Mount St. Joseph offers day of healing for law enforcement officers - messenger-inquirer

All of the tensions, and stress, of the job can build up on officers, causing them health problems, anxiety, depression and strains on families. Saturday morning, Mount Saint Joseph Retreat Center hosted law enforcement officers for a seminar focused on understanding the trauma officers face, and giving them tools for coping and not being overwhelmed.

“We have stress in rural America,” said Mike Humble, a Logan County police and fire chaplain and corrections officer. “We still have accidents. We still have domestic situations.”

Humble, whose son was a police chief in Guthrie, said law enforcement and corrections officers are often haunted by the “ghosts” of things they’ve experienced on the job.

“If anybody is the front line against evil, it’s law enforcement,” Humble said. Law enforcement professions have high rates of divorce and suicide, Humble said. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2020 law enforcement officer suicide report, more officers committed suicide in 2017, 2018 and 2019 than where killed in the line of duty each year.

“You are specially chosen to be a light in this dark world,” Humble said, and said officers need a spiritual grounding and help to deal with what they experience on the job. Rushing from call to call, “you really don’t get to work through the things you have to face,” Humble said.

Kate Hartman, who works with people who have experienced trauma in Evansville, said officers who experience regular stress on the job can get caught in a permanent heightened “flight or fight” state, or can “freeze” and become hopeless and depressed. People in those states can have negative heath impacts, and have a loss in upper-level thinking skills, Hartman said.

“Trauma creates both rigidity and chaos,” Hartman said. Officers can learn to recognize if their bodies are stressed, and counteract it through breathing and motions, Hartman said. Learning to recognize and manage stress takes practice, Hartman said.

When officers can manage their own reactions to stress, they will “bring more compassion” to the people they work with, Hartman said.

Ken Bennett, an Owensboro Police Department officer and Catholic deacon, said issues such as stress management and mental health weren’t discussed among officers 20 years ago. Officers need self-care in order to help the community, Bennett said.

“We have to take care of ourselves,” Bennett said. “To take care of yourself ultimately helps you take care of other people.”

source: https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/mount-st-joseph-offers-day-of-healing-for-law-enforcement-officers/article_8643c4fa-bdf3-5a97-88ce-e0a4396ed2af.html

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