Jumping in the DEEP End: 4 steps to processing trauma beyond the incident report
Shit goes down, an incident happens.
It could be a 5 man fight with weapons, a staff assault, or an overdose requiring Narcan and CPR and that might not be enough to save them. The incident could last a few minutes but feel like it was 20, especially if you’re the one defending yourself while waiting for backup. But eventually it ends, hopefully with you and your partners not seriously harmed, and it’s time to review the cameras and write your report.
You’ve been trained to write an incident report and discuss the left-brain data and facts of the event. However, you’ve also been trained to ignore your more right-brain emotions, so your fight or flight response doesn’t interfere with your ability to handle a situation appropriately.
Not only do you have to ignore your desire to punch someone in the throat, but you also must ignore your own sense of fear, anger, and disgust. You must ignore your morals and save the lives of people who’ve done horrible things.
Since you’re ignoring your emotions to do your job well, you’re not giving them room to be expressed. Once they’re suppressed, they show up sideways elsewhere in your life, often at the worst times like family dinner, your kid’s birthday party or trying to sleep. You can push your emotions behind a dam but eventually that dam breaks and takes parts of your life along with it.
Unfortunately, the response from the department, fellow coworkers and even supervisors doesn’t support emotional processing of incidents. You’re told to suck it up, have a few beers to take the edge off, and get used to it because you’ll see worse things as time goes on.
In their good intentions, they’ll use dark humor to make jokes about the incident to not take it so seriously and minimize the emotional response. They’ll tell stories of their worst experiences to try to make you feel better that your experience wasn’t as bad so don’t feel so much about it and be grateful you didn’t deal with what they had to go through. They weren’t taught how to process an incident using more than just their left brain, analyzing the data.
The Brain’s Files
When events happen, the brain creates a folder of the incident. It gathers evidence, data, emotions, and the meaning of the event. It’s constantly learning. Without knowing what the data means, the brain doesn’t know where to file this information so it can retrieve it later if a similar incident happens. Mostly the brain wants to protect you from future threats by learning from threatening situations and using the skills, tools, and lessons learned to stay safe next time.
Without completing these 4 steps, a trauma can stay unprocessed, like an open folder laying on your table to be reviewed every day—or rather every night before bed or while you sleep—until it’s able to be filed. Most people get stuck by avoiding the emotional processing the brain needs to close the case.
Jumping in the DEEP end
To process traumatic events, you have to be willing to jump in the DEEP end and go below the surface of denying and suppressing emotions. To go deeper than keeping all that shit in and denying the opportunity to learn from these events.
“It is what it is, nothing I can do to change it so there’s nothing to think about, shit happens for no reason or shit happens because people are selfish assholes, nothing I can learn from it. I know everything I need to know.” That’s the shallow end. Refusing to feel means refusing to heal.
The 4 steps to processing in the DEEP end.
Data: What happened?
The incident report you’ve already written.
Facts not assumptions of other people’s motives.
Actual words not their implication or hidden meaning.
Objective reality not subjective which is based on your response to the situation and interpretation which is personal.
Emotions: How do you feel?
Identity, label and admit to the emotions that came up.
Describe how it shows up in the body as physical sensations.
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Do a body scan to check head to toe for feelings, sensations.
Is anger a burning in the stomach, a tension in the shoulders? Is grief a heaviness in the chest taking your breath away, a deep pit in the stomach? Is shock making you weak in the knees and you need to sit down?
Describe your emotions in creative right brain ways. What color is it? What does it sound like? If it was a scene in a movie, what is it? If it was a location, a desert, a volcano, the deep dark ocean, a hurricane?
Expression: What do your emotions need?
Emotions must be allowed to flow through you and be released, not shoved down or numbed with alcohol. This is a very right brain activity: creative, fantasy, fake conversations, music, physical movements, not just your words.
Talk it through with a friend you are safe to express emotions with. This meets your need for comfort, connection, to be heard, validated, understood, not alone.
Write a letter to the person, the department, or just list how you feel and burn it—burning shit is very therapeutic.
Yell, scream (alone not at someone), pretend the person is standing in front of you and yell, say what you need to get it off your chest.
Ugly cry, tears release adrenaline and bring calm.
Go to the gym, do physical exercise, chop wood, punch a punching bag, rearrange the furniture in your living room.
Fantasize what you wanted to do or say. Play it out like a movie, a cartoon, use characters get creative with it, play it like a video game you just leveled up.
Create a soundtrack of 3-5 songs that express how you feel and allow the songs to bring up those emotions.
Go for a walk and allow the brain to process on its own.
Use EFT acupoints to feel it, express it and allow the emotion to desensitize.
Expression is about allowing the emotions to flow through you to run its course. Emotions last 90 seconds chemically anything after that is our thoughts keeping it going or staying stuck in resistance from not wanting to feel it or not knowing how to express it in a safe or healthy way.
Purpose: What did you learn?
Humans are storytellers. Every story has a meaning, a lesson or moral you can relate to and use to navigate survival in this world, physically, emotionally, socially, etc. For the brain to get closure on an experience, it must create meaning, a purpose for the event.
What did you learn from this experience about yourself, other people?
What new skills did you learn or need to learn for the future?
Is there something you could have done differently to be better in the future?
Did you learn something positive? That you can handle a crisis calmly and efficiently, that a coworker who doesn’t like you still had your back in a fight and helped you?
This cannot happen if you do not first express your emotions. Without expressed emotions you will still be reacting to the event, often from a place of fear or anger.
What did you learn? That people are assholes and can’t be trusted. I’ll never trust anyone again.
That cuts you off from healthy social relationships which you need and deep down know that you want in your life, people you can trust and rely on. If you express your anger so it is released, you’re able to see the lessons.
That person proved not to be trustworthy. I will be more careful around them in the future. I may request not to work with them. I will change my expectations of this person, unit, or department, so in the future I won’t be let down and disappointed. I will do my job even if others complain or try to get me in trouble because I have integrity and I’m proud of the officer I am.
You don’t need to fear drowning in the deep end of your emotions. You just need to learn how to swim. That takes practice, time and solid social support that can throw you a floaty when they see you’re struggling to keep your head above water.
Next Steps
If you quickly want to decrease the emotional intensity of your response to the event, try EFT acupoints.
If you’re struggling with processing traumatic events and feel you need more personalized care, check out the providers list to find a therapist in your area.