Shawn and K-9 Londyn

I grew up in Western Wisconsin. I got interested in law enforcement late in Middle school. During my senior year, my High School offered a Health Careers class, which the main focus was becoming a 1st responder. I got hired with our local ambulance service out of High School. I went on to get my EMT’s license and continued my career a volunteer EMT for 19 years.
At around age 22, I got hired with a small local department who sponsored me to go through my police training. Wisconsin requires that you get a 2 year degree or 60 college credits after being certified. I have always had an interest in IT work and started dabbling in that during High School. With my interest of police and IT, I wanted to combine the two jobs. I went to tech school and studied IT courses. In 1996, I was hired as a jailer with our County Sheriff’s Office. I started in the Jail, promoted to Patrol and then promoted to Investigations. With my IT background, our Sheriff’s Office was getting into the Digital Forensics area. I had the opportunity to take several courses for digital forensics while I worked with the Sheriff’s Office. Our County was the hub for digital forensics for local PD’s and other surrounding agencies. Needless to say, I was the go to person for all digital forensics.
As an investigator, I investigated drug offenses, murders, suicides, financial crimes, child pornography, accidents and pretty much any other cases that landed on my desk.
Being the “tough” guy, I kept saying that none of the EMT or Police work affected me. Until one day, I was assisting with an accident that involved a truck backing over a young child. Rescue efforts were unsuccessful for the young child. This is when I hit my wall and broke down. I think that this was because I had a child around the same age. I was at the hospital and just broke down. Other investigators had to take over my duties and I ended up going home for the day. Fortunately my wife and children happened to be at home when I got home. It was all I could do to contain myself, but by breakdown continued.
From that point on, I just sucked it up and went on my work career for several more years. I was very irritable at work, at home and towards anything. My anxiety started and kept building. I knew there was something wrong with me, but couldn’t figure it out. In 2017, I was working on my basement when my wife came down. We talked and were discussing things. Something was said and I lost it. I went black. I threw down my tools and stormed out of the house. I went into our camper that was parked in the driveway. I cried and shook for several hours in their. I finally went back into the house. My wife tried to talk with me and I just shut down.
I was miserable for several months. I was not communicating with my wife and very short with my kids. I knew I needed help. While at work one day, I went and took a drive in my squad. I called a counselor and told them that I needed help. This was one of the hardest things to ever admit to myself and to make that phone call. I started seeing a counselor and also got on some meds. The counseling didn’t help, because I later learned that I was not honest with myself. My marriage continued to crumble. We started seeing a marriage counselor together. Once again, I was not honest with my or anyone else that was trying to help. It felt like my world was spiraling out of control. I wanted to drive my vehicle into a tree at high speeds just to not feel the pain anymore. The only thing keeping me from doing that was my kids.
In 2018, my wife and I separated. The drinking got bad to the point that my bosses had to talk with me. I decided to take a 3 month abscene from the County. I found other work to do during that time. I was feeling better. I decided to get off my meds on my own. When it was time to go back to work, I talked with my boys about it. I told them that it was time for Dad to go back to the Sheriff’s Office. I asked them what they thought. Without any prompting, my oldest who was around 9 years old said: “Dad, this is the happiest we have seen you and don’t want you to go back as a cop”. I knew at this time it was time for a change. Well what was I going to do? I have only done this for 22 years. The decisions was made to retire from the Sheriff’s Office. An opportunity opened up at our local ice rink and I was hired as the Rink Manager, which I am still at today.
The struggle wasn’t over. The dreams I continued having were very vivid. I would wake up in sweats. I started seeing things when I would wake up in the middle of the night. It was so bad that I started sleeping with a light on. It was lots of ups and downs, well more downs then ups. I knew I needed more counseling. I went to several counselors and I was on a different anxiety med again. While first taking these meds, it was the worst thing ever. My moods were all over the place. The depression and anxiety was worse than ever. Then one day I woke up feeling good. I think it was the meds that finally stabilized in my system. I felt different. I started being honest with myself while I was going to counseling. I went to a trauma therapist and did the EMDR. After that, my dreams started subsiding. Counseling continued.
I got to a point where I stopped counseling. I had the tools that I needed to work through life. When I start feeling down, I say that my demons are back hunting me. I work through it. Some days are good and other days are not so good. When they are not so good, I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to sleep. I don’t want to deal with people. This lasts for a day, a few days or sometimes several days. But I tell myself that I can get through it.