Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses.
My interview would be with a police officer. A do know a few police officers. Family friends I’ve heard about the life they have chosen.
Being a police officer is an incredibly demanding job, both physically and emotionally. It’s not just about enforcing the law, it’s about handing the aftermath of violence, crime, and often heart wrenching situations.
Overdose calls -officers often are the first on the scene, having something called Narcan that is used to save their lives.
They strive to arrest the people who sell drugs that don’t care who they kill, or what they do for their money. Police officers are thrown into violent confrontations and tense stand offs.
Violence is part of the landscape for many officers. Domestic violence, gang violence, death and trauma. They are part of that.
The mental and emotional burdens they endure is intense. They have ways to cope with the trauma they see everyday that the public eye sometimes doesn’t understand. And this trauma can lead to PTSD, anxiety or depression. This is compounded by societies expectation of how “people think they should act.”
Being a police officer is constant strain and exhaustion as they are often forced to move from one crisis to another. It’s a fast paced, high pressure environment that doesn’t leave much room for self care.
The human toll of this job it real, and the emotional scars aren’t always visible. They end up carrying a heavy burden that is not only difficult for them but is full of hard to understand for people that live outside the profession.
It’s a life full of difficulties, moments of heroism, and the ever present weight of knowing that the next call could bring something tragic.
The way some people treat police offenders is down right pathetic.
It’s a life they have chosen to protect us. Yet they are disrespected by so many. It’s about time people start realizing what they go through for us -the law abiding citizens.
The police officers I know wouldn’t trade their jobs for anything. But they also have to deal with the aftermath of societies baggage.
People wrongly believe a whole group is bad based on the actions of one person due to a combination of cognitive biases or evolutionary instincts. Our brains can mistakenly apply negative attributes to make all members of the group. It’s an awful way to think.
From Pity to Praise 