I Joined the Police to Confront My Fears, but Trauma Overwhelmed Me
I used to be frightened of my own shadow. My earliest memory is of preschool, where a boy pulled me off a toy slide. I was hanging on to the steps by my fingers and shouting for the teacher despite being 2 feet off the floor.
The teachers at primary school had to devise a strategy for when they left the classroom because I used to cry. I was terrified of abandonment. They had to get me used to them coming and going in stages. I was so worried one time that I wet myself.
That kid seems a million years away from the man who joined the police and made it his job to hunt the worst of society.
How did I get from there to here?
Karate chopping my way to confidence.
I was bullied mercilessly at school and left with zero confidence. My salvation came in the form of karate and boxing.
I’d always been terrified of physical confrontation. I imagined I’d learn the skills necessary to defend myself, and life would be a breeze afterward. It didn’t work out that way.
Gradually, I learned how to give and take punches and kicks. I started working through the grades in karate — right up to the coveted black belt. In boxing, I stood toe to toe with the toughest guys at the club, and I wasn’t backing down. I could take punches and keep going.
Yet there was one problem. I still felt scared. Before every session, I’d have to force myself to leave my warm, cozy house and go out in the cold to take a beating.
I began to feel worse than ever. I wasn’t just scared — now I was a black belt amateur boxer and scared! I even asked other students if they were afraid, and they said no.
It took me a long time to realize they were lying.
Fear is a natural human emotion that everyone experiences. Everyone feels fear, but the bravest feel it most of all. They’ve learned how to handle it and make fear work for them — to make them faster, stronger, and smarter. Bravery and courage are determined by how a person deals with their fear.
How I learned to accept fear.
I started by educating myself. I read the work of Geoff Thompson, a man who used to be as scared as me. He learned self-control through martial arts and became a nightclub doorman. After hundreds of real-world encounters, Thompson realized the futility of violence. He pivoted to become a full-time author and spiritual guru.
I also read “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers.
From those books, I devised a “fear ladder.” Although I had many fears, they all varied in intensity. There was no point confronting my biggest fears immediately — that would lead to failure. Instead, I wrote down the fears that were easiest to beat. I’d write more difficult fears at each rung of the ladder until violent confrontation came in at the top.
As I overcame each fear, I built momentum. Fears that used to be impossible, such as public speaking, were now one more step away on the ladder.
Every day, I could look at the ladder and see how far I’d come.
Finally, I reached the top — violent confrontation. I was already boxing and doing karate, but there was always a referee to stop the fight if things got dangerous. I wanted to test myself in the real world, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to go out and pick fights with random people.
Instead, I became a police officer.
A knifeman was waiting for me.
One day, I was called to an apartment in a tower block where the complainant’s neighbor had burgled him.
The funny thing about these two is that every week, one was the victim and one the suspect, and then they’d swap.
As the elevator opened on the 4th floor, the suspect stood at the door with a screwdriver. My fear levels shot to record levels, and every part of me wanted to run.
I took control of myself within seconds. There was nowhere to run, and as a police officer, backing down wasn’t an option. I told him to drop the screwdriver.
“Or what?” he replied.
I saw a window of opportunity, and I hit him. He hit the floor, and I finally managed to escape the elevator. As I went to get on top of him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.
We continued to roll around the floor. Every time I hit the suspect, another weapon fell from his clothing.
My colleagues were downstairs, but they couldn’t get in. All tower blocks have a code that is supposed to work for emergency workers in situations like this. Yet, in this case, the code had stopped working.
Eventually, I got the upper hand and managed to handcuff my suspect. By the time my colleagues reached me, there were weapons strewn across the floor.
As per the regular pattern, the following week, my opponent was now the victim of his neighbor. I went to talk to the “victim,” expecting a hostile reception after our fight the week before.
Instead, the strangest thing happened.
He greeted me like we were old friends, chatted with me, and shook hands. This may seem unfathomable to regular people, but it’s happened to me several times in my career. Some criminals only respect violence. They test you, and if you pass the test, they like you. I always sought to treat people fairly so they knew that violence was only ever a last resort.
He barricaded himself in a room with a knife.
A woman called us to say that her partner was smashing up the house, and she was terrified. I arrived with two colleagues. I was the most experienced, so I took the lead.
On arrival, the woman told us he locked himself in his room upstairs. I went up and knocked on the door, introducing myself.
He told me that he was cutting himself, but if we came through the door, he’d cut his own throat.
I couldn’t stand outside for long negotiating as he was already cutting himself. I could go in, but I might get hurt or cause even more harm.
I asked one of my colleagues to get me a shield. For all I knew, he was causing himself severe damage. If he hadn’t admitted to hurting himself, I’d have sat outside for as long as it took.
Once I had the shield, I didn’t want to give him a warning, so I kicked down the door. Once it opened, I had milliseconds to take in the layout. Glancing left, I saw him standing there with the knife.
I tackled him with the shield, and we both fell onto the bed. It was then that he started cutting his throat. I stopped him in a second, so the cut was superficial. We called for an ambulance and got him help before we dealt with the crimes he committed.
When it was all over, I breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone was in one piece and ok.
The toll of constant terror.
I never stopped feeling fear, but I became so used to it that events like those above started to feel normal.
I was so switched on that I struggled to switch off. If I went to a restaurant, I had to sit facing the door and survey everyone who entered.
I became intolerable to my partner. I always wanted to know what time she’d be home because I knew what happened to some women at the hands of predatory men.
I was angry all the time. So many criminals I met in my work revolted me, yet I had to treat them fairly. I bottled up my anger and damaged my mental health.
While confronting fear is good and will lead to many improvements in your life, there are limits. The pressure has to be relieved. It’s not healthy for any human to endure constant anger and stress.
When I walked away from my career as a police officer with PTSD, I also left with a deep understanding of myself. I’d proven that I could face fear in all its guises. I’d shown I was capable of anything I wanted to achieve.
More than anything else, I learned that after one fear ladder comes another. As long as we live and grow, fears can be understood and conquered. In overcoming my first fear ladder, I’d reached a ledge masquerading as the top.
My next ladder was geared towards overcoming PTSD. And it made the first ladder look like child’s play.
A solitary figure in a police uniform amidst the complexities of a city at dusk, embodying the journey of confronting fears and facing overwhelming trauma.