Called to Flourish Podcast: Psychological Challenges for First Responders - Part 1

0:09Welcome to the Call to Flourish podcast sponsored by Divine Mercy University. My name is Thomas Cronquist, and I'm the cohost with father Charles Sikorsky, the president of DMU. Father Charles, how are you today? Really well. Looking forward to our topic and our guest today. Well, father, we have a very interesting episode this afternoon. We'll be talking with George Forsyth, who was a policeman for twenty five years, then he became a therapist earning his counseling degree from DMU. In his practice, George only sees first responders, and he's gonna tell us about his experience as a police officer and the mental health challenges first responders face. George, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much.

0:49It's an honor. Yes. I'm really looking forward to this conversation, George. You know, we, met you several months ago, and I was just fascinated by your story and what you're doing. And, you know, today, it's so important, our first responders and and the the pressures and stresses that they're under to have people who who they can relate to and and, you know, get help to help them persevere. We really need to support and help our police officers, our firefighters, and so forth. So, thank you so much for being with us. And, how'd you get involved in police work and and and what led you here? Well, first of all, it is an honor to work with that population. As a as a retired Maryland state trooper, I always said, you know, I worked with my heroes and now I get to work with them again.

1:38And, certainly not the best therapist out there. There are way more skilled men and women than me. But when it comes to understanding that job, especially from a police perspective, I I think that I that's where my expertise would be because I certainly lived that for as a Maryland state trooper for twenty five years. So, I understand a lot of what they're going through. I I understand a lot of what they're going through. I don't understand the current culture with this hatred, it seems like, of defunding the police and the police are bad and everything else. There was always an element that didn't like the police or didn't trust the police, but not nothing like I've seen in the last few years.

2:25I certainly hear from the officers that come in here. But my journey, yes, started as a as a Maryland State Police cadet in 1984. I would have been about, I think I was about 20 years old. Yeah. Because I was a I was a cadet for one year. And as a cadet, you're not really a police officer. You're not in the academy. It's kind of, it's kinda like discerning. You know, you're discerning whether or not you're gonna be a Maryland state trooper, and they're discerning whether or not they're gonna let you be one. So you do that for a year. You don't carry a gun. You just work with troopers doing whatever they need you to do. And then you enter the academy. And our academy is one of the few left in the nation that's a a residential academy.

3:12So if you're to be a Maryland state trooper and I believe California Highway Patrol, maybe one or two others out there, You have to live there for six months. So it's like the military. You live there for six months. You get to come home on weekends if you don't get too many demerits. As father Charles may know, I'm a bit of a class clown, so I spent more than a few weekends, more than a few weekends at the State Police Academy, which was in, Pikesville, Maryland. And the academy was in Pikesville at the headquarters at the time. Now it's in Sykesville. It's a real big, more modern facility. So I went in there in 1985, and, I had then did my six months before I graduated. And I started like most troopers in uniform, big hat, side of I 95, flagging them down.

4:04They don't even do that anymore. We had to do that on the side, run out in traffic and flag them down. At the time, there has always been a bit of an interest in counseling for me. This didn't come out of left field. When I was in elementary school, I was seeing a guidance counselor named miss Shears because of some family issues. I had to see her once a week. And, I loved her. I had the biggest crush a third grader could have on a on a, on a guidance counselor. And I remember one time I told her that I I would like to be a counselor one day. And she said, why? And I said, because I'd like to help people. Well, they had something called a happy gram when you're in elementary school. It's a happy face and a memo and hand write some stuff to send it to you.

4:56It's like an attaboy. You can send it to your parents. I still have it. Still have it where she said that she said this story. So there was always a little bit of a desire to help people. I was always interested in psychology. I was always interested in philosophy and things like that. I read a lot. And very quickly, I became a detective. I was I was young. I graduated at 21. I turned 21 in May May and graduated in June. So for a little while, I was the youngest Maryland state trooper out there. I was very youthful. I grew up appearance wise, and I grew up in an area of Prince George's County with a lot of crime. So I certainly understood crime. I'd seen it all my life, and I was grew up very short.

5:40Only until my high school years did I grow taller and start lifting weights. So I learned to be funny to survive in a rough neighborhood so I could easily gain trust from a lot of people. So there were some things in the works God was already doing that were already in the works. So I, I started in narcotics, and I I didn't like it. I wasn't too good at it. I was in a I was in a, a unit that they did the electronic type of surveillance work. I'm not good at that. I didn't get the excitement. This is the Miami Vice days. You know, I didn't get the excitement. One earring, you know, out there doing things. And I and I live right back to uniform. But in doing so, I met a a senior investigator named John, and he was in something called a repeat offender unit, where they basically just went out and waited till these bad guys would mess up and they'd lock them up again.

6:37And he said, yeah. You should interview for that. And I did. I went up and interviewed for that. And, they, the captain interviewed me and he said, I'm gonna put you in something called the special assignment unit instead. They do the contract murders. They do the gambling cases, vice cases, any kind of undercover case that's non narcotic. We have a narcotics division to handle narcotics. You handle anything that's not narcotics. But, you know, as as you probably know, I definitely learned everything is narcotics. You work prostitution, you're working drugs. If it's stolen property, you're working drugs. Most murders, drugs. Everything is drug related. But that's what and I did that and I stayed.

7:22I got under some guys that have been around forever. They became like my big brothers. I I loved them to death. I learned so much from they were a very rough bunch of guys, but I learned so much from these guys. We had an office that was undercover at Spring Grove Mental Mental Hospital. Nobody would ever suspect. They have houses at Spring Grove for kind of a higher functioning residential patients, and they'd live there in a group. And one house in the middle of all of them was us. And to be honest, you wouldn't have been able to tell that we weren't the residents the way we looked the way we looked and acted. And we knew all the other residents from the houses. They would come by. They would talk to us.

8:05And, that was our that was my office for a long time. And there I learned, really honed my skills and became adept at undercover investigations. That's what I was known for, especially contract murders, going to jail undercover. I've been incarcerated five times undercover. I've, I don't know how I literally couldn't tell you how many times I've been hired to kill somebody, burn something up, rape, steal, you know, whatever. They didn't know I was a police officer, obviously, but many times. So you you would they would hire you to like, you were the guy who would go out. You obviously didn't do those things, but you would get somebody to make the contract, then you would bust them. Absolutely.

8:52That's that's that's what I did. You know, they would hire me to they're going through a divorce, and they're like, well, if, why why give up half of everything when I could get rid of somebody I hate anyways and I could keep everything? And they'd hire a hit man, you know, and something. So, yeah, I did a bunch I did it a that was what I was known for. That was what I would get calls from Baltimore County, Baltimore City, out of state. That's what I was known for, was helping out on those kind of cases. And now that sounds dangerous and stressful. Yeah. The the dangerous part is when is the last is when you go to make the arrest. Because if you think about it, there is only one person in the world who knows I killed his wife.

9:35And if something happens to me, then there's nobody in the world that knows I killed his wife. So I'm always very careful. Because sometimes we would pretend we actually killed him. We would go find the intended victim. We would tell them what was going on. We'd hide them. They'd give us something, you know. I worked one one time, for example. She would just graduated from high school and so she had a a bunch of the, you know, the senior pictures. Used to get a stack of senior pictures when you were in high school that you could give to your family and everything else, you know, the little the little pictures, the yearbook pictures type of thing. And, she had a stack of them, so I took the whole stack and the bag and something else to show him that, hey.

10:17I I really did it. Or I've done it before. We posed them. I went to Florida one time to get a victim, and, we had some homicide detectives come with us. And we posed him as if he was really killed, and we didn't have any kind of fake blood or anything. So one of the detectives in his lunch pail had some kind of salad dressing that was dark. And he ripped his shirt. We took his shirt, first of all, ripped it a little bit, and then we put it on, put it over the ground, and we shot it. And then we put the shirt back on him and had that stuff on him, and he posed him. And, I brought it back up to Maryland and said, yeah. Here's a Polaroid. You know, he's he's, threw him in a swamp or something.

11:00So, yeah, that was my expertise. And then I I also was on a, different different narcotics groups through the years, Maryland State Police major narcotics unit. Yeah. I I was very confident in my role as an undercover officer. But looking back, I don't know that I was really a very good narc. I don't I don't I just don't I made a I bought I bought millions of drugs. But I I don't know. I just felt like I could do better by doing that. But I was on a a DEA task force in Baltimore City called the violent traffickers initiative And, really love those guys. I I love those guys to death. The the city mostly city police officers, but a lot of different different groups. And then I also I ended my career, three year my last three years were in something called the Warrant Apprehension Task Force in Baltimore City.

11:55That's where, they basically Baltimore City has so many arrest warrants that other departments give them people to help them serve these arrest warrants. The state police gave them, like, three or four. I was one of them. You know, Baltimore County police gave them some. Marshals gave them some. And, you just go out and serve warrants all day long. When you get one, you call a wagon, put them in the wagon, and you just you have stacks of them. You just go out. And it'll great because it's not a lot of paperwork, but it's tons of action. That was all you were doing is searching houses and kicking in doors and running around, trying to you know, people jump out windows and chasing them. And the paperwork was maybe a form, you know, got the guy under the bed.

12:37Here he is. You know, that was it. So, I did that for my last three years. Okay. So you so you did this for a total of twenty five years, this kind of this kind of work? Yeah. This kinda work. Yeah. Most mostly undercover. Twenty probably twenty two, twenty one years or so was all basically undercover or soft clothes. Like in a fugitive unit, you just wear jeans and a t shirt or shorts and a t shirt. You put a vest over top. You're not really undercover, but you're not in a uniform either. How did, how did some of these, men react when they found out, that you were a cop and not a contract killer? Oh, shocked. Shocked. You know, they they were well, in Maryland, the penalty for solicitation to commit a crime is the the penalty is the same as if you ever as if you actually completed the crime.

13:34So if you're arrested for solicitation to commit murder, you're looking at life. You're looking at a life sentence. There's a woman, I don't know if she's still in there or not. She was a grandmother. And, they gave her, I don't know how many how many years. Small world. I was working as a drug counselor, and one of the employees started at a methadone clinic. One of the employees said, you worked murder for hire. I was in jail with a lady to work murder for hire. It was that grandmother. She said her name. I can't remember it now, but I was like, oh, yeah. That was me. That was definitely me. She hired me to kill her husband. So anyways, I'm in the fugitive unit. Now this career, took a took a toll on my personal life.

14:18There, you know, they it was a wreck. That was there's no other way to say it. I was I was divorced twice, living with a girlfriend. I had I had four kids, but they didn't live with me all the time. I got them a lot. I mean, as much as I possibly could, but and I love them to death. They're all very we're very I just visit I was just with two of them in New York. I was with another one in Virginia. So I'm just, you know but but anyways, my life was a wreck. My relationships, everything in my life was second to that job. Most of my career, I would have worked it for free. I just couldn't stop. I was a long time workaholic before I got on the job. And then this job just fed into it with the twenty four hours, the I don't know if it was the excitement or the or the satisfaction of, you know, you work a big case and now it's all done.

15:14You you get these guys or I I don't know what it was. But the but this everything that was not this job, including my faith, everything was second to this job. I can't, explain that enough. This job became it was everything. And I was really good at it. Really well known. On the undercover side of it. I wasn't really good at it with staying out of trouble. I wasn't really good at it with paperwork. But when it came to the actual undercover stuff, dynamite. I was really skilled in it. And, so my youngest at the time, Tommy, his mom calls me early in the morning. He'd been sick. And she said, the doctor called. They need Tommy to go to the hospital right away. This was early in the morning. Three, 04:00 in the morning.

16:03You don't usually get calls from an ex wife at three or 04:00 in the morning unless it's something bad. And she said, you know, they want them to take them to the hospital. It might be leukemia. And I was like, okay. I was getting ready for work. I was on a fugitive team. We already we always came out early, so I was awake anyways. So, you know, denial is a denial is pretty powerful. And so instantly, I thought of all the time somebody I love said, oh, they found a lump in her breast. It might be breast cancer. And then you find out later it's really not. Or, yeah, so and so is pretty sick, had to go to the hospital looking at his liver or his kidneys, and you find out it's really nothing. So I think I was telling myself that kind of stuff.

16:48So she goes to the hospital. I hadn't even left the house yet. I was kinda waiting to hear from her. And she said, it's leukemia. And they they're it's happening so fast. They need to take him by ambulance. You need to choose right now, University of Maryland Hospital or Johns Hopkins. Thank God I live in a city with Johns Hopkins and Maryland University Hospital. I mean, they're the two of the best hospitals in the world. Johns Hopkins arguably is the best hospital in the world, but University of Maryland is really good also. So immediately, it was like a punch in the gut. I remember I was in a bathroom at the time. I fell down by the toilet and just started sobbing. I didn't know I literally didn't know what to do.

17:31And and that was unusual for me. To not think I could control everything in the world was unusual for me. I was a big muscular weightlifting guy, police officer working in Baltimore City. I thought I could handle literally anything by myself. I wasn't much of a I was a a Christian in the fact that I believed in God. I believed in Jesus. I'd even made a profession of fast. Made a profession of faith one time in an evangelical type of church. I grew up a Catholic, but I'd go to different churches and then come back to the Catholic church sometimes. But prayer to me then was that God's there to help you, but, you better handle it yourself. Kinda like a I always call it a Viking God. You know, just kinda call me if you really need me, but you better really need me.

18:21Don't bother me with a bunch of little stuff. Don't bother me with, God, please let the fuel gold go through. You know, we don't want those kind of prayers. So that began a journey that was the closest thing to hell I've ever seen. I mean, despite the fact, I I refer to the cancer ward, kids cancer ward as hell staffed by angels. They were some of the greatest staff because he went to both hospitals eventually. They were some of the greatest staff, the nurses, the doctors, all of them. So we're going through this, and it's getting worse. He ended up having two forms of leukemia. I mean, I remember him screaming for God to kill him. I remember holding him down while he would say that, when he would beg for God to kill him.

19:14And, you know, and and so they yeah. So his his mom was, like, to me, a real hero. His mom never left the hospital. Maybe one time left the left for the one evening for and he was there from February till November. So he's in the hospital, and it's not good. I mean, there there there's one time they had they had we had to call the family in to say goodbye. So I had to stand out in the hallway, and each of my children, as they would go in and say goodbye, and they'd come out and they'd break down and I'd hug them and then the next one. It it was bad. I'd stay at the hospital. They worked out a deal with me with the state police that that, the actually, my colonel at the time said, you know, I'll move you to my staff.

20:00I'll call you when I need you, and I will never need you. So so I still went out sometimes in the morning with the fugitive team because I I just had to. I just, work was my coping mechanism. Everything for me was work. At night, I drank. That was the only way to sleep. I just drank. I'd either drink with some of the city police officers who'd come get me or or or meet me at a local pub. Near the in Baltimore City, there's the Hippodrome. And and across from there, there was an Irish pub at the time. I used to go there. So while I'm going while this is all going on, these horror stories, You know, just very quickly, I, almost got in a fight with a with a doctor there, and they were gonna move me out of the house.

20:48So just a lot of stuff happened. I started Tommy, where there was a stage while he could still eat, there was months that he couldn't eat. He was able to, eat because of the the drugs he was on. The doctor said he's going to crave meat and salt. And Lexington Market is like the mecca if you're looking for meat and salt. And so I would walk to Lexington Market. He never ate hospital food. Anything he wanted, I'd get it. Crab legs, Thai food, bulgogi, steak, whatever he wanted. Either I would get it or I'd call one of the city police officers and they would bring it by. And they they were great. They they would come by all the time. There was always somebody coming. And, well, there was Saint Jude Shrine is right up the street from Lexington Market.

21:34What about two blocks maybe? Father Charles. Something like that. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. It's real close. Yeah. Mhmm. So I would walk to Saint Jude Shrine every day. All well, almost every day. Seven days a week. It was always open. Wouldn't be necessarily mass. I didn't know what time I was gonna go there because it kinda depended what was going on with with Tommy or what else I was trying to do. So but I would go there every single day. Every single day. And and sometimes I would cry. You know? Sometimes I would just sit there. Sometimes I would just be mad. Sometimes mass would be going on, or I'd come in during my I was there so much. A priest came over to me one time and said, you know, I noticed you're here every day.

22:19Is there anything we can do? And, of course, back then, I had the famous what I hear from first responders my whole life, you ask if something's wrong. No. I'm good. I've said it a million times and they all say it. Nah. I'm good. That's what so I was the same way. Well, the calling happened. There was one particular day, and I don't remember it being any different than any other day. As I recollect, I know it was I know it was bright outside. It was it was sunny. So I leave Saint Jude's, and I'm out front on those steps. And all of a sudden, it just hit me. And it was words internally, clear as a bell. I want you to work as hard setting them free as you did locking them up, and that was it.

23:09Never happened again. Never happened before that. Nothing like that ever happened again. And I know and I know it was a calling. I know that I mean, because it stopped me in my tracks. And you did work as hard to set them free as you did to put them in jail. Yes. You did locking them up. Okay. She did locking them up. And I knew exactly what it meant. I knew it meant it didn't mean necessarily being a defense attorney or an advocate. It's just I I knew. Like, without being verbalized what this meant, I knew. And I hear people talk about a calling as, you know, I hear people talk about smelling roses or I hear people, a feeling of peace or I hear people talk about this overwhelming love. I would did not have that experience.

23:52Mine was terrifying. Terrifying to me. It was like the only way I can describe it is if you can imagine being instantly laid open laid open for a split second from getting slapped in your rear as a baby till now at one time. It was instant. No. I know you. This is it. And it didn't even demand it. Just said, I want you to. And that was it. And it was terrifying. So I didn't do much with it at first other than think about it all the time. Maybe it could be argued ran from it a little bit because I I was thinking, you know, How how do you you know, I'm not I don't know anything about being a drug counselor. I knew it meant addictions, I should say. I didn't know anything about being a drug counselor.

24:48To me, 12 step groups of what you saw on television were, hi. I'm George. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, George. And then I didn't know what they did after that. So I didn't do much with it other than think about it all the time and, and started to change my life. I ended the relationship I was living. The end of that relationship. I I definitely was not a saint. Definitely, pretty roughneck. But, but there was a change coming. There were I could there was there were changes happening in the way I looked at things. So fast forward, Tommy gets better. He's doing great now. He's 26. I have a beautiful daughter-in-law that's a daughter. She's not even a daughter-in-law. She's my daughter. He's been dating her since he's 18.

25:39So he he came through that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He beat it. Yeah. He beat it. I mean, there was a lot of times in there, my prayer while he was sick was over and over again, God, kill me and save him. And if I said that prayer once, I said it 10,000 times. Yeah. And because my my perception was as as incorrect as it is, my perception was if God spares him, well, then somebody's gotta fill in that box. Somebody somebody's gotta go. You can't just say, you know, okay. This guy can live, but some okay. Well, I got this vacuum here. Somebody that has to go to has to be killed. And that's the way I looked at it. As as strange as that is, I lick and laugh about it now. There was even a time that if he died, I was contemplating suicide, not out of depression.

26:35I was contemplating suicide that he's not gonna be able to navigate the afterlife without somebody to help him. And, you know, why not me? You know, I certainly deserved it. You know, he didn't deserve anything. I I had done enough. By this time in my life, I had done enough, plenty, to to do that. But he came through. He came through and fast forward, my wife, who told the woman who's who's now my wife, knew about this calling. And, I wasn't really doing anything with it. Although I did I do believe at that time I started taking some community college classes. And I knew then about what what it would entail. You can't just walk in a place and be a drug counselor. So she knew something was she had a conversation with me.

27:31She's my my wife, Nikki, is my biggest source of support. I I I can't even the the one of the biggest blessings I've had is her. And so she told me, she said, whatever happened with this? I said, nothing. You know, I'm working now. I've retired. I'm working now as a government contractor making pretty good money, traveling around. I worked in Honolulu for four weeks, Boston for four weeks, New York working as a government contractor, making good money. And I said, no. I'm not satisfied. It's not. It's it's not what I was called to do, and she knew what I meant. So she sat down with a spreadsheet. She's way more smarter than I am, especially when it comes to numbers. And she she showed me. She said, George, we can do this.

28:25She said, and besides, if God really called you, then it's not gonna fail. He's not gonna call you. You know, it's not like he's gonna call you to something. You're gonna do it. He's gonna start laughing and say, sucker. You know? You know, he's not gonna that's not the way it works. So she laid it all out for me and she said, we can do this. It'll be tight. Sure. It's gonna be tight. But we don't have any money all the time anyways. You know, it'll it'll be tight. So I did it. I talked to a friend of mine named Tracy who worked as a, in a residential treatment center near me in Annapolis and got my first job there as a, residential treatment assistant, which is kinda like the oompa loompas of a residential treatment.

29:08You take them to cigarette breaks, wake them up in the morning, do a group every now and then, get get their bags when they're leaving, you know, that kind of stuff. $12 an hour. $12 an hour with a wife and three stepchildren. I mean, well, they're my children now. Not a lot of money. And it just kept working out. And I I became a trainee through Maryland, then a CSC and a c a c CACAD. Worked my way up through, I got my bachelor's at Liberty University. And then, came time at the end of Liberty University. Now we're, like, around December 2017. I, I had known now from working in with addictions in residential treatment facilities. I worked at a luxury facility. I worked at methadone clinics in Baltimore City.

30:01I had a pretty good idea now from the therapy end about drugs, and I had determined that this is just a band aid. It's this is a mental illness that people are just using drugs and alcohol to cover up. And I decided I wanted to be a, a, mental health therapist. By now also my faith, I had reengaged with the Catholic faith. I was going to Catholic church and become become involved in a Catholic church. So I wanted to I'd been to a, Protestant bachelor's a Protestant university for my bachelor's. I wanted to get a Catholic, understanding. And so I don't remember how I found Divine Mercy. I think it was an article in a magazine, and it was called IPS then in the in this old magazine I saw. And I researched it, and that's when I saw that the, it was called Divine Mercy University.

30:57Somehow got accepted. Did that for two and a half years. Still as a drug counselor that whole time until my internship where I worked at Bay Area Christian Counseling. And then after my internship, I worked a period of time at a place specializing in pornography and sex addiction called Rogue River Counseling. And then I worked, with a friend of mine at Lotus Psychotherapy before I started my own practice here, Driftwood Psychotherapy. Working with primarily police and first responders wasn't necessarily my intention in the beginning. It kinda just I started seeing the need more and more and more. And it was an interesting niche, and I've thought, well, I can certainly give back to that community.

31:40I know a lot about it. Yeah. So what what are, like, some of the more more common things that first responders face? Maybe one of them, as you said before, you know, oh, no. I'm good. I don't need any Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That's But, like, did it I'm sure there's drugs and alcohol Oh, absolutely. And family, you know, marriage. Just tell us a little bit about what, like, what are some of the common things and and and really how the experience of of the work kinda leads to some of these things. First of all, trauma. Trauma, PTSD. That's huge. Sometimes they don't even even know it's trauma. They're just feeling these symptoms. They're feeling the the symptoms come out like anxiety or depression or something else, but as you dig into it, it's trauma.

32:31So certainly PTSD. That's been my, you know, things come and go this week and last week. There's been a lot of that. Addiction, alcohol is king in those populations and, everything. Somebody gets promoted, let's go out drinking. Somebody dies, let's go out, drinking. The ravens win, let's drink. Ravens lose, let's drink. Everything was, let's drink. So the, so alcohol, sometimes drugs. You know, I do run into drugs sometimes also. Usually, it's abuse of prescription drugs. I don't I've only had a few where it's cocaine or something like that. So drugs, alcohol, of course, depression and anxiety that plagues kind of all of us. You know, they have some of the same problems we all do. I mean, they have loved ones that die.

33:23They have loved ones that die in accidents. They have loved ones that die you know, get diagnosed with a terminal illness and die. They have divorces. They have their own they bring their own past. You know? Yeah. You meant this. So in the PTSD, what kinds of things happen on a job? I remember I was talking to a retired, police officer, and she told me she would typically see two or three dead bodies a week and Oh, yeah. Became, you know, kinda numb to it. And I I don't think you can give us a little input on what the kinds of things that cause these traumas, and then they don't talk to anybody. I you could Yeah. Don't talk you don't talk to, certainly well, trauma can be different. Something that's traumatic could be traumatic to you that's not traumatic to me.

34:12Mhmm. Most of the people in those careers are pretty resilient. Early on, they start seeing a lot of things. I remember, when I was much younger, I was in The Carolinas. I was with some friends. We traveled down there and there was a table full of young merchant marines next to us. And we all started drinking together, you know, so we're all having a great time. And one of the merchant marines told me, he said, I'm on the I'm on the ship seven or eight month months out of a year. And he said, every day is pretty much the same. And one day, I am seasick, and I don't even know why. The weather's the same. I'm eating the same. What happened today that made me seasick that I wasn't seasick yesterday?

34:51And I'll get those questions coming in there in there. The the classic is the firefighter or the police officer going around to the other side of their car or sitting in their car after a call and crying. And they don't know why they're crying. They've certain I've heard it so many times where, you know, yeah, it was a fatal, horrible accident, but I've seen way worse accidents than this. Much more horrible than this. I use the analogy of, I think these guys have a big tank strapped on their back full of a liquid. And this liquid, I'll just call it a crack, the crap that you've seen as and you've done. And it just fills up. And then one day, it get through all these years, it fills up. And one day, something happens, and that's the last thing that's poured out.

35:39And as the last thing that's poured out, it's the first thing that to overflow. And that's what you see. So, yeah, you're seeing this fatal accident, and you're thinking, why did that set me off? The question is, you got here from something else or a bunch of something else's, and you're just now noticing the symptoms. And these guys can have the symptoms for a long time. For example, the the with with, PTSD, you see the, the irritability, the increased aggression, the the angry outbursts. Well, there there's walking time bombs walking around out there right now. There always have been. Now with the with, cameras on everybody's phone, we're starting to see that more. So they've always had these these symptoms.

36:30So when the trauma kinda piles up like that, that that's what they see. And it takes some digging. You know? It takes some digging. And and then of many times, it goes to their childhood. You know? Expectations or things they learned as a child. You know, there's something called the, the just world theory. You see it with the the cognitive processing therapy. I'm taking a class in that right now, and they talk about this just world. And the just world is, if I do good things, good things happen to me. And if I do bad things, something bad will happen to me. And you learn it really young. Little Johnny, we're not gonna you're not gonna go outside if you keep acting like that, or you're not gonna get dessert if you don't keep eating your dinner.

37:14You know, those kind of things. And it becomes hardwired. Right? Well, here I am as an adult and I'm doing something good and, woah, something bad just happened. I can't make sense of that. George, this is really, really interesting, and I'm wondering, you know, there are probably a lot of people that are gonna listen to this and and they're gonna identify with what you're saying, and they're gonna think, well, you know, I really would like to get, get some help. You know? And and, if they wanted to contact you, for example, do you have a website or an email address that they could use to to ask you, questions to to communicate with you? What would that what would that be? Absolutely. Yeah.

37:52And I and I welcome that. You know, I I welcome I get emails from people not necessarily seeking treatment all the time. I get emails, from a fire depart you know, fire department. So will you come here and talk to they have these meetings with their guys. Would you come and just talk to one of our groups of guys of what things like PTSD is or something? So certainly email is the best way. That is the best way to reach me. And that's the name of my practice. It's called Driftwood Psychotherapy. And I don't know. I knew Charles father Charles was in the Maryland, you know, the charl Calvert County, Maryland. There's a little beach called Driftwood Beach that I've been going to since I was a kid.

38:31It's like my safe place. Mhmm. So I want my practice to be, if above all, a safe place where somebody can come in here and they can say whatever they want, feel whatever they want. So driftwoodpsychotherapy@gmail.com. The website is driftwood psychotherapy l l c dot com. And there's a contact me on there also. You can go there to the website, click contact me, and you can write whatever you wanna write. Nobody sees it but me. Tell me, George, you might very soon, Maryland, you're gonna be able to do telehealth in other states. Is that right? Yes. Because of the the it's called the compact. And I'm not sure what states. I know, like, for example, West Virginia, Florida, they've basically signed a compact that we acknowledge that all of our training and our certification process that you received in Maryland would be equivalent or acceptable here in, say, for example, Florida.

39:31And this way, we'll open it up with telehealth where it gives a client much more opportunity. Now it'd have to be telehealth. You can't drive back and forth from Florida. But, for example, I work with police officers. It would really we'll open it up for a police officer or a firefighter or a correctional officer, dispatcher maybe in one of the compact states that can't find anybody with experience working with that population now has somebody. That's great. So if anybody out there from different states, you can also, you know, look George up, send him an email, or contact him. Yeah. They can anyways. I'll I'll, you know, I'll I'll help them find somebody in their state. If if the the compact is the compact has been approved, now it's working out the finer print that that you have to do.

40:19Great. Thank you. Well, George, thank you so much for this very, very interesting episode, and, I'm sure a lot of people are gonna be very, interested to hear your your story, and I'm looking forward to, having you back. Another episode, where you talk more about, the the challenges that these first responders face and the and the therapies and the remedies and the advice you you give them, I think that's gonna be very, very helpful. And, so we will have you back for that, and, look forward to talking with you again soon. Yeah. I look forward to it anytime. And if anyone wants to reach out to me with a question, I'm happy to answer to the best of my ability or maybe help them find somebody who can give them the correct answer.