17-Hour Days, 3 Missed Calls, 1 Case That Changes Everything: The Breaking Point for a Crimes Against Children Detective

Foreign PM on a Tuesday in March 2024, Detective Jennifer Martinez sits alone in the Crimes Against Children unit.

The only light coming for her computer monitor and the hallway fluorescents that never quite turn off completely.

She's been here since 6am 17 hours.

Her phone shows three missed calls from her husband and a text.

Where are you?

Em's asking for you.

M. Emma, her six year old daughter who should be asleep by now.

Jennifer opens another file case number she's memorized 6 year old victim Karen suspect photos she wishes she'd never seen, an interview transcript that made the DA cry.

She tells herself she's just tying up loose ends, making sure everything's perfect for trial.

But that's not why she's still here.

She's here because going home means seeing her own six year old daughter.

And right now, that's something she can't handle.

Three months from now, her husband will give her an ultimatum.

Get help or he will take Emma and leave.

But tonight, Jennifer doesn't know that's coming.

Tonight, she knows she can't go home.

Behind every badge, there's a story.

A story of courage, satisfaction, sacrifice and relentless pursuit of justice.

But there's also a story that often goes untold.

A story of the mental and emotional toll that policing takes on those who answer the call.

Welcome to Police Speak, the podcast that delves into the raw realities of police work and explores the path to resilience.

Each week we'll unpack harrowing police encounters, dissect their psychological impact and equip you with the tools to safeguard your mental well being.

So turn up the volume and prepare for our next journey.

I'm Michael Simpkins, your host for today.

Welcome to another episode of Police Speak.

This episode contains discussion of child abuse and the toll it takes on investigators.

If you're currently struggling with intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation or substance abuse, please reach out to a peer support officer, therapist or your department eap.

Today's story is about Detective Jennifer Martinez.

That's not her real name.

A 10 year veteran who spent 5 years working crimes against children.

She was good at it.

Really good.

One of the best interviewers in her unit.

The kind of detective who got confessions, built solid cases and earned commendations until one case broke through every wall she'd built.

This is her story.

And it's about something most resilience training completely misses.

You can't think your way out of a body that's shutting down.

Jennifer Martinez didn't set out to become a child abuse detective.

Most people don't she joined her department in 2015, straight from the academy at 24 years old.

Did what most new officers do.

Work patrol, learn the streets, handle the calls that shape you, whether you're ready for them or not.

Domestics, bar fights, traffic accidents, and the occasional foot pursuit.

The rhythm of shift work and street policing.

By 2019, she had five years under her belt and a reputation as someone who could talk to people.

Not just interrogate, actually connect.

Her sergeant noticed it during domestic calls.

The way she'd get victims to open up, get witnesses to trust her, get suspects to admit things they hadn't planned to say.

When a detective position opened up in the Crimes Against Children unit, he pulled her aside.

You'd be good at this.

You should apply.

Jennifer hesitated.

Crimes Against Children wasn't a coveted assignment.

Most offices avoided it.

The cases were heavy.

The court testimony was brutal.

The conviction rates were better than they used to be.

But still, working cases where children were victims or witnesses went carrying weight that didn't lift when you went off duty.

But Jennifer had always been someone who wanted to make a difference.

Protect people who couldn't protect themselves.

And if she was being honest with herself, something is appealing about investigations over patrol.

More control over your schedule.

No more third shift, regular hours.

That would work better with the family she was planning to start.

So she applied, got the position.

By March 2024, she'd worked hundreds of cases, built walls she thought were solid.

Oh, I thought I'd built up some pretty good walls.

You know, you have to in this line of work.

I've handled hundreds of cases, testified dozens of times, and, well, gotten some good convictions.

The call came in early March.

A six year old girl was found deceased in her home.

The parent was the suspect.

Details weren't clear yet, but patrol had secured the scene and requested a CAC Detective.

Jennifer was up in the rotation.

She grabbed her kit and headed out.

She'd been to crime scenes involving children before.

You develop a protocol, stay clinical, focus on evidence, build the case.

Don't let it become personal.

But from the moment she walked into that house, something felt different.

The victim was six years old.

Jennifer's daughter Emma was six years old.

The girl had long dark hair pulled into a ponytail.

Emma wore her hair the same way.

And when Jennifer saw the victim's backpack hanging on a hook by the door, blue with stars, the same one Emma had begged for at Target, something in her chest tightened.

I know you're not supposed to let that matter, but this time I couldn't stop it.

Same age, similar appearance.

Even had the same backpack my kid has.

Here's something about trauma that isn't always obvious.

Your brain doesn't distinguish well between similar threats.

When you see something that closely resembles your own child in the worst possible circumstance, your brain's threat detection system, the amygdala, lights up the same way it would if your actual child was in danger.

The brain is designed to protect what matters most to us.

And when those protective instincts get triggered in a situation where you can't actually protect anyone, where the harm has already happened, those instincts have nowhere to go.

Jennifer spent eight weeks building the case.

The details were worse than initially reported.

Much worse.

The kind of details that make seasoned prosecutors take breaks during evidence review.

The kind that show up in nightmares for years afterward.

She interviewed witnesses, processed evidence, built a timeline, got a confession that made the DA say it was one of the strongest cases they'd seen.

I did everything right procedurally.

Got a confession.

Trial lasted three weeks, and we got a conviction.

Life without parole.

Everyone in the DA's office said it was one of the strongest cases they'd seen.

On paper, this was a success story.

Solid investigation, confession, conviction, life sentence.

Jennifer's lieutenant put her in for a commendation.

Her sergeant praised her courtroom testimony.

The victim's family thanked her for getting justice.

But inside, Jennifer was coming apart.

The week after the conviction, Jennifer went back to work, cleared her backlog, took new case assignments, showed up on time, dressed professionally, and filled out paperwork correctly.

To everyone around her, she looked fine.

This is something important to understand about high functioning trauma response.

The ability to perform your job duties doesn't mean you're okay.

Law enforcement officers are trained to compartmentalize, to function effectively under stress, and to maintain composure even when everything inside is chaotic.

But compartmentalization isn't the same as processing.

And eventually those compartments start leaking.

For Jennifer, it started at home.

Emma would come running to her after school, excited to tell her about her day.

And Jennifer would feel her chest tighten.

She'd hug her daughter.

But her mind would flood with images from the crime scene.

The victim bore a striking resemblance to Emma and what that child endured in her final hours.

I couldn't be around my own daughter.

Every time I looked at her, I saw crime scene photos.

Every time she laughed, I thought about what that other little girl went through and how she'll never laugh again.

Bedtime became unbearable.

Reading stories to Emma, something Jennifer had always loved, now triggered intrusive memories.

She'd get three pages into Goodnight Moon or the Very Hungry Caterpillar and have to excuse herself to the Bathroom, heart racing, hands shaking.

Her husband, Mark, noticed immediately.

Jennifer was distant, distracted, making excuses not to spend time with Emma.

He'd ask what was wrong and Jennifer would deflect.

Just a tough case.

I'm fine.

I'll be fine.

But she wasn't fine.

Here's what was happening in Jennifer's brain.

The hippocampus, the structure responsible for processing memories and distinguishing between past and present, was overwhelmed.

When trauma is severe enough, the hippocampus struggles to properly file memories as things that happened then.

Instead, those memories remain active, unprocessed, firing at random moments as if the thread is still present.

So when Jennifer looked at her daughter, her brain wasn't distinguishing between Emma, who was safe, and the victim, who was harmed.

The similarities triggered the same neural patterns.

Same age, same hair, same backpack.

Her amygdala responded as if Emma was in danger.

This is what intrusive thoughts actually are.

Not random psychological symptoms, but misfiring memory systems that haven't properly processed traumatic input.

Jennifer started avoiding home.

I started staying late at the office, volunteering for extra cases, anything to avoid going home.

By June, three months after the case started, Jennifer was regularly working 12, 14, sometimes 16 hour days.

She'd volunteer for interviews, offer to write reports for colleagues, find any excuse to stay at the station.

Her unit noticed, but they interpreted it as dedication.

Martinez is a workhorse, her sergeant said.

Never complains, never turns down a case.

What they didn't see was that Jennifer was starting to unravel in other ways.

Let's talk about something most resilience training gets wrong.

The foundation.

Everything else sits on.

The predictive six factor Resilience model for short, identifies six domains that determine how well someone handles vision, composure, tenacity, reasoning, collaboration, and health.

Most training focuses on the psychological domains.

Mental toughness, positive thinking, building support networks, and those things matter.

However, there's one domain that is consistently overlooked, and it's actually the most critical.

Health.

Not wellness in the abstract sense.

Health, as in is your brain getting what it physically needs to function and heal.

By summer 2024, Jennifer's health domain was in freefall.

And when that domain fails, every other domain struggles.

Sleep was a disaster three, maybe four hours a night, and that's with melatonin and bourbon.

Sleep deprivation isn't just about being tired.

When you don't sleep adequately, your brain can't produce enough bdnf.

Brain derived neurotrophic factor.

Think of BDNF as fertilizer for neurons.

It's the protein that allows your brain to build new Connections process trauma and rewire itself after critical incidents.

Exercise produces bdnf.

Sleep produces it.

Good nutrition supports it.

But chronic stress, terrible sleep, junk food, and alcohol.

The reality Jennifer was living shut down BDNF production almost completely.

Which meant her brain was trying to heal from a severe traumatic incident without the raw materials it needed to do that healing.

Jennifer had stopped exercising.

She'd been a regular at the department gym before the case.

Nothing intense, just 30 minutes on the treadmill, some weights, enough to manage stress.

But after the trial, she.

She stopped going.

Too tired, too busy, didn't have the energy.

She'd gained 20 pounds in three months.

Stress, eating fast food for dinner because she worked so late.

Vending machine lunches.

And the drinking had increased.

Started drinking more.

Not at work, but definitely after shift.

Nothing crazy, but more than I should.

Jennifer wasn't showing up to work drunk.

Wasn't drinking in the morning.

She'd pass any random alcohol test the department gave.

But she was having three, sometimes four drinks most nights.

A glass of wine with dinner, another while doing paperwork.

A bourbon before bed to help her sleep.

Here's the problem.

Alcohol might knock you out, but it destroys sleep architecture.

You don't get REM sleep.

You don't get the deep sleep stages where BDNF production happens.

So even when Jennifer was unconscious for four or five hours, her brain wasn't actually recovering.

No exercise, no real sleep, poor nutrition, regular alcohol use.

Her brain literally lost its ability to heal.

This wasn't a willpower problem.

It was a physiological problem.

And when the health domain collapses, the other domains follow.

Composure is your ability to recognize when you're getting amped up before you blow up at someone or freeze at the wrong moment.

You know that instant when you feel your heart rate spike during a traffic stop.

Officers with good composure can catch that moment and choose how to respond.

The brain structure that does this is called the insua.

It reads your body's internal state like a dashboard.

Heart rate, breathing, muscle tension.

It's your early warning system.

But when trauma damages the system, and when chronic stress and sleep deprivation keep it damaged, you don't get those early warnings anymore.

Suddenly, you're going from 0 to 10 with no notice.

For Jennifer, this issue first appeared at work.

A rookie made a mistake on a case report.

Nothing major.

Wrong date on a form.

Jennifer snapped at her in front of the whole unit.

Her sergeant pulled her aside.

That wasn't like you.

Everything okay?

Jennifer apologized.

Said she was stressed and hadn't slept well.

It wouldn't happen again.

But it did happen again.

A week later.

She got into an argument with a prosecutor about charging decisions.

Raised her voice, used language she'd never typically use in a professional setting.

The prosecutor filed a complaint.

At home, it was worse.

I'd be reading her bedtime stories and have to leave the room because I was about to break down.

My husband kept asking what was wrong and I couldn't tell him.

Mark would ask some question, what do you want for dinner?

Can you pick up Emma from school tomorrow?

And Jennifer would respond with frustration out of proportion to the situation.

Emma asked one night, mommy, are you mad at me?

That question broke Jennifer's heart.

But she still couldn't explain what was happening.

How could she tell her six year old daughter that looking at her triggered images of a murdered child?

How do you explain that you're terrified of your own intrusive thoughts around your kid?

The intrusive thoughts were constant.

Not just at home, everywhere.

She'd be driving to work and suddenly see the victim's face.

She'd be grocery shopping and see a little girl with a similar backpack in.

Her heart would start racing.

She'd be trying to fall asleep, and the crime scene photos would flash behind her closed eyelids.

This is what it looks like.

When the composure domain fails emotional regulation breaks down, intrusive memories become uncontrollable, and the body stays locked in the state of hyperarousal that exhausts you even when you're not doing anything physical.

And because Jennifer's health domain was so compromised, no sleep, no exercise, alcohol every night, her brain had no capacity to rebuild the composure systems that were failing.

Collaboration is about building and using support networks, recognizing you can't do this alone, having people you can actually talk to about the hard stuff.

The brain mechanism behind this is the right prefrontal cortex, which processes social information and trust.

When this system is working, you can read social cues, trust your teammates, and reach out when you need help.

When trauma overwhelms the system, officers start to lose their capacity to connect with others.

And the response is almost always the isolation.

Jennifer started pulling away from everyone.

At work.

She used to eat lunch with her teen, go out for drinks after difficult cases, participate in the dark humor.

That's how CAC investigators cope.

But by July, she was eating lunch alone in her car and declining happy hour invitations, avoiding casual conversations.

Her partner in the unit, another detective she'd worked with for three years, noticed, Asked if everything was okay.

Jennifer gave the standard cop answer.

I'm fine, just tired.

At home, the isolation was even more pronounced.

Mark's family invited them to a barbecue.

Jennifer made an excuse.

A friend from the academy reached out about meeting for coffee.

Jennifer said she was too busy.

Emma, School had a parent night.

Jennifer told Mark to go without her.

My husband kept asking what was wrong, and I couldn't tell him.

The isolation created a vicious cycle.

The less Jennifer connected with others, the more the intrusive memories dominated her thoughts.

The more isolated she became, the less access she had to the normal feedback that helps regulate emotional responses.

And in law enforcement culture, there's an added layer.

Asking for help feels like admitting weakness.

Jennifer kept telling herself she should be able to handle this.

She'd work hundreds of cases.

She was a decorated detective.

She'd gotten a conviction.

This was her job.

She should be fine.

Everyone in my unit acts like they're fine, like they can handle anything.

We don't talk about the cases that get to us.

There is this unspoken competition about who can handle the worst stuff without breaking that culture.

The unspoken competition, the expectation that you handle everything without showing strain, meant Jennifer felt like reaching out for support would expose her as inadequate, not tough enough, not cut out for CAC work.

So she isolated further, withdrew from her team, pulled away from her family, convinced herself she just needed to power through.

But you can't power through a neurobiological crisis with willpower alone.

Vision is about seeing a path forward when things go sideways.

It's the difference between an officer who takes a bad case and thinks, I can get through this and come back better, versus one who thinks my career is over.

The brain structures involved are the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex working together to imagine positive futures.

When these systems are functioning, you can set goals, maintain hope, and see yourself overcoming difficulties.

But when trauma overwhelms the hippocampus, the same structure that's already struggling to process memories, it literally struggles to imagine future scenarios.

By August, Jennifer had lost her vision for the future entirely.

She'd been a detective for five years, had plans to move up.

Maybe sergeant, maybe lieutenant.

Eventually, she talked about staying in cac, becoming an expert, training new detectives.

But now she couldn't see any of that.

I don't know if I can keep doing CAC work long term.

Some days I think I'm strong enough to stay in it.

Other days I think about transferring to Property Crimes or something where kids aren't involved.

The problem wasn't just doubt about her career.

It was that when she tried to imagine any positive future, any version of herself that wasn't constantly struggling, her brain Couldn't process it.

She'd try to think about next year, five years from now, retirement.

Nothing came.

Just blank space.

Or worse, the same exhaustion and pain stretching out indefinitely.

This is what happens when the vision domain fails.

The future becomes a wall you can't see over.

Every choice feels wrong.

Every path forward seems to lead to more pain.

And for Jennifer, this created a dangerous thought pattern.

Maybe everyone would be better off without her.

She didn't share those thoughts with anyone.

Not Mark, not her therapist.

She wasn't seeing one yet.

Not her sergeant.

She just carried them along with everything else.

September came six months since the case started.

Jennifer was barely holding on.

She'd lost 20 pounds after gaining 20.

Stress had killed her appetite entirely.

She looked hollow.

Her sergeant had commented on it, asked if she needed to take some time off.

Jennifer said she was fine.

She wasn't fine.

Her marriage was fractured.

Mark was patient, more patient than most people would be.

But he was watching his wife disappear and didn't know how to help.

She wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't go to counseling, wouldn't admit anything was wrong beyond work stress.

And Emma knew something was deeply wrong with her mother.

One night, Jennifer was sitting on the couch, staring at nothing.

Emma came over with a book.

Mommy, will you read to me?

Jennifer looked at her daughter and felt nothing.

Not love, not warmth, not even the intrusive fear that had been haunting her.

Just emptiness.

I started staying late at the office, volunteering for extra cases.

Anything to avoid going home.

That night, after Emma went to bed, Mark sat Jennifer down.

He didn't raise his voice, didn't get angry, just said plainly, I love you.

Emma loves you, but you're not here anymore.

You're physically present, but you're gone.

And I don't know how to reach you.

My husband said, either I get help or he's taking our daughter and leaving.

That's what finally got through to me.

It wasn't a threat.

It was a boundary.

Mark wasn't trying to punish Jennifer.

He was trying to protect their daughter from growing up with an emotionally absent mother.

And he was trying to save Jennifer's Life.

Because by September 2024, Jennifer wasn't just struggling.

She was having regular thoughts about whether everyone would be better off if she wasn't around anymore.

She hadn't made a plan and hadn't taken steps, but the thoughts were there, persistent, wearing her down.

That conversation with Mark, the ultimatum, cut through the fog enough for Jennifer to realize she had a choice to make.

She could keep pretending she was fine and watch her family fall apart.

Or she could ask for help.

The next morning, Jennifer called the department psychologist.

Getting that appointment felt like failure, like admitting she wasn't strong enough.

But she made the call anyway.

The psychologist did an initial assessment.

Asked about sleep, eating, substance use, intrusive thoughts, and suicidal ideation, Jennifer answered honestly for the first time in months.

The psychologist recommended she start therapy, consider medication, and immediately address the health domain issues.

Sleep, exercise, and alcohol.

I went to the department psychologist, started actual therapy, cut way back on drinking.

Been doing that for about a year now.

Jennifer started seeing a trauma therapist who specialized in emdr, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

EMDR helps the brain reprocess traumatic memories so they stop triggering the same intense reactions.

And she committed to addressing the Health Domain foundation that had collapsed.

Jennifer's therapist told her, you can have the best therapy in the world, but if your brain doesn't have the raw materials it needs to heal.

If you're not sleeping, not exercising, not giving your body what it needs to produce bdnf, recovery becomes exponentially harder.

So Jennifer started with the sleep hygiene.

No alcohol within four hours of bedtime.

No screens in the bedroom.

Consistent sleep schedule even on days off.

It took weeks that her sleep slowly improved from three or four hours to five, then six.

Jennifer committed to 30 minutes of cardio three times a week.

Nothing intense, just walking on a treadmill at the gym.

I've done therapy.

EMDR specifically cut way back on alcohol and started exercising again.

I want people to know what actually helped, not just that I got better.

The changes weren't immediate.

Jennifer didn't wake up one morning feeling fixed.

Recovery doesn't work that way.

But within two weeks of regular exercise, she was sleeping four solid hours a night instead of three broken ones.

Within a month, she was sleeping five or six hours.

And once she was able to sleep, everything else began to shift.

Her emotional regulation improved.

She wasn't snapping at colleagues or family members as often.

She could catch herself getting frustrated and choose how to respond.

The composure domain slowly rebuilding.

She could think more clearly about her career options.

Taking time off versus pushing through.

The vision domain wasn't fully restored, but she could at least imagine different paths forward instead of hitting a blank wall.

And critically, she started reconnecting with people.

Collaboration domain recovering.

About three months into therapy, one of Jennifer's colleagues from the CAC unit reached out.

Another detective, someone Jennifer had worked with on several cases.

She didn't ask, are you okay?

She didn't probe or push.

She just said, want to Grab lunch.

I miss talking to you.

They met at a diner near the station.

Talked about work, family.

Nothing heavy at first.

Then the colleague said, I noticed you've been different since the Martinez case.

Jennifer started to deflect.

I'm fine.

Just tired.

But stopped herself.

Actually, I'm not fine.

That case really messed me up.

I want other detectives working crimes against children to know this work has a real cost.

And there's no shame in hitting your limit.

They talked for two hours about the cases that get through your defenses.

About the guilt of pulling away from your own kids.

About the isolation and the feeling that admitting struggle means you're not cut out for the work.

And Jennifer realized she wasn't alone.

This wasn't just her weakness.

It was the cumulative weight of work that asks officers to witness the worst humanity has to offer and then go home and function normally.

That conversation opened something in Jennifer.

She started talking more with her team about the hard cases.

Not formally, just honest conversations about what the work costs.

This is exactly the kind of peer support that resilience first aid training teaches.

RFA isn't therapy.

It's peer support that recognizes signs of struggling resilience domains and knows what to do about it.

If Jennifer's colleagues had been RFA trained, they might have noticed the warning signs months earlier.

When Jennifer stopped coming to lunch, when she gained weight, then lost it rapidly when her emotional regulation started showing strain.

RFA teaches officers to spot those early signs and take action before someone's career or life falls apart.

Name what you're seeing without judgment.

Offer specific support.

Hey, I noticed you've been quieter lately.

Want to grab a workout and talk about it?

Simple, direct, practical.

That conversation in the diner.

That peer connection was a turning point in Jennifer's recovery.

It's been about a year since Jennifer started therapy.

Eighteen months since the case that broke through.

She's functional again.

Working full time.

Can be around immer without intrusive images overwhelming her.

Sleeping six or seven hours most nights.

Marriage is healing, though.

Mark says some trust needs rebuilding.

But Jennifer wants to be clear about something.

I'm functional again.

Back at work full time.

Can be around my kid without falling apart, sleeping better.

But I'm not the same person.

Trauma changes you.

The brain rewires.

Some of those changes are permanent.

Jennifer still has hard days.

Anniversaries trigger intrusive memories.

Cases involving children Emma's age require extra self monitoring.

She has to be deliberate about maintaining the Health Domain Foundation.

Exercise three times a week, sleep, hygiene, limiting alcohol.

She's still deciding whether to stay in CAC long term.

Some days I think I'm strong enough to stay in it.

Other days I think about transferring to property crimes or something where kids aren't involved.

And here's what Jennifer wants other officers to understand.

Questioning whether you should stay in a high trauma assignment doesn't make you weak.

Some officers can work CAC Homicide SWAT for their entire career and maintain resilience.

Others reach a point where the accumulated weight becomes too much.

Neither response is wrong.

The High Adversity Resilience Training HART program teaches this explicitly.

HART prepares officers and high exposure units for sustained operational stress.

It doesn't prevent trauma, but it provides you with tools to maintain resilience in domains under extreme conditions.

How do you protect your vision when you're working homicide and seeing the worst humanity has to offer every day?

How do you maintain collaboration when you can't talk about your cases?

How do you recognize when your health domain is compromising everything else?

Heart addresses these specific challenges before they break people.

When I asked Jennifer what actually helped, she was specific.

The combination of things mattered.

It wasn't just willpower or toughing it out.

Therapy, specifically emdr, helped her brain reprocess the traumatic memories.

The images still exist, but they don't trigger the same physiological crisis response.

Medication stabilized her mood enough that therapy could work.

She's not ashamed of being on an ssri.

It's a tool, she said, like body armor.

It doesn't solve everything, but it keeps you functional while you do the harder work, exercise and sleep.

Rebuilding the health domain gave her brain the BDNF it needed to heal.

Without that physiological foundation, the psychological work would have been exponentially harder.

Peer support.

Honest conversations with colleagues who understood, broke the isolation and reminded her she wasn't alone.

And Mark's ultimatum, as hard as it was, forced her to confront what she was losing.

Sometimes you need someone who loves you enough to draw a hard line.

Maybe if young cops hear this, they'll understand.

This job takes and takes, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.

Jennifer's story isn't a perfect recovery narrative.

She's still figuring out her career path, still having hard days, still working to rebuild trust with her family.

But she's here.

She's functional.

She's healing.

And she's talking about it because silence is what nearly destroyed her.

Jennifer has a message for other investigators working crimes against children.

Any high trauma assignment.

I want other detectives working crimes against children to know this work has a real cost.

And there's no shame in hitting your limit.

Everyone in my unit acts like they're fine, like they can handle anything.

We don't talk about the cases that get to us.

The culture of silence, the unspoken competition about who can handle the worst cases without breaking.

It's killing officers.

Not always literally, though sometimes that too.

But it's destroying careers, relationships, and mental health.

Officers are suffering in silence because they think admitting struggle means they're not tough enough.

If my story helps someone recognize the warning signs earlier than I did the isolation, the drinking, the inability to be present with their own family maybe they won't get as close to losing everything as I did.

Here are the warning signs Jennifer wishes someone had helped her recognize earlier.

Sleep disruption.

Not just occasional bad nights, but persistent inability to sleep more than a few hours.

If you're relying on alcohol to fall asleep and it's becoming a pattern, that's a red flag.

Isolation.

Pulling away from your team, your family, your normal social connections.

If you're making excuses to avoid people you used to enjoy spending time with, pay attention.

Emotional dysregulation.

Going from calm to furious with no warning.

Snapping at people, unable to shake the hypervigilance even when you're off duty.

Loss of interest.

Activities you used to enjoy feel pointless.

You're going through the motions at work and home, but not really.

Present physical changes.

Rapid weight gain or loss.

Stopping exercise, increasing substance use and, critically, inability to be present with your own family.

If you can't be around your kids, your spouse, your loved ones without feeling overwhelmed, that's not just stress.

That's your resilience.

Domains breaking down.

Maybe they'll ask for help.

Who before their spouse threatens to leave.

Jennifer's story shows us something crucial.

You can't think your way out of a body that's shutting down.

Most resilience training focuses on mindset, mental toughness, and cultivating a positive outlook.

And those things matter.

But when your brain doesn't have the raw materials it needs to heal.

When you're not sleeping, not exercising, flooding your system with alcohol and stress hormones no amount of willpower or positive thinking will fix the problem.

The health domain in the PR6 model isn't wellness in the abstract sense.

It's the Neurobiological foundation that everything else is built upon.

When that foundation collapses, every other domain struggles.

Composure fails.

Vision disappears.

Collaboration breaks down.

Reasoning becomes rigid.

Tenacity either gives way to surrender or hardens into destructive persistence.

But here's the when you rebuild a health foundation, the other domains can recover too.

Exercise produces bdnf.

Sleep allows Processing good nutrition supports healing.

These aren't luxuries, they're necessities.

And you can't do it alone.

Peer support matters, professional help matters.

Being willing to say I'm not okay matters more than maintaining the facade of strength.

If you're working a high trauma assignment and you're seeing warning signs in yourself, the isolation, the sleep disruption, the emotional dysregulation, reach out.

Talk to a peer support officer.

Call the cop line at 1-800-267-5463.

Contact a therapist who specializes in first responder trauma.

And if you're a supervisor or colleague and you're seeing these warning signs in someone else, don't wait for them to ask for help.

Name what you're seeing without judgment.

Offer specific support.

That conversation could save a career, a marriage or a life.

Resilience first aid training teaches these skills, how to spot early signs of struggling resilience domains and how to intervene before a crisis happens.

High adversity resilience training prepares officers for the sustained stress of high exposure assignments before they reach breaking point.

If your department doesn't have these programs yet, ask why not?

The cost of not having them is measured in destroyed careers, broken families, and officers who don't make it home.

Jennifer is still healing and still deciding her path forward.

But she's here and she's talking about what happened.

Because silence is what nearly killed her.

I don't know if that makes me a quitter or if it's smart self preservation.

Some days I feel guilty about even thinking about leaving when there are kids who need advocates.

Other days I think staying in this work when I know it's breaking me down would be irresponsible.

That's the question Jennifer is still working through and it's okay not to have the answer yet.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is is admit you've hit your limit.

And sometimes healing means making hard choices about what you can carry and what you need to put down.

Thank you to Jennifer for sharing her story and thank you for listening.

I'm Michael Simpkins and this is Police Speak.

Resources are in the show.

Notes.

Take care of yourself and take care of each other.

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Police Speak.

We hope you found today's story and insights valuable.

We aim to inform, educate and inspire through the stories we share.

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Perhaps a moment that tested your resilience or left a lasting impact?

Sharing your experiences can help fellow officers learn and strengthen their resilience.

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Together, we can build a stronger, healthier law enforcement community.