How firefighters can achieve a degree of separation from the ‘on-duty’ mindset
The post-shift ritual. We all have it in some way or another. It can be something as small as listening to a podcast every time you drive home, or a cup of coffee while sitting in the same spot on your sofa when you get home. All firefighters seem to have some sort of habit that sends a signal to our brain that we’re in de-escalation mode.
However, we find ourselves in a unique time where the game has changed. In an era of critical staffing shortages, we find ourselves working 36-, 48-, and even 60-hour shifts. Is that ritual still enough, or does having a de-escalation ritual even matter in the first place?
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This whole thought process started when recently, after getting off duty from a long work tour, I went home and made a cup of coffee and sat down to unwind with my significant other. His phone rang and the ensuing conversation over a staffing issue was heated and rather loud. It didn’t involve me or have any effect on my life since we work in separate departments, but I found myself getting tense and having an irritated reaction that surprised me. I hunted down my trusty AirPods and turned on the news to block out the firehouse conversation at hand.
It turns out I wasn’t mentally “off duty” yet. I guarantee if I had heard a noise the same frequency as a CAD beep, I would have jumped.
Knowing when my brain has actually “come down” from being on shift is an awareness that I’ve only recently cultivated after many years of trial and error (mostly error). Most of the errors have occurred around family holidays, especially when I leave straight from the firehouse. I become oddly irritated listening to family members talk about issues that I find to be trivial compared to what I had just witnessed the day before on shift. Often times it isn’t the traumatic calls that wear us down, but the repeated heartache of seeing the elderly have no way to pay for medication, or parents struggling to feed their children. In this job, we see the ultimate reality far too often, and that can make it difficult to relate to the less dire issues we hear our friends and family going through.
Not knowing that my brain is still in life-and-death mode has cost me many an apology for a snide remark or side-eyed glance. It really is a large hypocrisy to hold my loved ones to a standard of “real life” that I probably won’t even be holding myself to in 12 hours’ time. This switch in self-awareness seems to take even longer if the shift is longer than 24 hours.
The physical act of leaving the firehouse does not equate to being off duty for your body, and knowing that, knowing our reactions to “normal life” and the people around us, can save a lot of apologies and stress. Some days that mental switchover can take longer than others depending on sleep, bad calls, poor nutrition, staffing— the list can go on and on. Let’s face it: we aren’t normal, so maybe it’s time we normalized the struggle to mentally switch between firehouse life and home life.
The home-life struggle for firefighters has been the subject of many a book and blog. We spend our day with people who have become another family, and we experience things with them that (hopefully) are a level of trauma we will never experience with our biological family. Is it really fair to assume that we can just “turn it off” the second we walk out those doors? If we want to complicate the situation even more, you’re probably reading this on your phone at the moment… the device you use to send texts or memes back and forth with your shift all day when you’re off duty. While that level of camaraderie must be fostered and protected, it can also mean that, if there is turmoil and drama at work, it has now followed you home. Work-life balance and mentally being off duty is one of the big problems we can’t seem to fix. That and teaching people not to leave the last sliver of brownie in the pan so they won’t have to wash it.
Coming off duty and being present at home are commingled issues that need to be taught and talked about more frequently. This career is not a sprint by any means, and if we don’t find a way to mentally absorb moments that aren’t related to the job, we won’t make it to the end of that marathon. The fire service as a profession understands; we don’t expect a soldier to come home from a deployment and be okay heading straight back to reality. Are we cocky enough to think that we can be deployed for 24 or more hours and not need a ritual to switch modes?
This duality of our lives is a reality that deserves our attention. Have a game plan in place to help yourself switch between worlds when you come off duty. Try to factor in how much you were up at night, your nutrition on shift, drama, and traumatic or sad calls. Just because you feel that you naturally, seamlessly flow between the two worlds doesn’t mean you actually do. The people in our off-duty lives deserve to have a present and relaxed version of us. Take the time to figure out a way to get there.
Stephanie White is a 19-year veteran of the fire service, and has spent the past 17 years as a professional firefighter/paramedic in a metropolitan fire department. Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in firefighter health and safety as a personal trainer, cancer awareness educator, and a trained mental health peer.
