Healing the Rage and Finding Peace After Leaving the Police

Image by South_agency on iStock

They say the definition of stress is not being able to punch someone in the mouth who deserves it. This may be tongue-in-cheek, but it fits well with the nature of modern-day policing.

Being a police officer made me angry. That anger had nowhere to go, so I buried it. I did this over and over again. The result was that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder forced me to retire at age 27.

The cruelty of the ordinary

As a police officer, I saw injustice all the time. The same people get arrested for the same things day after day. They go to the same courts and get the same punishments.

There are people out there with hundreds of convictions, and yet they’ve never been to prison. Others love prison so much that they commit crimes so that they can go back. Their friends are in jail, like the routine, and they get to eat three meals daily. Do-gooders pretend the UK prison system is brutal? Don’t believe a word of it.

These offenders love to abuse the police. They go right to the edge of instigating a response and then pull back. I remember one man telling me he was going to rape my mum and cut her heart out. I wanted to beat the hell out of him, but I didn’t touch him. I suppressed the anger.

I was trying to guard the scene of a murdered teenager. Someone stabbed him to death in the early hours of the morning in front of a kebab shop. People wanted to step over him to ensure they got their kebab. I got into an altercation with a guy because he’d been to Afghanistan and had “seen more deaths than me”. I’ve seen a lot of death, so I wouldn’t be so sure. I just needed him to find a different way home.

I suppressed another surge of anger.

When two girls jumped from a tower block and lay dying, a man wanted to step over them to return some plates to a friend. The scene was so horrific that it was a catalyst for me developing PTSD. Yet this guy didn’t even bat an eyelid.

I saw a guy arguing with his girlfriend. In the blink of an eye, he took her to the floor, put her leg on the step of our police van, and stamped on it. He didn’t care that he got arrested; he wanted to make her suffer, and to him, any price was worth it.

Whenever I fought someone, I had to watch out to make sure I was using reasonable force. In what other area of life would you have to win a battle for survival while causing minimal damage to the person attacking you?

100% disabled for life?

I was medically retired in 2007 and told I was 100% disabled for the rest of my life with PTSD. I refused to believe this devastating prognosis.

A big part of my problem was anger. I was sitting on years of it. I became intolerable. I’d argue with my loved ones over the most petty things.

I risked sacrificing years of love for a moment of anger.

People started modifying their behavior so as not to trigger or upset me. I grew to hate people and spent most of my time alone.

In many ways, it felt better to be angry and judgemental than it did to feel the full pain of PTSD. While I was angry, I wasn’t hurting. Instead, I was causing pain to those around me, and that had to stop.

I needed to find a way to release my rage. These are the steps I took.

1. I got out of the environment.

There’s no way I could have eased my anger and stayed in the police. Every day would be like poking the bear. Some personality types are well suited to being a police officer. I never was. I tried to force myself into the role, but the consequences were disastrous.

Instead, I had to find a new identity and I couldn’t do that under the intensity of police work.

Being medically retired felt like the most painful thing that had ever happened to me. It was also one of the best.

2. I learned to replay the incidents that induced rage and sat in that discomfort.

I have a photographic memory of the key events that triggered rage inside me. My job no longer required me to suppress that rage. Avoidance is the most damaging thing you can do to escape pain. All you’re doing is sticking your head in the sand. The monkey on your back will grow fatter by the day until you can’t pretend anymore.

Controlled exposure is the key to recovery. When a memory surfaced that triggered rage within me, I no longer ran away. I sat in the discomfort and allowed myself to feel it.

We run from negative emotions, but they won’t kill us. We don’t like to feel uncomfortable, but who said we always need comfort?

I’d sit and relive the incidents that triggered the rage. I’d then go over all the blessings in my life — my health, my family, my financial security, and my freedom. Inevitably, my aggressors had awful lives. It doesn’t make sense to get angry at someone acting out of pain and frustration. Instead, I try to give them my empathy.

3. I began writing.

Writing has been my greatest therapy. It gets thoughts out of my head and forces me to express myself. I write about the most painful subjects, and it exorcizes them from my mind.

Through writing, my pain has meaning. I’ve been able to help others who can identify with my experiences.

Although I thought I loved policing, I always felt a dissonance deep inside — as if I was on the wrong path. Writing has resolved that dissonance. I can tell I’m doing what I should’ve done all along.

4. I avoid certain types of people.

One of the few areas of life where avoidance pays off is selecting who to spend time around. I can control my anger by avoiding criminals and people likely to trigger me. I lose nothing by this kind of avoidance, which makes time for me to spend with those who matter.

My days of trying to help and appease the scum of society are over. I no longer desire to babysit society.

I also avoid people whose writing aggravates me and people who cause me any degree of annoyance. There are billions of people in the world.

5. I reframe my thoughts.

My mantra used to be that I was the unluckiest man in the world. I thought everything terrible happened to me, and I was cursed with the same kind of luck my dad had before me. These ideas got me nowhere.

As the anger has left me, I’ve realized how lucky I am. I now count my blessings — my health, the people who matter to me, and my freedom.

When something goes wrong, I stress that it doesn’t mean EVERYTHING has gone wrong. Life comprises good and bad moments that sometimes don’t happen sequentially. You often get bad luck, but good times are around the corner.

Recovery rests on finding the seed of goodness.

Policing left me devastated and trapped in a cycle of rage and guilt. Yet, if I hadn’t gone through that nightmare, I wouldn’t be writing today, which is my true calling.

I’ve found seeds of good in most of my painful experiences. I don’t believe in God, but I can see how vast parts of my life tie together.

Now, I’ve banished most of my anger from the past, and I come to every new situation with a clean slate. I can handle day-to-day annoyance without it being the final straw. I can deal with situations calmly and with focus.

The best thing is that my loved ones no longer have to walk around on eggshells in case they upset me. It’s a learning experience for us all, but it’s one I’m blessed to have.

Download my FREE ebook, ‘Mental Health: Myths, Realities, and Hope.’ Discover the truth about mental illness, debunk common myths, and find resources for support.