Crazy Kevin | CPTSDfoundation.org

Losing My Marbles

Crazy Kevin — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 19:11:32 +0000

Emotions, losing control, not being yourself. I kept feeling like it was something I did. Something I could undo or fix so everything would turn out alright. Unfortunately, things kept getting worse…

In the first week, no one knew what was wrong. The only thing I knew was that I had severe problems controlling my emotions. I got angry without cause. I kept seeing flashbacks. Sometimes 3-4 times a day. I knew I needed help.

I talked to my superior on the phone and explained what I was experiencing. She wanted to sit down and just talk about possibilities. That meant I had to go back to my precinct. The stress that gave me is unbelievable. Because of my jumbled emotions, the only thing I could focus on was, that I had to go to the station. That I had to see my colleagues. Had to explain what was wrong. Had to see them look at me while breaking down again.

Eventually, I still went there. It was torment. Not because of my colleagues, they were perfect and understanding. But because of the tricks, my mind kept playing on me. I felt threatened the whole time I was there, even though there was nothing threatening me. My superior tried to explain what was going to happen concerning my work. I barely registered half of it. She would make me an appointment with the occupational physician. And advised me to contact my general physician (GP).

The appointment with the occupational physician was set for almost 2 months later because of the long waiting list. The appointment with my GP was fairly fast. I spoke about some of the things I was experiencing and he recommended in practice mental healthcare to see what was wrong with me. This took about 2 weeks before she could see me. I have nothing but praise for all of the people involved, but the waiting is what nearly broke me.

Waiting, waiting, and waiting, not knowing what the hell is going on. I got into arguments with my wife. Got mad without reason. Couldn’t control my emotional outbursts. Everything was just too much. Trying to live your life as normal as possible while being a slave to your emotions is nearly impossible.

I had “the talk” with the supervisor. The one thing she said that struck home was: “You need to take care of Yourself. The work will carry on. Nothing is more important than yourself. I could try and get you back to work as fast as possible and then lose you altogether because that wouldn’t work. Do what you need to do to get right. Get help, talk to people, and take all the time you need. Don’t worry about work, appointments, and stuff like that, we’ll take care of those. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Hearing those words and actually letting go of work, appointments and the like were much harder. I had applied for a position I’d been wanting for some time now. Actually got invited to the interview as well. Had to call them and let them know, now wasn’t the time for me. I felt like a failure. Worried that they might consider what I’m going through right now if I apply in the future. How would that affect my chances?

Besides that, I had several projects going on. I wanted to implement some changes to our social media system at work. And suddenly I wasn’t at the meeting. Colleagues started to worry. They started to message me if everything was all right. That’s when I asked my supervisor to send a general e-mail to let them know I wouldn’t be at work for the foreseeable future. That’s when even more messages came. I don’t know what is going on, but I’m here for you if you need me messages. I do so appreciate these messages, but I still don’t even know what’s wrong with me.

During this time, the thoughts that kept popping up were: I’m not even sick, why can’t I just go to work? I can go grocery shopping so why shouldn’t I be working? I can take my kids to school, there’s nothing wrong with me.

And then inevitably it hit me over and over again. For example: While walking back from the school a car went by, it probably went a bit too fast for my taste. That’s when the flashback came back. I saw myself in the crashed car giving CPR to the driver even though I knew it wouldn’t work. I stopped in the middle of the street and started crying my eyes out. Of course, these kinds of flashbacks happened almost every day. And that made me realize: No you can’t work like this, there is something wrong with you and you need help!

The thing that rattled me the most, in the beginning, was the anxiety. I could be walking, sitting, or driving, and suddenly out of nowhere panic sets in. Not you’re regular I might miss my train panic. But real, life-threatening fight or flight panic. It’s pretty hard to describe this feeling. But it feels something like: I have to fight my way out of here or I’m not going to survive. Your body gets ready to fight. My muscles tense, I see everything and I look for the nearest hiding spot. A spot away from danger, away from pressure. It’s the worst feeling in the world. Blind panic!

So now I’m having flashbacks, panic attacks, and mood swings and I can’t control my emotions. Does anyone dare to guess what’s wrong with me? Because I still didn’t know. I just worried I was doing something wrong or didn’t do something which i should have. My first thought was always that I was the problem. I unscrewed my screw and I need to fix this.

Have you ever experienced something similar? If you want to support me, please join me on my Facebook channel, or leave a comment below. If you just want to talk, feel free to use the contact form and I’ll get back to you asap.

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Crazy Kevin

I started going crazy and decided to write about it!
For about 10 years I have been a police officer, where I have seen humanity’s worst and best. During my work I encountered some things no human being should ever have to see and it has shaped me to be who i am today. I do my job proudly, but no-one could have prepared me for this rollercoaster of a ride to which it led me. Read all about my journey “Going Crazy” in this blog.

www.goingcrazy.eu

Where My Crazy Started

Crazy Kevin — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 06:06:08 +0000

When you’re at work you don’t want to appear weak. You don’t want to get the feeling everyone sees you as a victim. But that’s what happened to me. I broke down in the middle of the police station.

I broke down in front of colleagues, I broke down in front of superiors and I just broke down without knowing why. And that feeling is something so helpless so wrong when you’re expected to be strong. When you need yourself to be strong.

The day started like any other. I got on my motorcycle to go to work. Changed to my uniform and attended the morning briefing. My colleagues and friends later told me they wondered why I was so quiet. I had some errands to run and visited my old precinct. The usual meaningless: “Hi how are you?” and the even less meaningful: “Good good, how about you?” happened a lot. But then something happened I was not expecting.

My former superior came up to me and asked: “How are you?” I once again gave the meaningless reply. But then he placed his hand on my shoulder and said: “But how are you really though?” And that’s when I broke down. I broke down visibly, I broke down mentally and we just went to a separate room and started talking. Really talking. This was all but the start though. Even I didn’t know how deep the rabbit hole went. Follow me on my journey of “Going Crazy”. Want to know a bit more before you continue, look at my About page.

Crazy is an understatement!

Breaking down at work, not knowing why, and then going home and explaining what happened when you don’t even know what’s going on. After the initial shock things became so much worse…..

After the breakdown, I tried going home, but first I had to go to my own precinct. And hope I don’t have another breakdown when I get there. No such luck, before I had a chance to take off my uniform, my colleagues obviously saw something was wrong. And even though they were very nice, every time someone asked me: “Is everything alright?” I cracked some more. I still do to this day. I had several more breakdowns before i was able to get on my motorcycle. The first thing that went through my head was: finally peace and quiet, maybe that’s all I need and everything will be alright. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

While riding I had my first flashback, it struck me like a brick in the head. (And yes I do regrettably know what that’s like) I started crying like a toddler before I even hit the freeway. Without going into too much detail. The flashback I saw was of a suïcide where I was one of the first officers on the scene. This young man of about 30-40 years old had hung himself in his own home with his belt.

Out of the blue, this image from several years ago popped in my head and repeated itself over and over. Why? That’s what I was thinking, why now, why like this, why this out of all the incidents I experienced. What overcame me was profound sadness that someone could be driven that far to take ones own life.

While driving I managed to clear my head a bit. But as soon as my head cleared, I discovered I was speeding like crazy. While wondering what the hell was wrong with me I managed to get home. That’s when the crazy really hit me…

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Crazy Kevin

www.goingcrazy.eu

I Remember, I Remember When I Lost My Mind

Crazy Kevin — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 18:25:09 +0000

Going home was all a blur. I came home way too early. My wife was there and thought I had taken the rest of the day off. Not knowing she would be seeing a lot more of me from then on…

First of all, telling my wife was very hard. How do you explain to someone who has never seen such sorrow, what it is, that you keep seeing? How do you tell someone you love so deeply, the stuff nightmares are made out of?

So without going into details, even with the one, I share everything with, just because I didn’t want her to feel the same, to feel that agony. I tried telling her what happened. I told her about the breakdown at work, I told her about my emotions, and I told her about the flashbacks. I just never went into the severity of it all. I think mostly because I didn’t want to be seen as a victim and I didn’t want to burden her with all that baggage.

Since I’ve been small I had to do a lot on my own. I took care of myself and my sister when no one else did. I didn’t think anything was wrong with that. But that made me into a very stubborn man. I always feel I have to soldier on and keep on going even when it hurts. Do everything myself and keep everything to myself. Breaking down like this was so out of character for me, that I began questioning myself. What did I do wrong? How to fix this. Not knowing it would only get worse…

The next day the flashbacks hit me like a brick again. This time they got gradually worse. I was just sitting at home. The kids were playing around and screaming as kids do. It triggered a flashback from another suicide. In this case, it was an even older incident where a driver committed suicide by ramming his car into a truck, both of them going around 80-100km an hour.

Me fresh out of the academy, one of the first on the scene. Let me paint this scene for you. A big truck with tons of damage on the front. Several people standing next to it with faces full of shock. A small car flipped upside down next to the road. I saw this car still had someone stuck upside down on the driver’s seat. Obviously, this person needed my help.

When I got to the car, there was someone talking to the driver through the driverside window. I heard him shouting, this man just passed out. I climbed in through the passenger side and felt his heartbeat. There was none! We tried pulling the man out, but he was stuck underneath the dashboard. That’s when I started doing CPR. Anyone familiar with CPR knows how difficult it is to do it right. Try doing it upside down in a car with just one hand because you can’t reach it. Long story short. We were unable to save the driver.

Do you know the worst thing about this? It felt like I was there again. Right beside the driver, giving him CPR I knew wouldn’t work, but I was trying anyway. The emotional rollercoaster got so bad that I had tears streaming down my face and I didn’t know why…

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Crazy Kevin