STRESS
F
The
Bulletproof Firefighter Ever wonder why some people can handle stress and trauma and others can’t? Some people see horrifying things and move on as if nothing had happened. Others can’t seem to shake the experience and become mentally and emotionally haunted by it. The experience can spill over to affect their job performance, home life, and even mental and physical health. Why is that?
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C RAC KYL MAGAZ I N E
irefighters are exposed to unusually high numbers of traumatising events, so it’s not surprising that they are at higher than average risk for psychological difficulties related to their profession. However, a firefighter doesn’t have to develop full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to end up with consuming mental or emotional struggles that can affect health, home, work, and happiness.
Struggling to make sense of dreadful experiences can turn into mental torment. Ruminating on the experience, secondguessing our actions during the event, survivor guilt, trying to understand why such things happen, or just reliving the event can become unwelcome intruders into our thoughts and dreams.
