Code4Couples Cyndi Doyle, LPCS, NCC

“I just don't want to burden my spouse with what I experience on the job” is a way of protecting the people that you love. I always thought my husband was open only to find out later that this happened a few times within our relationship. Most of the time an officer's spouse and family sense that something is up. It bleeds over.
While protecting the family is noble, it is also a way that an officer can avoid talking about difficult things. Our relationships need to involve trust. Officers, trust that your spouse can handle what you are sharing, and as a spouse trust that an officer will navigate that line between sharing and traumatizing. This week, law enforcement couple Brett and Danielle Koss joined me to discuss developing a reciprocal relationship of trust and understanding.
 
CCS Behavioral Health and Recovery (ccswebsite.org)

We have all worked in a toxic work environment due to the workplace culture, co-workers, supervisors, or the work itself.    

Stephanie Kiesow is a former law enforcement officer, cop kid, and cop’s wife.  She saw how work impacted her parents, their mood, and in turn the family.  She started her career in law enforcement at 18 and in 2011, when her fiancé had a pending IA, lost him to death by suicide.  This kicked off what Stephanie calls her obsessive curiosity about suicide and how the workplace contributes to the permanent decision.  

 Stephanie is currently working on her PhD in Organizational psychology.  Through her research and education, she found contributing workplace factors that impact mental health and cause death in a perceptual sense or literal sense and coined the term workicide.    

Stephanie’s goal is to help people mitigate a work-related decline in their mental health and increase their overall well-being so they can enjoy work and love life. She has written the book Workicide to help others do just that.    

 This is a deep topic but you will want to hear her research and her solutions for our law enforcement culture.    
LinkedIn: Stephanie K.
Workicide: How to Overcome a Career-Related Decline in Mental Health and Reignite Your Passion for Work and Life. 
Burnout — Code4Couples
Beyond the Badge — Code4Couples

In this podcast episode, host Cyndi Doyle interviews John Blumenthal, a Retired Master Sergeant (Ret.) with the Oklahoma City Police Department. Blumenthal shares his personal journey of struggling with trauma and making poor choices, which led to the deterioration of his relationships with his family. He emphasizes the importance of prioritizing wellness and seeking help. He discusses his involvement in peer support and wellness programs, including his work with the Warriors Rest Foundation and the National Cops Program. Blumenthal encourages law enforcement officers to seek support and make positive choices to improve their well-being and relationships. 
Essential Skills for Law Enforcement Couples: Free Guide
john@warriorsrestfoundation.org.
Warriors Rest Foundation
COPS

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We all know that this lifestyle means long hours and lots of stress. Loss of sleep only impacts stress further.  When does stress become burnout?  

Burnout is oftentimes a precursor to more serious mental health issues. If we could catch burnout or even work to prevent burnout, officers would be safer on the job and relationships are potentially more stable. If spouses could catch burnout, they might continue to have patience and compassion.  With burnout, we all wear a little thin.   

How do we identify burnout?  How is law enforcement burnout unique?  What can we do if we already realize we are in burnout?  How can we reverse the impact? 

Deana Kahle, LMFT, shares her story of burnout after serving to support mass multiple incidents.  She shares the impact, her story of recovery, and how you can address it if you are amid burnout or want to prevent it. 
 
The Story of the Boy and the Starfish 

@Copshrink 

aboveboardconsulting.com. 

Copshrink911@gmail.com 

 

Katie Bingner is a counselor in Maryland, a law enforcement spouse, and a communications coach for law enforcement couples. I just assumed that her wife worked in Maryland. I was wrong. She works in Washington, DC. That led me to ask about January 6th and come to find out, her wife was in the thick of it. What started as an interview about connection and communication in law enforcement couples ended up being a conversation about how they were both impacted by the incident on January 6th. Katie talks about how their previous struggles that almost tore them apart made them stronger as a couple. It's something that she now credits with helping them to understand what they each needed as they moved through the trauma and multiple officers' suicides as a result of the January 6th insurrection. 
 
Katiebingner.com

There is a holiday song that always makes my husband and I laugh. It is Bob Rivers singing "The Twelve Pains of Christmas," and it's funny because it is sadly and hilariously true. The lyrics are the first thing about Christmas that's such a pain to me and he goes through a list. The first one is finding a Christmas tree, rigging up the lights, and hangovers. The fourth one is sending Christmas cards, five months of bills, and the sixth one is facing in-laws. He goes through other stressors as well like finding gifts, crying kids, charity donations, crowds, parking, you get the point. We all know that the holidays can be stressful and overwhelming. Let's add on the pressure for families to magically get along and you have a very dysfunctional bow on a very stressful holiday package. 

There can be conflict within your own family around supporting law enforcement, pressures to visit people, making the perfect dinner, and looking just so perfect for that event that you have to go to. At times, family and friends don’t really understand that you as an officer, or your spouse can't just survive on two hours of sleep to go to that family dinner or be present at the exact time that everybody's getting together. 

So how do you get through the holiday without overwhelming anxiety or anger? 

How do you be with people who know just the right thing to say to trigger you?  

Maybe you wind up feeling incredibly small or maybe you want to blow up and tell them off? 

How do you support your spouse when you know that they're triggered by your family or theirs?  

Let's talk about some of the conversations to have as a couple and how you can learn to respond to those people who know how to push your buttons so you can get through your own happy holiday.