You run toward the call. This is what happens after.
My husband is a firefighter. I know what the drive home from a bad shift looks like, what it means to say "how was your day" and already know not to push when the answer is fine. I have spent my entire clinical career working alongside people who carry the weight of other people's worst days.
THIS PAGE IS FOR YOU IF...
You are sleeping fine but something feels off, and you cannot explain it to anyone who was not there
You have started picking fights about small things because the real thing is too big to name
You went back to work after a critical incident and no one asked how you were doing, and you would not have answered honestly if they had
You have been told you have PTSD or depression and the diagnosis felt like another thing to manage
Your partner has started saying things like "you're not present" or "I don't know how to reach you anymore" and some part of you knows they are right
You have considered therapy before but assumed it would be someone who doesn't understand this world trying to tell you how to feel about it
HOW I WORK WITH FIRST RESPONDERS
I use approaches that are built for trauma.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is one of the most researched treatments for trauma and works especially well for people who are used to pushing through. It is structured and direct, and it does not require you to sit in the pain longer than the work demands.
I also work somatically, because the body keeps carrying what the mind has not finished processing. The hypervigilance and sleep disruption that outlast every shift are a nervous system response. We address that directly.
We work to understand what happened and what it is still costing you. From there, we figure out how to move through it. I know the culture, including the stigma around asking for help and what it can cost someone to do it. We can work with all of that.
A NOTE TO PARTNERS AND SPOUSES
You did not get a debrief. Nobody handed you a pamphlet on what to expect when the person you love comes home changed.
You have been doing the relational labor of holding the household together while also trying not to make things worse, and that is exhausting in a way that does not get acknowledged enough.
Your experience of this is real and it matters. What your partner carries home has landed on you in ways that are hard to name and harder to get acknowledged. You are a person with your own experience, your own grief, your own questions about what this relationship is now.
I work with partners individually and together. You are welcome here on your own terms.