Breach Your Mind
Explore life's depths and unlock the secrets of mental well-being on "Breach Your Mind." Join us as we navigate the intricacies of the human experience, offering insights, inspiration, and practical strategies for a fulfilling life. Get ready to breach the barriers of conventional thinking, embrace self-discovery, and nurture your mental health. Let's embark on a transformative journey together. Welcome to Breach Your Mind.
Breach Your Mind
The Silent Struggle: A Journey Through Death and Healing
In this raw and revealing conversation, we meet Jennifer—a seasoned death investigator who spent 20 years grappling with some of life’s darkest moments. Day after day, she witnessed tragedy up close: child homicides, brutal crime scenes, and the unimaginable weight that comes with regularly facing mortality. Over time, these compounded stresses pushed her to the edge, leading her to multiple suicide attempts.
Now, for the first time, Jennifer opens up about the toll her profession took on her mental health, why she felt she couldn’t ask for help, and the turning point that led her to choose life. She highlights an often-overlooked aspect of first responders’ experiences: the emotional burdens they carry long after the shift ends. Her story is one of resilience, hope, and the power of speaking out. Whether you’re in public safety, know someone who is, or want to understand the unseen battles others face, this episode offers a poignant reminder that, even in the darkest moments, it’s possible to find a path forward.
Team 1, stand by. Copy. Team 1, standing by Breach, breach, breach. Hey guys, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1:So today is actually a pretty special episode because what we've got in store is one of your own. What we've got in store is one of your own, if you all remember, a little while back I put out a call to action, because it's hard to just give my side of stories and things like that and y'all be able to associate with what I'm saying. So what we did was put out that call to action and I got a lot of responses. A lot of you went out and messaged me and were telling me brief portions of your story and things like that, but for one reason or another, we were never able to connect.
Speaker 1:Well, the guest that we have on the show today was just like that. She saw the call to action and unfortunately, at that moment she wasn't ready to reach out. And now she is. So she found the courage within herself and decided to open herself up to the world so that she could share her story in hopes of getting other people to realize that it's okay, everything's going to be okay, you can be okay. So, with 20 years working in some aspect of public safety and going through her own story. I won't sit here and go much further into that, and I will let her do that for herself. So, without further ado, everybody meet Jennifer.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, my name is Jennifer. This is the first time I've ever done a podcast. I saw Breach on TikTok and reached out and it did take me a little bit to finally send that email to do this. I call myself a death investigator, but we're medical legal death investigators, coroner, deputy coroners, medical specialists, medical examiner specialists we get called by all different names but we are the last of the first responders and also pardon my snoring dogs if you hear that in the background, but I worked in the death investigation field from 2001 until 2022. And I've worked from Boston to ended in Colorado, Ended in Colorado and I've worked all over the.
Speaker 2:United States working in different systems, between the coroner system and the medical examiner system, working with different agencies, different systems. So I do have I don't know, I don't know what information to give you. Um, I got two, uh, bachelor's degrees. Then I went into the criminology field and I did an internship in Florida and we had like five homicides in a week and the medical examiner investigator came in and I was doing an internship with the crime scene technicians and with the police department and we were there for hours just like vacuuming square inches and putting it into evidence, little evidence envelopes, and you know you can't go to the bathroom and there's just so much. So the medical examiner investigator came in and we showed her the luminol and we showed her all the cool stuff that we found and she looked at the body and took the decedent and that was when I decided that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:And so then I went and finished my internship and got my second bachelor's degree and then went and got my master's degree in forensic science. And back in 1999, there were actually only two universities that had forensic science degrees for a master's. So it was John Jay in national in New York and a national Jewish in San Diego. So that's where I went in San Diego, and and then my first job was in Boston. Right.
Speaker 2:And I was a forensic tech doing autopsies. So that's what I did first doing autopsies. So that's what I did first and I did autopsies. I was actually in Boston when I heard about 9-11. And so that was my first. That was my first, you know, learning about mass disasters and all of that there.
Speaker 2:And you know, being around a lot of law enforcement and 9-11 all at the same time was just mind blowing, because there is a World Trade Center in Boston. So initially I thought that's what they were talking about. I mean, it was just you know a lot going on. It was just you know a lot going on. And we actually had EMTs that were we were, we were training them on autopsies at that time and we were down in the autopsy suite and we really weren't getting a lot of information about what was happening, and so it was a lot um, well, before you really jump into much more of that, let's uh, you know, one of the big things that that I like to talk about, um, and I think gets ignored a lot, is a person's resiliency.
Speaker 1:You know, their ability to use resilience to get through things. And what people often forget about is that resilience isn't something that just happens to you. It's not something that happens to you in a moment. That your resiliency is something that you build throughout your entire life. Every moment, every situation, everything you go through in life helps build your resilience and how you deal with situations moving forward.
Speaker 1:And what I want to do real quick is I want us to get a feeling or a sense of who Jennifer is, who you are, and by that I mean let's take a couple of steps back and let's go back to, if you're okay with it, let's go back to you know childhood. Where'd you grow up? What kind of life did you have? Some experiences that you went through or you know, and they don't have to be traumatic. You know just anything in general. But let's get the backstory on who you are and work forward so that we can show, because, obviously, working in death investigations, being a coroner or medical examiner.
Speaker 1:You know that's not something for everybody. Me particular, I'm not a big fan of working that aspect. So even though I've done the job for 19 years, it's still an area I'm not comfortable in. So I have a lot of respect for people that do. But my upbringing and everything has brought me to where I am. So I want to take a couple of steps back to see where Jennifer come from, how you came up in life, to where you got to the point where you were able to experience that first crime scene and decide you know what. This is where I want to go, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of a lot too. So I'm actually. I was born in Key West Florida. I'm a twin. I was born seven minutes after my twin sister, wendy, and we grew up in Florida. I was born actually very sick and by the time I was nine months old they had flown a specialist in and I was diagnosed with asthma, which in 1976, they didn't diagnose children with asthma. So this doctor said that she would take care of me if my family moved to where she was from. So we did, we moved to Sarasota, florida, and she took care of me and she fought, she fought for me. She was pretty certain that I had cystic fibrosis and so she.
Speaker 2:I was in and out of the hospital. I pretty much I pretty much say that I grew up in the hospital. If I wasn't sick, I was getting sick. So I would, I would. I would be a normal kid for a little while and then I would get sick, and then I would go in the hospital and I would get on very high doses of prednisone, which is a steroid, and antibiotics and I would get better, and then I would go back out and be a regular kid for a couple weeks and then I would get sick again and then go back in the hospital. So I had a pretty hard childhood with that, but my parents tried to give me the best childhood they could, given that I was pretty sick. So being resilient wasn't something that I had a choice with. It was pretty much what I had to do.
Speaker 1:So did they ever tell you what it was that was causing you to get so sick, or was it just like an autoimmune thing?
Speaker 2:It took 28 years for them to finally figure. It took 28 years for a for a doctor to finally say I'm going to try to figure it out. Um, they actually flew me to national Jewish when I was about 19. Um, and they too still couldn't figure it out. Uh, but they did finally figure it out when I was about 28. And it was an immune deficiency. It's called common variable immune deficiency. And when they started treating me appropriately, it was like a light switch and I didn't get sick with pneumonia as much as I was, because that's what was. That was what I would get pneumonia and that would trigger my asthma and then the asthma would get worse. So once the asthma was better, once the pneumonia was under control and I wasn't getting sick, then it was better. But then the autoimmune the autoimmune started taking over because the the immune, it was just a very, a very big snowball effect.
Speaker 2:So then I started developing autoimmune diseases, so yeah, and that took 28 years for them to get to that point.
Speaker 2:Yes. So it took 28 years for them to finally figure out and and and. In the interim I was on very, very high doses of steroids, um, which causes a lot of um problems in and of itself, which they didn't really understand until many years later. So, um, so you have to add all of the all of the illnesses and you know, basically, as a child, every day waking up could have been the day that the asthma was going to kill me. So I was fighting death daily, um, you know, learning to breathe without wheezing or having people hear me wheeze, because that's very annoying to people after a while is, you know, you have to learn to kind of, you know, deal with that kind of stuff. So it was, it was, it was hard, but my parents tried to do the best they could and give me the best life that they could, as normal as possible with what I was going through. And so going to college was on my radar. You know, I was like if I'm going to live, I better do something with my life, you know, and even the doctors said you know like you can go on disability. You know like you can go on disability, but I'm like I'm not doing that you know.
Speaker 2:I knew I was a pretty smart person. I wanted to be a doctor. I knew the medical field. Um, you know specifically lungs. I've had a pretty good idea about the lungs. But I saw one time I don't know how old you are, but I saw Rescue 911 when I was a kid. I don't know if you remember that show. I remember it.
Speaker 2:The one guy was stabbed in the chest by his girlfriend and when he was being put in the ambulance the knife was pulsating with his heartbeat. And. I went in the bathroom and threw up and my dad was like you're never going to be a doctor. So you know I was like, well, okay, but I know I probably could have done it, you know, given what I've done in my life now. But the student loans are a little bit crazy.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad I didn't do that so anyways, being resilient was pretty, it was, you know, was definitely something I had to do and I was always interested in, you know, the putting the puzzle together and you know the crime scenes when I was doing the um, when I was going to the crime scenes with the crime scene techs and, you know, walking in.
Speaker 2:I remember my first, you know one of my first scenes in Boston and when I was working in Boston they didn't have like death investigators, the police did all of the death scene investigations. We were kind of just the transporters and the autopsy techs. But I remember walking in one of the first scenes and somebody was hogtied with and I don't know how detailed I can be, you'll have to cut me off if I get too detailed but I remember walking down the stairs into the basement thinking this is a movie, like I had to. I had to take a deep breath and realize that this is real, this is somebody's you know husband, that's you know been killed. And and is this really what I'm going to be doing?
Speaker 1:with my life. You know, like so, how old were you when you, when you got experienced that and when you were in Boston?
Speaker 2:Um, let's see Um early, early to mid-20s. It was around 2001, so I would have been 24, somewhere around there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so sufficient to say that up until that point you hadn't really done anything that you know kind of prepared you to walk in and see something like that.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean I had, I mean I'd already gotten my master's degree and we were doing you know, I, when I was doing my master's. We were, we were learning from adjunct professors. It wasn't a normal university where, you know, we were going during the day. We were learning from people like you and you and I that were still in the field. And so we were seeing real photos of actual scenes that they were doing.
Speaker 1:So seeing the pictures and then seeing it firsthand, was there a difference?
Speaker 2:in the feel for it. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. And then the undergrad. I did see it in person because I did go to autopsies and I did the few homicides that we did. I did the the few homicides that we did on but but, but the brutality of that scene at that age in Boston was something that I had and there was so much of it, like the amount of brutality, like I can't even I I'm thinking of probably 10 scenes in that first year that were just unimaginable at that age you know.
Speaker 1:So when you started college I know you said you wanted to be a doctor. So when you started college, did you go into college thinking I want to be a doctor and that's what I'm going? Or did you want to be a doctor and then start college thinking that I want to go into something to do with criminology and the I'll say public safety, but more or less the public safety field?
Speaker 2:I never went. When I went to college, I knew I was not going to be a doctor. Okay, I intended to go into the FBI to be a forensic psychologist, like the FBI profiling. This was back in like 94, 95, when none of this was on TV, none of this was known. But that's what I wanted to do and I had a college I don't remember what they're called.
Speaker 2:But you'd like the career people and they're like you can't just go to the FBI out of college, you have to, like have a career. And you know, you can't just walk into the FBI and say I want to do this and so what are you going to do in the interim? And I'm like I don't know. So that's how. So that's when I was like, well, I'll do, maybe I'll do the evidence tech. And then I did the undergrad evidence tech ride along. So I'm like, oh my God, this is really tedious and you're not really putting puzzle pieces together Really. You're just collecting anything you can find and I'm not putting them down at all. Their job is absolutely 100% needed and I I just it wasn't for me, you know, um, so so I.
Speaker 2:So I went to do something in the criminology field from day one.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, so you did the, would you say it would be more like a coroner aspect of it that you did first, or a medical examiner aspect of it.
Speaker 2:In college or when I first went into the field.
Speaker 1:When you finally got done and went into the field and started working.
Speaker 2:I was in the medical examiner system first. Yeah, so you know, the country is split up into medical examiner, coroner system, and then there's a few states that still have both. That's what I was going to say is here we work.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously in my area we're in southeast Georgia, the coroner, and the coroner shows up and then he winds up photographing and basically trying to investigate anything himself. And then he will get in contact with the state medical examiner's office, which is run by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations here. He will get on the phone with them and let them know what he's got and then they'll make a determination on whether or not, yes, we're going to do an autopsy, no, we're not going to do an autopsy. And if it's, you know, if it's yes, then you know it's his responsibility to collect this evidence, put it in the bag and properly tag the bag so that it can go to the examiner's office. Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So you must have a mixed system. If you have both a medical examiner and a coroner person that you're dealing with, you have a mixed system, but most states have one or the other.
Speaker 1:Our coroner. I don't know exactly how many areas he covers he's got a few deputy coroners as well but he is the one that responds to the scene with us on any kind of incident like that, and then the decision is made at that point whether or not to send them to the medical examiner's office or send them straight to the funeral home and bypass all of the other stuff. At least that's how it works here. So I was curious how it was when you were in the funeral home and bypass all of the other stuff. So at least that's how it works here.
Speaker 2:So I was curious how it was when you were in the field. It depends on the system, and this is something that needs to be discussed nationally because it's a broken system. But you and I aren't going to change that system, um, in one conversation. But, um, it really depends on the rural. You know how big the area is, um, is it cause, you know, like in New Mexico, it's state but then there's, you know, so most all autopsies go to Albuquerque, but they have depth, you know it. It it's run differently everywhere. So, um, some places have a core, one corner per County, and then some have, um, one medical examiner for 40 counties and then they all go to one. So it's broken.
Speaker 1:All right so, but you've done both aspects of what you were saying, or you just stuck mainly or primarily to the medical examiner side of it or primarily to the medical examiner side of it.
Speaker 2:I did mostly medical examiner. The coroner system was the last one that I worked at and so and let me just explain to people who may not know the difference the coroner is elected by the people, so coroners are elected predominantly. You can have an appointed coroner, but usually coroners are elected Medical examiners. They have to be physicians, they have to be doctors and forensic pathologists, so they have to not only be a doctor but also be a forensic pathologist and have gone through that specialized training. A coroner can be anybody. They can be you or me or you know some lay person off the street that is elected by the people for that county. They could have no experience whatsoever in the field.
Speaker 2:Medical examiners obviously have, you know, experience in the field, but they may not have death investigator experience. So then the medical examiners hire death investigators to do the scene investigations and to help make determinations. Like the death investigators are the eyes and ears for the medical examiners on scene. Are, you know, at the autopsy? Okay, so that's just kind of kind of a really quick and dirty explanation for the difference between the two systems.
Speaker 1:All right. And you said you did that for 20 years. And you said you ended Ended up in Colorado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so. I ended up in Colorado in September of 2016. And in October of 22, I attempted suicide on after work one night, and that was my last night in the field.
Speaker 1:So you were in Colorado when that happened. So you were in Colorado when that happened.
Speaker 2:What would you say was leading up to that? Well, I really didn't realize what was happening. I was always know PTSD was for veterans and military personnel. I have, over the years, seen therapists when I would go through what I would call a breakdown and then, you know, I'd get better, and then I would go through periods where I would attempt suicide after work. I would either stop in the process or, you know, just realize that really don't have a lot of support.
Speaker 2:I know over the last few years there's been people put in place to you know that you can go to and HR, but there there isn't anyone. Like you, you can't go to your manager and say I had trouble with this baby death, um, or the stress of the and it's not all about the death. Like, I knew what I was getting into when I went into death investigations, when I started doing more and more baby deaths, when I started, you know, um, teaching, uh, teaching investigators how to investigate child homicides. I took a special interest in that because when I did I didn't have any children and other people did, and so I didn't realize that that was easier for me to do it, because they couldn't do them, because it was hard. They were seeing their own children and these and these babies, and so I didn't know that, because I didn't have children anyways. Um, but then when I had my child, then you can't like they're, they're, they're wearing the same outfit that your child had, and now you can't even see your child in that outfit ever again. You don't notice that. You don't notice that your hurry and hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry mentality and everything is an emergency mentality, bleeding over into your personal life. I never noticed that happening, that I was trying to get 50 things done at a time, because that's what I have to do at work, and then I'm doing it at home and I walk in after an 18-hour shift of five suicides and a baby death and the dishes aren't done and my kid's still awake and she should have been in bed, and you know, and now I have to be a mom and a maid and and a wife and I, I just, it was so much and I didn't know that all of this was just accumulating and accumulating and and we don't talk about our cases Um, it's just, it's just another, another day, it's just another Tuesday. Um, we don't talk about you.
Speaker 2:Know you and I talked earlier about you know you're used to your schedule change, but what it does to your body, you don't know what night shift does to your body. Um, working, what working? You know 12, 15, 18 hour shifts. You know, being a single mother in this kind of field, you can't just call the babysitter. When you have a call, come in five minutes before you're supposed to get off. And you're like you have a call, come in five minutes before you're supposed to get off and you're like I don't, I'll be home in six hours. You know the your babysitter isn't going to be like oh okay, no problem, it just doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:And so then your stress level, even if you have a significant other, that it still is upsetting for them that now you're late again. Or you know you're coming home and and you've had a bad day, and they did too, but you don't care because it just it's just. You know more and more and more and it bleeds over and you're not talking about it. And then everything at work has to be done and they care so much about the overtime and you, you, everything has to be perfect and everything has to be done without overtime.
Speaker 2:And then now let's add in the fact that you're dealing. You know you're dealing with families that this is the worst day of their life and you have to go tell them that their family member just died and guess who they're going to take it out on? You know and and I I believe in you know a higher power, and when I'm driving, all I'm doing is praying. Please let me do this. Please let me tell them the best way that I can, so that the you know the to make it even the the easiest I can on them. But it's still hard, you know, it's still they. I've been, I've I've been close to being assaulted. I don't know how many times I've seen coworkers assaulted. You know, I mean, it's looking back.
Speaker 1:you don't carry guns right, I wouldn't shoot anyone if I did, but you know, looking back through your career, looking back through um, I would, I would think I would assume I should say that you know, through working through everything that you've gone through and and talking with with your support team, now that you know you've had time to reflect back over your life, your career and think about when things started to go a different direction, when you started to go downhill with the insurmountable weight that is placed on you because of the expectations, not only in your professional career but in your personal life. When you think back over that time and when you think back to when things started to go downhill, what would? Did you have any coping mechanisms? What? What were your coping mechanisms? Coping mechanisms good or bad? If you can recall them?
Speaker 2:Smoking, smoking cigarettes, for sure, cigarettes, for sure.
Speaker 2:Um, um, there were drinking, although I I wasn't, I didn't drink all the time, but binge drinking for sure.
Speaker 2:Um, I have a very, um, very strong compass, which I think you know, I think we all do, but sometimes it would get out of it, would get out of whack, and I'm not going to go into that Um, but you know, I would, I would, and I and I have a significant other, but I would have. I was calling my mom on the way to work and on the way home because I was so it was like the only pressure valve that I had left, like I would have to call her because I was so afraid of what was going to happen at work, like was I going to get in trouble because I had overtime? You know what's going to happen. And then I would have to call her on the way home to kind of vent about everything that happened, and so I wasn't taking it out on my family. I was starting to notice that my personality would change when the pager would go off and that means that there was another death.
Speaker 2:So our pager would go off to alert us that there was another death, and that would even happen when I wasn't on call. So my pager was like an iPhone. So when someone had the same alert in Walmart, I would start having the same reaction and my personality would change. I would start becoming very angry and it was because I knew I suddenly had so much responsibility and no time to do it and I wasn't even at work anymore, you know at that point, so that was starting to happen, and that's when I should have known that I wasn't able to handle it anymore.
Speaker 2:And even my bosses, after the fact, they were like, well, we knew that you were stressed, we just thought you could handle it, like you know, like I've I've always handled it. So, um, they never even talked to me, they never even said hey, we, we, we noticed this, but one one lady did pull me aside, one of my coworkers, and she's like you're. You know, this is happening every time the pager goes off. You get, you, you're starting to act, mean, and that was very close to the last, my last day.
Speaker 2:But I think that that, and I, and I wrote in the email to you that I noticed that there's, you know, after about 10 years, people are either divorced or alcoholics. You know, and I'm not a big drinker because it has run in my family and I've seen. I don't drink because of experiences I've seen with myself, even in college. So I know that that's not I cannot go down that road, um, but you know, it could be anything. It could be running Like I was running. I would wake up at two in the morning too, and I didn't have to be to work till six, but I would wake up at two in the morning and run, you know, 35 miles a week because just trying trying to, you know, to do something, to to get help myself you know, find an outlet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if I gain weight I'd lose weight, I, whatever it was just trying to to to get through what was going on and I never, not one person ever, thought it was you know my day, it was my job, you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And and we work long hours and then we're you know, we're switching every three months, switching to another time and then switching sides of the week. And then you know that is just not good for your body and and I realized that it has to be done. No one, you know, someone's got to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the coping mechanisms, I think um I should have paid a little bit more attention to um well, I think everybody kind of gets lost in the weeds whenever those things are happening.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I've ever talked with anybody that was in the middle of a crisis that you know was able to say, well, I saw this coming because I knew that. You know, I had started drinking more, or I knew that I'd started doing X, y or Z more drinking more, or I knew that I'd started doing X, y or Z more. You know, it's that old the whole forest for the trees kind of thing. And it really does become difficult to see when you're on the downside of that slope and you're starting to get on to the point where you start to spiral. When you're in the middle of it it's hard to see that. And then you add on to that that when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to see a point where there's an out, to, where you don't have to feel like that anymore.
Speaker 1:And you know you mentioned calling your mom and having a significant other and having kids, and then we talked about the coping mechanisms. What was your support structure? You know, obviously you had coworkers. You at least had one coworker that you know was bringing it to your mind to. You know, at least try to bring some kind of consciousness to it. But what was your, aside from being able to call and talk with your mom, what was your support structure like, aside from being able to call and talk with your mom, what was your support structure like when you were, when you were really starting to get into this, and and it had to be pointed out to you.
Speaker 2:What was it like then? So the support structure at work was, was not good. So I was working graves at the time and I was. I was at the point that I was I'm trying not to, I'm trying not to put the work, my workplace, down too, badly, but well, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 1:It's a cultural thing in our field, whether it's working, your aspect of it, working the law enforcement, fire, ems it's something that I've noticed in, you know, the 19 years that I've done it. It's a cultural thing. Everybody's tough, Everybody, you know, can handle everything that comes at them and, you know, not flinch. And it's because we're expected to be those individuals that this doesn't phase. We're expected to be, you know, 10 foot tall and bulletproof, and because we have that perception that people, you know, think that we are that way, then we have to now start acting that way, and often enough, it causes us to be blind to seeing the signs of a coworker that is starting to go downhill, or a coworker that is starting to lose a grip and instead of reaching out, going. And instead of reaching out going hey, you need a chance to talk, you know it's. Hey, you good, all right, you got another call, you know. So it's a cultural thing and that's one of the biggest things of what we're trying to do and why I'm so glad that you reached out is it's a cultural thing that we're trying to shift. It's something, and it's not just in our line of work and public safety in general, it's for everyone it's everyone in the mental health space of things to change and get to realize that, at the end of the day, we're all just humans. We're all just people. We all feel and experience things the same way. It's just how we manage them and how we deal with them that's different. And that's what that's.
Speaker 1:What this is all about is trying to to do just that, to to make that cultural shift, to get away from the macho machismo kind of oh nothing can hurt me kind of thing and hurt me kind of thing. So you know, it's not putting your workplace down, it's not putting your co-workers down, it's just a cultural truth. You know we say it all the time that facts don't care about feelings. And it's a fact. It's a fact that it's a cultural issue on why these things aren't picked up, why these things aren't seen, why help isn't offered. And it's not to demean anybody or to demean a workplace, because it's just simply that it's a fact.
Speaker 1:And until we can get that cultural shift, until we can get everybody to realize that, look, you know we're all just people. You know we're going to fight against that. And if somebody does get upset about it, oh, you're talking bad about the job. You're talking about the people. You know we're going to fight against that. And if somebody does get upset about it, oh, you're talking bad about the job. You're talking about the people. They don't understand it. They don't understand it and they're not ready to understand it, because if they were, they take the time to listen. So feel free to express it however you need to. Okay.
Speaker 2:So it it was to the point that I would stay late. My boss didn't come in until about nine in the morning and I was on graves. I would have to stay late in order for me to see her face and her energy, so that I would know whether or not I was okay in her eyes. The stress my stress level was so was so much that I was afraid that I was, that I was going to be in trouble or be fired, like I just had no clue where I stood because I was in so much fear, and I think that was a lot of of the mental illness. At that point I was just grounding in in fear and panic, because that's kind of the way that that, that they, that that the office was run and um, so and there's a lot of money is more important than well-being. So we don't stay late to talk to coworkers about how we're dealing with cases, because that's money case if it's not, if it's not about, like, asking a question logistically. You know I'm having trouble with this case, jen, because this reminds me of my mom or something like that. That's, that's not acceptable. Um, so I did have a friend. Um, I had a couple of friends, very good friends, that were my coworkers, but I was one of the senior investigators. Well, I was. I had my boss, and then it was me, and so a lot of the investigators I trained well most of them and they came to me and so I tried to give them the emotional support that they needed, whether I was getting paid for it or not. So I tried to be the buffer to my superior for them. So I stayed as long as I could to try to be that support that they needed, because a lot of them were so much younger than me and had such less experience in the field and I didn't want them exposed to that kind of machismo.
Speaker 2:This is what you asked for, this is what you signed up for. What the fuck? What the fuck did you expect you were getting? And you know I'm cursing, because that's what we are, that's what we do. This is what you asked for. You know, don't come to me and tell me that this bothers you.
Speaker 2:You know I'm sorry that that guy looks identical to your dad that just died two days ago. But go to work. This was. You know. This is what I'm, this is what we deal with, and I'm being absolutely honest with you. You know, I went to. I went to work a week after and this guy is laying on the floor and he's identical to my dad and I'm training a new investigator and luckily, that investigator became a friend of mine and I went to him and I said I need to walk away for a minute. Just, you know, just help these people. And I went and walked away and I did what I needed to do and I never cry I mean, I've dug my fingernails into my hand so that I didn't cry before on a scene and I walked away and I came back and then we talked later and I was like I'm sorry, I had to just deal with that. This is what happened, you know, this is you know, and then. You know, this is you know, and then. But that is what, and I'm glad that's why I answered your email, because that's what we need to do.
Speaker 2:If there was more compassion to an investigator, we wouldn't have all of these stressed out, mean investigators, cold hearted, drunk people. You know we would. We would want to work long hours to help families to, you know, to to deal with these. We would be more available to help families if we were more available to help each other, but we're not given time to help each other, because that's what you signed up for. You know, I I stayed late one day because this one, this very young investigator, got a just brutal, brutal child homicide and I could see it all over her, and so I stayed late because she was supposed to stay late to help with the autopsy and I stayed late just to stay with her.
Speaker 2:I didn't stay late to be, I wanted to be there for her, and whether she knew that or not, I will never know, but that's what we need in every single office is someone that is there for the investigator. But here's another aspect of part of what I'm learning as a death investigator, trying to get help with my mental illness from being a death investigator is that I traumatize. I traumatize therapists by telling my trauma, you know, and I've heard it called trauma dumping and and that you know I'm like I'm not trying to trauma dump, but, um, how do I not traumatize other people by by getting help? Right, yeah, but who better to help a death investigator than someone who has been there? So, and also, who better to help someone who is, who has been suicidal, than someone who has been suicidal?
Speaker 1:yeah, so you know, people, people often forget that. You know our, our field is a subculture of society. You know they, they, they often you know oh well, you only talk to yourselves, you've got dark sense of humor, you do this, you do that and they forget that. You know it's its own subculture in and of itself. And it's that way because not everybody can handle what we see, not everybody can handle what we do, and that's okay. Not everybody should have to be able to handle these things. But they forget that it's a subculture in and of itself. And then we forget, once we're in that subculture, we forget that we are just people, people, and you know it's. I don't know, you know I don't know how it is anywhere else. I know how it is here.
Speaker 1:There's, like you said in the email, you know there's not, there's not a great deal of specialized resources. Obviously there's. There's a plethora of resources in general to help with mental health and things like that, and they're all a starting place. But until we can get individuals who are more specialized in dealing with things like that, you know it's going to be difficult. You know, at least off the top of my mind, and I've been out of the field of study for quite some time now. But in my understanding you know about as close as we're going to get to having some form of therapeutic counseling and things like that.
Speaker 1:It's going to be to reach out to the same individuals that are doing the counseling for our military vets who are coming back from these combat zones and seeing these things. But even then, you know it's said that that's not enough for them. So until we're at a point where we can get these specialized individuals that are used to and accustomed to hearing these types of stories, you know it's going to, it's going to largely rely on those of us that are in the job to be able to sit there and help each other out. You know I receive phone calls and or I receive phone calls and or other communications, whether it's a text message or what have you. I receive them from individuals that I work with that you know need to reach out. So it gets. It gets to the point where you know at least they've got somebody.
Speaker 2:So, and that's what I, I, I just learned that one of my you know I don't, I haven't worked since October of 22, but I still communicate with some people in the field and you know there are people that are in the field for three years that are starting to have PTSD symptoms and you know they're telling me thank you, because if you weren't so open with what you went through and what you're going through, then we wouldn't have known that this is what this is what we're going through.
Speaker 2:And, um, you know, I, I found out that one of my friends went to a scene and the guy was still alive and I, you know that was one of my biggest fears on scene is that happening? And nothing was ever done. And I'm like, please, somebody like care about the investing. Like I just want to scream it from the rooftops that that we need help, that we can't just, we can't just wait until we're we're killing ourselves, like you know so when I saw your video I thought, man, this is perfect because I, I this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I think that it's going to. It's going to end up being my calling is being somebody that can help other people that are in this field. You know, I can't lift bodies anymore. My body is broken from all the odd. You know I have a lot of autoimmune diseases that I'm fighting and I can't. My brain just can't do it anymore physically. But there's a lot of people that need, that need help, that are still struggling and seeing this stuff every day and and there's nobody that even recognizes that they're struggling.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah so, um, you had said that you came home after work and you had an attempt, and that you had also said that, that I'm assuming that that, from what I'm understanding what you're saying, that wasn't your first one, that that you had attempted several times, or at least a couple more times prior to that and, you know, didn't go through with it. In in all, if you're okay with it and you can, you can tell me you don't want to discuss it. That's fine. How many times would you say that you attempted it before you actually went through, you know, trying to get to that end?
Speaker 2:Dozens, and I don't have a gun Right, so that's probably a lucky, that's probably luck, um, and? And I'm a death investigator. So I, I, you know, I, I, I, I don't know really how the word is that I'm trying to.
Speaker 3:I wish I knew how to ask for help, and I wish I knew that it was okay to ask for help, and I wish I knew that it was okay to ask for help. And I wish I knew that it would have been okay to call in and say I can't come to work because I'd rather die, and for someone to say, come in and let me help you.
Speaker 1:But it wasn't and it still isn't. I think we'll get there. Sadly, it takes moments like those and moments like these to help get to that point. Here in our state we've got what's called peer support counseling.
Speaker 1:now and actually actually, next month I was selected to go to one of the peer support counseling courses. So next month I'll be. I'll be going to a peer support counseling course that will get me a certification as a counselor in that regard, and what they do a lot of is offer what they call debriefs and in those debriefs is you know, they invite everybody that was involved in a traumatic incident, whether it was a homicide, whether it was a car crash, whatever the case may have been, any situation or incident that they deem as a trauma incident. They put together one of these debriefs. One of the peer support counselors comes in and everybody that was involved or that knew about it, whatever the case was, they show up and then they have a process that they go through to help work through that scene, help work through that incident, and it gives everybody a chance to see you know that they aren't the only ones that felt something about that particular case In specific, and the reason why I know you know as much as I do about it is because I sat through at least one of those debriefs and it involved the death of a small child.
Speaker 1:It was an unintentional death, it was a traumatic death for her, but in that situation it was one of those ones that you know, while we're in the middle of the scene trying to, you know, secure scenes and and try to save a life and doing everything that we can, um, you know, you don't think about a lot of stuff, you're just going through and doing the job. You're solving one problem after the next, and it wasn't until afterwards where, you know, we're waiting on a search warrant to get there so that the investigators can do their job and we're holding the crime scene at this point and I'm sitting there and I look down at my hands and I'm notorious. I'm really, really bad about remembering to put gloves on and in this situation, especially involving this child, you know, it's another one of those ones where I didn't think about putting gloves on. I just went to work, but I'm sitting in my car and I looked at my hands and I noticed that my hands were red and my brain told me that the reason why my hands are red is because I was working on this small child, trying to help save her life, and I've got her blood on my hands, so I got some water and some cleaner and I washed my hands. When I look back at my hands and it was still there. It wasn't going anywhere. So I'm getting more stuff, more water. I'm just doing everything I can and it's just not coming off.
Speaker 1:So I start going to investigators. Whether it was a crime scene investigator, whether it was a general crimes investigator that was on scene, I'm going to them. Hey, do y'all have some soap? I need some legitimate soap. I've got this blood on my hands and I need to get it off. Nobody had any. So I'm like you know what? I got a case of water in there. I'm just going to go through every bottle in that case that I can. And I'm sitting there just steadily pouring water on my hands. And I'm sitting there just steadily pouring water on my hands, trying to get the blood off of my hands. And it wasn't until, you know, moments later that I was able to shine the light on my hands and I realized that, you know, there wasn't any blood on my hands, it was just. You know, my hands were red now because I'd been sitting there washing them for 10 minutes, but there was no blood on my hands. It was my mind doing this to me.
Speaker 1:So when they offered up that debrief, I went to the debrief, you know, because obviously that was a moment for me where I'm like, wow, this one, this one affected me and you know it affected others that were on that scene. One of my best friends, my brother, you know he was on that scene. He didn't go to the debrief and he and I talked about it afterwards. He said you know I should have gone, I should have gone, that one broke me up, that one tore me up and I should have gone to that debrief. Of course you know I'm going to give him crap about it. I'm like duh, I told you you should have gone, but you know you were too big to go.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, I think we're going to see that change as it's going to start happening.
Speaker 1:I don't know how long it's going to take to get across the country, but I know at least here in Southeast Georgia, you know they've started that peer support counseling and that's one of the reasons for it is to make sure that you know everybody's on the same page, that we all know that, look, we all experience something and it's OK if it affects us, and then at the same time, it gives us a moment to get that stuff off of our chest and then, in return, not only do we get to see our other co-workers and see that we're not the only ones, but that peer support counselor has resources available for us.
Speaker 1:That way, if it comes to a point, if it comes to a point where you know we can't deal with it anymore, then we have these resources that they provide for us that will allow us to, you know, continue getting that support we need so that we can move through it. Like I said, I think we're going to get there. I don't know how long it's going to take to get across the country, but I think we're going to get there. At least I hope we can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've. I was a suicide interventionist for many years. I trained as a suicide interventionist. I was a crisis interventionist for the San Diego Police Department, so I would go to the crime scenes. I volunteered to do that. Crime scenes I was, I volunteered to do that, so I did a lot of. I did a lot of that.
Speaker 2:And then I I did see a lot of the police departments having debriefings, like you said, but the coroner's office, the medical examiner's office, were never invited to those. So I would I would like you to kind of think about that If, if, you could at least invite them, they probably won't go because and I even said that in some of my TikTok videos like, I know that you guys are going to be the last ones that want me to say that we need to be invited. But because we, we want, we want to be, we want to think that we're strong too, like we, we signed up for this. I don't, I don't need to talk about death, I don't, but we do like, right, they, they, you know. And the place that I worked, they said, well, we had, you know.
Speaker 2:Hr told me well, we have someone that you can talk to. You know, we have someone. You just go over the police department and you can talk to him. Well, they had just implemented him and the last part, the last job that he was was internal affairs and I'm sorry, I'm just not, I don't, I'm not going to go to the internal affairs guy to talk to him about the stress that my boss is putting on me about my my. You know it's like sorry, this is so um, but I would like. I think I've probably investigated somewhere around 10,000 deaths in my career and, um, maybe invited to one debriefing in my career. So, um, one debriefing in my career? So um, they're not, they don't. Death is not invited to the program usually, so I would like to.
Speaker 2:I would like to kind of. I would love to see that opened up to the coroners, but it's not usually.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Debriefings are not usually, and I think that the medical examiners and coroners also believe that they don't need them either. So it's a tough group. We's a we're a tough crowd, but I think you're right. I think that the, I think that it, that mental health is is getting um, is getting its own place in the world, um, you're not gonna there. There's just not going to be um a way to ignore it. You know, for for much longer, because the, the, the atmosphere is, is the environment is only going to get younger and and they're getting louder, you know.
Speaker 2:So us old people I know you're not old, but me old people, we're we're going to be phasing out, and then you're going to have people that are like no, we need help, like you can't treat us like this anymore. We're like you could treat us however you want to treat us, but as people get old, you know the younger people are coming in. They don't, they're not going to let them treat. Treat them like we have, like don't beat us up anymore. Yeah, so I hope that what you're doing, you know bringing light to mental health and first responders like we've, we've fought a good fight, but it, you know, we don't need to be treated like this anymore and we, we should, we should be able to not be okay with what we've done in our.
Speaker 2:You know I jumped into freezing water and saved a drowning child and you know I never told a soul. You know I it doesn't. I don't do it just to to you know, I don't know, I don't know what I'm saying. I just Just to you know, I don't know, I don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I just it's a lot.
Speaker 1:It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot for anybody. And when you look back over the statistics and those of us that work in the profession, we're exponentially higher exposed to these traumatic incidents. You know, fortunately the research is out there now. Fortunately, you know it's starting to be noticed and catch on. So, yeah, you know, hopefully it can get there for everybody. Hopefully we can get that word out, get there for everybody, hopefully we can get that word out.
Speaker 1:And it's moments like this, jennifer, that you know really kind of help move that needle, you know, toward where we need it to be.
Speaker 1:Because you know, with everything you went through, with the dozens of attempts and everything that you still fight and deal with today, you know you saw that little video and were able to find the courage in yourself to come on something.
Speaker 1:And while this podcast may not be very big and it may not have very many listeners, you're still putting it out there and we all know that once something's on the internet, it's there forever. And you found the courage to reach out first and foremost, which is a huge step for anybody that's dealing with any type of traumatic incident, traumatic grief. You know any kind of ideations. That's a huge step for anybody just to reach out alone. A lot of people don't make it to that step. So the fact that you were able to find that courage, reach out and then be so generous and willing to come on my podcast and give your story, it's things like that that help move that needle. It's the fact that, like you were talking about with the younger generations, them not being quiet, it's us not being quiet about it anymore. It's us not sitting back and saying it's fine, it's fine, you know it's about yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:It's about us getting out and finally going. You know what it's not okay. This is messed up, what we see is messed up, what we experience is messed and it's not okay. But the fact that it's not okay it's okay. And as long as we all start to realize that, as long as we all start to come together not just those of us in the profession, but people in general start to come together in that respect and start to give just a little iota of care towards their fellow person, you know we're going to start to make a difference.
Speaker 1:And those of us in the public safety community, those of us working in this field, you know it's us taking that chance to reach out. You know, even if you have never had the counseling and the treatment and the training to speak to somebody, you know you see a co-worker, a brother, a sister, you know, obviously having some kind of an issue with something, just taking that time to go. Hey, you okay, do you need to talk? Do you want to talk? Even if you don't ask to talk, sometimes all you got to do is just crack the door and people open the rest of the way up. You just got to give a chance for it. So I think we'll get there. And you know there's so much more we could try to sit here and talk about. There's so much more that we could go into, but there's not enough time in the day. I don't think between you and I both, with you having 20 years in it, me working 19 years in it I don't think there's enough time in the day for us to be able to get through it all without it turning into just a, you know, constant war story back and forth kind of situation. So with that, you know, we'll go ahead and close out the podcast.
Speaker 1:But again, I want to tell you so much, jennifer, that that I greatly appreciate you coming on and I admire and appreciate the courage that it took for you to reach out to me, someone you don't know, on the different side of the country than you are and doing a different part of the job and in a different place in life. You took that chance and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that and hopefully this video can get out there and it can foster that in someone else, that it can give someone else the courage that they can hear your story and they can feel emboldened and find that courage within themselves to to reach out. Even if it's not to the podcast, even if it's not to me, it'll give them the courage to reach out and realize that you know they're not okay and they need to try to start working on themselves a little bit. So I greatly appreciate that and thank you so much for for sharing with us and for coming on and helping us move this needle in a positive way.
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted to thank you. I really appreciate what you're doing. I am on TikTok if anyone is wanting to reach out, if anyone needs help, if they're a death investigator or anything. If anyone needs help, um, if they're a death investigator or or anything, if they need help. I'm um at death chronicles, on tech talk and, um, I am, I am getting better. I am not suicidal. I um, I have found things that have made me want to live and we do get better. So I just wanted to say that and we do survive and thank you for your service and I appreciate you and all you do and we are going to make. We are going to make the world better.
Speaker 1:So thank you, Guys. That's going to wrap up this episode. I appreciate you giving us your time, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to Jennifer's story and I hope especially if you're someone that's dealing with something like this I hope that her story can help give you the courage to speak out to somebody to me, to her, to a friend. Speak out to somebody Because, at the end of the day, we are human and things aren't okay, but it can be okay. So until next time, guys. I appreciate you, Stay safe, Catch you on the next one. Bye.
