share and educate other people with. And like I said, I think the lack of education is really the biggest key. Peer support groups, take education courses or they might go out and like I know IAFF, they have at the Center for Excellence, they have their peer support program.
certification that you can get there. I've never been there, so I don't even know what it is, but I've done a couple of classes online. From what I would deliver educationally and what that material delivers educationally, some of it is very parallel, but there's a lot more that can be known and done. I tell people that
I feel like I have a lot to offer because if you are an alcoholic and you went to AA and the person at the helm that's facilitating, do you want somebody that has never been an alcoholic or never had a drink? Do you want that person facilitating your meeting?
Conrad Weaver (19:52.663)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (19:56.366)
Hmm. No.
Tracey Wilkinson (19:57.781)
or if you break your leg, and this one's even hard, because I can relate to this as well, I broke my leg and it was a bad break. And when I started my physical therapy, my physical therapist, he worked me through the exercises and kinesiology of what he, know, how to get my leg back to where it was supposed to be.
versus my personal trainer that I had hired who had also experienced major injury, they were totally different. The way one trained me versus the way the other one did, they were totally different. And I feel if I would have stayed primarily with the physical therapist, I don't think that I would have healed the way that I did. Probably even set up for more injury.
Conrad Weaver (20:36.556)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (20:51.447)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (20:56.428)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (20:57.399)
It's one thing that I'm afraid of for first responders because it's a part of the game. It's the nature of it. You're going to experience trauma. There's no way around it. We sign up to go experience people's worst day of their lives. And their worst days might just be another day for us, but we still absorb that trauma.
Conrad Weaver (21:09.355)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (21:16.993)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (21:22.721)
Right?
Conrad Weaver (21:26.903)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (21:27.651)
And that trauma affects us somehow, some way, even if it goes back and it attaches to some childhood memory, that's just the way the brain works and the way that you start reprocessing old memories and you know, how, how you relate to certain things. It's weird how it brings all of this different stuff back. And all of sudden you have no idea what's going on. You don't know why your bucket's overflowing.
Conrad Weaver (21:37.515)
Mm-hmm. Right?
Tracey Wilkinson (21:57.775)
You don't know why you just made a car wreck with a mangled family that's unrecognizable, but you make a kid that fell off his bicycle with a bad bloody nose and the kid is the one that set you over the edge. And that's where
Conrad Weaver (22:14.752)
Hmm. Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (22:21.913)
I think that's where fallacies are that you didn't experience that much. It was just a bloody host, but it wasn't. It was an imprint from something else. And we experience a chronic fill. Our bucket is chronically being filled.
Conrad Weaver (22:27.51)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (22:33.536)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (22:38.25)
Yeah. It's that cumulative effect of all those different things that you've experienced over the years, right? Yeah. So if you could go back to your 21 year old self, what would you tell yourself? Knowing what you know now about psychology and about development, what would you tell yourself?
Tracey Wilkinson (22:58.267)
There's a lot of things I tell myself because I was kind of reckless when I was 21.
I think I would.
I would definitely express the importance of wellness, of finding grounding techniques. Those are ones that I have really, really found to kind of do what they say, they ground you. Even simple things, ice packs.
Conrad Weaver (23:36.714)
describe one of those, describe one of your grounding techniques.
Tracey Wilkinson (23:40.539)
One that I found that is super simple, it's ice packs. Ice packs on your neck, on the back of your neck, ice packs. And one other thing, one of the best ones in research proves that the three best things to
to be able to, or I'm sorry, the two best things for relieving stress is one, being outside with nature, and two, petting animals. Super simple. And a lot of them you have, you just take for granted. So if you understand what it is, rather than just doing it and not knowing, so it is a more,
Deliberate and I know that I'm upset. I know that this has affected me. I Can do these things these grounding exercises? That's one way that I could address my own wellness but hands down I would say whether you think you need it or not get a therapist. I think therapy is essential Which draws, you know a problem with organizations
that
How are you going to force somebody to go to therapy? You can't. You just can't. Therapy is expensive. I mean, it goes without saying. And personally, I believe that an organization should be responsible for having therapy available more than just an EAP that with, and some, I guess I should take that back.
Conrad Weaver (25:22.774)
Right.
Tracey Wilkinson (25:42.499)
because some EAPs are very, very good. have, you know, if you need something, you go to them, period. I know here in Fort Wayne, have something you have to deal with. You only have a limited amount of EAP visits you can go to. And then they'll refer you on to somebody. But I think therapy needs to be probably looked at to be...
It just needs to be more available. Somehow it needs to be more available.
Conrad Weaver (26:15.114)
I had a therapist on the show a couple of weeks ago who is actually embedded in a, a, a sheriff's department. She's a part of the agency. She's hired by the agency. And she said it took a minute for the officers to trust her, you know, but once they found out that, you know, she's one of them and understands, and you know, she now, she does multiple roles in her, in her.
Tracey Wilkinson (26:31.811)
Yeah, I bet.
Conrad Weaver (26:43.66)
you know, job there, she goes on, you know, bad calls, she's there on scene, but then she's, you know, walking the halls and talking to people and going out to the courtyard and talking to an officer who may have been on that bad call and now is, is needing to talk. so, but she said it took a minute, but having that person in house, you know, makes a huge difference for people that it becomes part of.
Tracey Wilkinson (27:08.56)
Yes.
Conrad Weaver (27:13.164)
who you are, becomes part of your, the DNA of your agency.
Tracey Wilkinson (27:19.279)
And that's like with the, with the fire service in a way we have, we have therapy every day and that's usually two times a day. It's usually first thing in the morning when you get there and you sit down at the table and you drink your morning cup of coffee, your cups of coffee. And then usually at dinner time, if you're with a crew that, you know, eats dinner together, I know with me, all the crews I ever ever worked with, we always sat down and had dinner together and you just.
Sometimes you'll talk about incidents. It'll be, you you'll get some bad stuff out. Otherwise it's just dinner and a show. You just laugh, you connect with each other, you have each other to bounce things off of. But sometimes, I mean, it still goes back to the macho image. That doesn't bother me. Hey kid, you know, you just have to suck it up.
Conrad Weaver (28:15.786)
I call it the suck it up culture.
Tracey Wilkinson (28:18.157)
It is, it is. I look, I'm a Gen Xer. you know, I was latch key, you know, don't come home until the streetlights come on. And even if I did, may not have known I was home to begin with, but it's, you know, survival of the fittest. But there are things that you have to learn to adapt to experiencing because that's
part of the adaption that you have to make.
because of the job itself.
Conrad Weaver (28:55.5)
So what you said early on that you were suicidal at some point, what saved your life?
Tracey Wilkinson (29:05.403)
my, my wife and my daughter, which ultimately I ended up going through a divorce because, how much I had changed and she just didn't, she couldn't, she couldn't handle it. And other things happened and she walked away and, but the first night that I, I knew I.
It was happening. And I had a bag full of pills because I had been prescribed so many different things that just weren't working. And I didn't just want to flush all my unused pills down the toilet and have a whole bunch of happy fish floating around. But we had gone to a Christmas party and this was
This was the December right before I asked for help. And this was when I woke up and I knew I needed help. And we were at the Christmas party and I started drinking in the afternoon and I busted open a brand new bottle of Wayne Gretzky whiskey. And if you've never had Wayne Gretzky whiskey, if you like whiskey, it's very smooth. You get it up in Canada. I've never seen it sold in the States.
But for a long time, I've always said, Wayne Gretzky saved my life because I drank the whole damn bottle of whiskey that night. And I don't know how I didn't end up in the hospital. I have no idea. But we got home from the party. I passed out. I woke up and my wife was laying there and I lost it. I knew right then that
Conrad Weaver (30:41.665)
Wow.
Conrad Weaver (30:46.412)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:02.011)
I needed help because I didn't want to be there. Like I said, we had a newborn baby at home and that was, I didn't want to leave my kids. I also have a 30 year old son. I don't want to put that kind of weight on their, you know, on them. I couldn't imagine losing a parent like that. My brother and I say we're orphans because we lost both of our parents.
Conrad Weaver (31:03.372)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (31:21.086)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:31.675)
back in 24, they both passed away.
Tracey Wilkinson (31:38.947)
But that was all natural, you know? So I know how painful that is. Losing a parent by suicide? I couldn't imagine. So I didn't want to put that on them. And then...
As these ideations continued in my head and they kept getting worse and worse.
It was because I didn't want other members, other first responders to find me. And it wasn't so much.
Well, I mean it was the firefighters on on my department because that would be who would probably make an incident that I would be involved in but even outlying County departments I had been Adjunct an adjunct instructor for the state For years and I had students all over surrounding areas, so Who knows who was going to make show up?
Conrad Weaver (32:37.184)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (32:40.739)
and make the run on me if I decided to eat a bullet or pull out in front of a semi. And I could not bring myself to do that to them. And that didn't stop me from putting a gun in my mouth. I held a gun in my mouth several times. It was not loaded, but I actually put a gun in my mouth and I fired, know, pulled the trigger a couple of times.
Conrad Weaver (33:00.428)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (33:08.438)
Hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (33:08.571)
I just had to see what it was. every time I did, all I could think of was, I am so sorry, my cats just knocked something down and came toting, they came tearing out of here, woo! But yeah, I couldn't bring it to the people that would lose me is really what it was.
Conrad Weaver (33:24.817)
It's okay.
Conrad Weaver (33:37.59)
So what needs to happen in our first responder community to make a difference for people like you?
Tracey Wilkinson (33:53.029)
Good question.
Tracey Wilkinson (33:59.612)
Like I said, I think there's steps that are being taken because it's more on a forefront and the importance of mental health is more on a forefront now than what it's ever been.
You know, I said I'm a Gen Xer, so kids are much softer today than they were, you know, back then. But a lot more is recognized as far as how your brain is affected. And
peer support groups are great, but I think a lot more education needs to be given. I think more in depth education needs to be given and more resources need to be provided. Because people, mean, as the generation is starting to overturn, you always hear about old guys. I hear about the guys that never had the SEBAs and
You know, they still had rubber boots and long coats. And I couldn't imagine being a firefighter back then. Well, we're getting into generations now that they're going to say, these guys, they didn't have any help for people to talk to. They had no idea what was happening to their head. And I can't imagine what it was like to be a firefighter or a police officer or a medic back then. And I hope that
that that is the phrase that, you know, and the mentality that's going to happen because of the transition of the resources that can be available or the steps being taken with looking out for each other and actually stepping up. takes, when I met you a couple of weeks ago, you made a very profound suggestion.
Tracey Wilkinson (36:01.531)
And it was funny that you did because, um, it's something that I've, I started doing. It's not too long ago. Um, before you would, yeah, I heard you say this is once a month, getting your phone, find a few names, text them and say, Hey, I was thinking about you. How are you doing? So you gotta do, and I did, I've done it to a couple people and
Conrad Weaver (36:25.014)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (36:30.735)
The response that I got was...
It was raw. was true. And I've had other people reach out to me. One of my really good friends. I'm like, hey, we should get together for lunch. We got together for lunch. Even if it's awkward, if you have an old picture or you can think of something funny, say, hey, dude, you know, I just thought about this. Do you remember when? Just so they know.
Conrad Weaver (36:37.438)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (36:55.51)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:01.036)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (37:03.439)
that you're thinking of them. Somebody had them in their mind that day. And that, I think that is one of those things that's overlooked that is so simple that can be done. And it's gonna be small changes like that, that it's gonna have to be necessary for those changes in the service to get better.
Conrad Weaver (37:04.48)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:08.961)
Yeah.
Conrad Weaver (37:14.604)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (37:31.735)
Yeah. I heard someone speak recently and he was saying that, you know, 20 years from now, it's likely that everyone on the team will be trained peer supporter. It'll just be part of what we part of the trainings. This is what we do. And so why not start there now? Why not start working on that now? This train everybody that comes through at the Academy. Hey, you're a peer supporter. You're a peer.
You have fellow firefighters, you have fellow officers, you have fellow people that you're going through the academy with, these are your peers. Here's how you can support each other when things go south. And even when things are just normal, because things pile up, right? I think that should be a standard part of the training at the academy. I mean, why not?
Tracey Wilkinson (38:10.925)
And I, yep.
Tracey Wilkinson (38:21.563)
And I agree with that. I agree with that. know, and being, having been an instructor, I see the value in that. And like the one class that I did teach when I was at the academy, excuse me, and all of the classes for that matter, they've always had the critical incident team come out and speak and kind of give their little spiel.
about what they do and the importance of it, of the team and being activated when they're needed. And it puts that idea in their head that, okay, there's a real deal to this world that we're stepping into that it's not gonna be all fun and games, that some of this stuff's gonna mess with us. But there's still that cloak.
that kind of hides it. So like you said, as far as opening that up and teaching these kids as they're coming in how to support each other, you don't have to be a first responder to support somebody. However, in our service, it's going, you're going to have to be, you have to be knowledgeable of what's happening. So it's going to be something that you can teach somebody how to support another person.
I believe that that is something that you can do. That's a possibility. Because there are plenty of apathetic people that they could care less how you feel. They don't think that PTSD is a real thing. They think it's a scapegoat. I have been completely shunned by more than not on my own department because of what has happened to me.
Conrad Weaver (40:19.98)
Wow.
Tracey Wilkinson (40:20.411)
I've heard people say that I used the line of duty death as a scapegoat. That I just didn't want to work anymore. That everything was made up. I can't make up the, I couldn't make up my life deterioration.
if I wanted to because I am 100 % a different person than what I was just six years ago. And well, I guess it'll be, wow, it's gonna be.
going to be nine years. Wow, this year, it'll be nine years since that since that incident that really set me set me over. And it goes fast. mean, they say it goes fast. I think the older you get anything. Everything goes faster.
Conrad Weaver (41:17.524)
Yeah. The older you get, the faster it goes. Because I know every night when I'm getting ready to crawl in the bed, I'm like, wait, I just did this a few minutes ago. You know what? Another day went by.
Tracey Wilkinson (41:32.727)
Exactly. So yeah, it's, you know, as far as, you know, teaching somebody how to support another person, you can do that. Not obviously, not everybody's going to do that. But that's where you're going to have to have mentors in the service that help the new guys.
teach how to mentor or I'm sorry, teach how to support within the realm that needs to be supported. then in the big picture, you have to think that it's not only experiences that you, trauma experiences that you have at work. You can be having problems at home with your spouse, with your partner, your
Conrad Weaver (42:03.67)
Sure.
Conrad Weaver (42:22.016)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (42:29.243)
kids, you could have a gambling addiction, a gaming addiction, a sex addiction, an alcohol addiction. There's a list of things that you can be having problems with that you're bringing to work. And that's where things start getting a little dicey as far as how are you going to be dealt with? Like, how is your administration going to support you? Because this isn't stuff that's from work. Well,
It could be from work.
Conrad Weaver (43:00.372)
some of those could be symptoms of what's going on at work. It could be a result to try to cover up the pain that you've experienced from the things that you've experienced at work.
Tracey Wilkinson (43:06.349)
Exactly.
Tracey Wilkinson (43:13.079)
Exactly. And that's one of the things that happened to me going back to my next surgery that I had, my stuff that was going on up here started to become so somatic that I mean, granted, had, deteriorated, you know, deteriorating discs in my neck because I wore a eight pound helmet on my head for 20 years. That's going to do it. But,
That's a weak spot in my body that my brain found to, it found a physical modality to escape my body. And instead of me being sad or angry or, you know, different emotions that you might think of that you would be able to release, it made you hurt, made me physically hurt. And that's what a lot of people, bam.
I hurt so bad. because your brain's telling you something. Your brain is trying to unleash something that you're thinking that you may not be thinking that you're thinking. And I'm actually considered a treatment resistive person. I've been through about every kind of treatment you could almost think of. mean, there's a few more invasive ones that I haven't, but just last week, like I said, this has been
It's been nine years. It's been six years since I signed off, but it's been nine years since the top of, know, when my PTSD was diagnosed. It was eight years back in December when I was diagnosed and I'm still treatment-resistant. I manage my medication.
Conrad Weaver (44:54.604)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:04.283)
on a regular basis, it gets adjusted. So I tell people I live life better through chemistry. Sometimes it's better for you, more better for you than it is for me. I'm an addict. The only difference is mine's covered by insurance. Because if I didn't have this medication, to be able to balance what I have going on up here, I wouldn't be able to function.
Conrad Weaver (45:33.644)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:34.271)
and I would be right back to where I was before.
Conrad Weaver (45:37.164)
So how do you deal with those people in your past life who are like, you know, it's just a bunch of bullshit.
Tracey Wilkinson (45:46.928)
Well, I've kind of, I write them off. mean, I, at first it really, really bothered me. I, I used to care much more about how people felt. Because it really did bother me that people thought that I was using it as an excuse or that I just wanted to quit working or, you know, whatever, you know, whatever they had to say about me.
Because that was not the case. Because as a firefighter, that's who I was. I mean, my whole life was thrown into being a firefighter. I I had fire stuff everywhere.
But now that I'm more clean up here, that I've started to regulate this up here, I understand that people don't understand. And this.
Conrad Weaver (46:47.148)
Do you think some of those people that are the negative voices perhaps are dealing with their own stuff and they're not ready to admit it?
Tracey Wilkinson (46:57.307)
I think some of them, and I think some of them are simply people that just don't deal with it. I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. They just don't have to deal with the imbalance in their brain that other people do. I mean, they might just be super strong and resilient and certain things just don't bother them.
Conrad Weaver (47:23.82)
Perhaps they don't understand how other people's brains are different and operate on a different level.
Tracey Wilkinson (47:28.517)
Right. Right. Because it truly is, PTSD specifically, is truly a physical injury. And that's one thing that I do if I give a presentation and I draw my little brain, I show you the parts that get broken. And that's where the bucket is, where that proverbial bucket is, and how it breaks.
Conrad Weaver (47:53.526)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (47:57.978)
and how your body breaks down because of it. And people don't, like I said, people don't understand it. And once they start understanding that and kind of rewinding to empty the bucket and get rid of the things that you don't need anymore, if they just understood it a little bit more for other people. I know it's soup,
It's dumb to even think it would ever happen, but it would be nice if people could just be kind and respect each other, that people had issues and leave it at that. You know, just leave it at that. And
Conrad Weaver (48:46.868)
If you could go back to your entire department, your agency that you work for, and you could have a 20 minute talk with them, what would you tell them? What's the one thing you'd tell them?
Tracey Wilkinson (49:00.123)
Good question.
Conrad Weaver (49:01.674)
Besides, like, F off.
Tracey Wilkinson (49:04.443)
Are you talking about the like the people in the department or the administration?
Conrad Weaver (49:10.354)
administration, if you go back and talk to the leaders, what would you say?
Tracey Wilkinson (49:12.344)
Ooh, ooh, that's a good question, because,
Tracey Wilkinson (49:23.343)
I honestly, I'd want to know why. I want to know why they are so.
you know, so anti mental health, because our chief is very anti mental health. And it took over 10 years for him to work with our union and back and forth to get our peer support up at peer support team up and running. He just he didn't believe it was real. We don't have to deal with this. And
When I was going through my pension process, he avoided me like the plague and he, he never, he never addressed me. He, yeah, he is, he's ignorant. He is a truly ignorant person. And if I could tell him something, I would, I would simply want to sit down with him and explain. I would want to explain the brain. I'd want to explain to him.
how this affects the brain and how because of that effect, how it affects your firefighters.
therefore the importance of mental health wellness.
Conrad Weaver (50:40.353)
Yeah. So what are you doing today on a daily basis to take care of you?
Tracey Wilkinson (50:51.727)
I just try to take things easy. I try to do things day by day because I'll be honest, I still have really, really bad days. And recently I've been pretty dark. I started having problems with my neck again. I went to an orthodoc. Everything's fine with my neck, fusions and everything. Cause I ended up having two neck surgeries then.
But everything's fine there. So I ended up at a neurosurgeon and I'm having, well, I had a vagal nerve stimulator implanted. I've got my little band-aids there. And it's going to actually address my PTSD from a neurological standpoint and could potentially get me off of my medications or some of my medications. So.
Conrad Weaver (51:47.927)
So what does that do? Is that attached to the vagus nerve?
Tracey Wilkinson (51:52.54)
Yep. And one thing that I have because of my PTSD is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. So I will have a seizure, but I don't have epilepsy. And they're scary. And again, it's one of those whatever, those aren't even real. Yeah, yeah, they are.
So that's what this is supposed to help me with is with my seizures and just different ways that it kind of unscrambles the scramble in your head. But yeah, I try to take things day by day. I try to find projects. I'm OCD. So sometimes my OCD gets OCD and I get thrown into something and I just stick with it.
And then when I'm done with him, I'm I like to spend time with my daughter. She's eight and a half now. So, you know, I spend time with her. I'm engaged. We like to go do things together. You know, we've traveled quite a bit. I'm I just got a puppy and I'm training him to be my service dog. So that takes a lot of time, especially with a four month old puppy.
And but, you so I'm putting a lot of focus on that.
Tracey Wilkinson (53:25.915)
I'm just, I guess I just take it day by day. That's really all I can do. Because if I get too worked up on too much, I start sliding down that slippery slope. Because it doesn't go away. It hasn't for me. And that's not to say for everybody. People say that PTSD can be cured.
Conrad Weaver (53:37.984)
Yeah.
Tracey Wilkinson (53:52.74)
my take and other research that I've found that PTSD, it can't be cured because it's not a disease. But PTSD can be managed. Same with depression or, know, it's simply a disorder in the brain, but it's not a disease. It's just something that you have to treat.
manage and I manage it I just have to adjust to make sure those wings don't you know fly me out of the sky.
Conrad Weaver (54:35.166)
How are you sleeping?
Tracey Wilkinson (54:37.177)
I sleep awful. Awful. I'm the... Yeah, sleep is awful for me. I don't sleep well at all. I wish I could.
Conrad Weaver (54:46.998)
Would you be interested and willing to talk to my friend Dan Jarvis? So Dan was featured a small bit in my film and he has the thing that he calls the Trauma Resiliency Protocol that he takes people through. And it is transformative. It's something that, there was a police officer that he took through a couple months ago now that never slept, just had horrible sleep.
The first night after he went through this protocol, he slept 18 hours.
Conrad Weaver (55:25.896)
It's, and Dan does this. He has people trained all over the country to do this. He does it for free for first responders and veterans. If you are willing to talk to him, give me your phone number. We'll do it off, the air. And I'll, I'll text you and him and he'll be back to you. If he's not working with someone, he'll get back to you within an hour and you guys can be talking. It's, it's, it's amazing what
Tracey Wilkinson (55:47.109)
Okay. Yeah. No, was, yeah.
Conrad Weaver (55:52.156)
his thing does and he really and he has an organization called healing the heroes and that's what he does.
Tracey Wilkinson (55:57.531)
Okay. Yeah, definitely. I'd be interested in talking to him.
Conrad Weaver (56:02.54)
Cause if you're having trouble sleeping, going through that may be part of the answer.
Tracey Wilkinson (56:09.219)
Yeah, and that's actually one of the things that this vagal nerve stimulator helps. It helps kind of regulate sleep. It kind of adjusts the neurochemicals and it's kind of weird to... It's kind of like a pacemaker for your brain. It's a very generic term to explain it.
Conrad Weaver (56:15.446)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (56:34.028)
Yeah. Well, Tracy, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you. I'm glad you're still here, that you're with us and that you are making a difference out there, helping others. And let's continue to work together to do that and to, to save lives, you know, starting with our own, right? And that's, that's where it's got to start. And then I love that you are reaching out to people on a regular basis. That's
Tracey Wilkinson (56:41.115)
Thanks.
Conrad Weaver (57:02.508)
That to me is one of the best things we can do for each other is to reach out and in touch basis. So I really appreciate you being on the program today.
Tracey Wilkinson (57:08.251)
Yeah, I agree. Well, I appreciate you, Kyra. I appreciate you inviting me on.
