Episode 82: 911 Operator Compassion
Edie De Vilbiss worked in 9-1-1 for fourteen years which left her cranky, fat and cynical. She suffered compassion fatigue, health problems, and spiritual malaise. Over the following twenty years, she intentionally renewed her life. Along the way, she earned two master’s degrees and served as an addictions counselor and Chaplain before retiring in 2020. Now enjoying a peaceful, thin, and joyful life she loves, it is her delight to help other. Invite your best future through working with her. With her, you gain simple and actionable tools to shape a life you love.
Social media and contact info.
Podcast Transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where alone exposed, destroyed people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about in my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole.
Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children.
This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Edie DeVilbiss. She has many roles in her life. Grandma, mother mother-in-law, auntie cousin, retired 911 operator and more. We'll talk about how she suffered compassion, fatigue, health problems, and spiritual exhaustion, and how she found health and healing. Let's talk
Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where alone exposed, destroyed people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about in my ongoing investigation of the damaged self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole.
Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children.
This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today, we're going to talk with Edie DeVilbiss. She has many roles in her life. Grandma, mother mother-in-law, auntie cousin, retired 911 operator and more. We'll talk about how she suffered compassion, fatigue, health problems, and spiritual exhaustion, and how she found health and healing. Let's talk
Welcome Edie DeVilbiss to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We are so glad to have you here today.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:04:05] It's so exciting to be here. Thank you so much, Angela. I so appreciate the work that you do in your podcasts have been a blessing to me I it.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:15] Thank you for letting me know. I love that. I'm so glad it's making a difference. So you're here to tell us some things about you today. And one of the interesting things I thought was you were a 911 dispatcher for 14 years.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:04:34] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:35] you tell us about your journey?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:04:37] Yes. I was a 911 dispatcher in Colorado and started in 1983. And I didn't leave until 2001, but I took a four year break in there. And so it was 14 years of dispatch over 17 years of time, 17, 18. I don't know math is not my thing. And in my journey, one of the things that happened was I succumb to compassion, fatigue. Compassion, fatigue is very similar to PTSD, is just comes from a different source.
PTSD is from trauma, from receiving trauma. Compassion, fatigue is from hearing other people's trauma and dealing with other people's trauma and taking on that pain. In addition to whatever we're coping with. And so it's, the symptomology is exactly the same nightmares, depression increased alcohol use or other drugs relationship problems, the general deterioration and wellbeing, physical ailments can come from an, a lot of somatic complaints.
And so I succumb to compassion, fatigue, and my story is about recovery.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:46] Yeah. So I'm just wondering with the compassion fatigue, is that why you took the four year break? In there or was it something that happened later?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:05:56] The compassion fatigue was certainly a part in needing to take a break. Although I did not realize that at the time, I did not realize how much emotional pain I was in. I had gone through a divorce, which was also, I suspect a result of the compassion, fatigue wearing me down. And I was very, very cranky.
No one in my life. Quite pleased to meet me.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:21] Outside of the calls.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:06:22] Oh, no one liked my co-work. I didn't like my coworkers. I didn't like my husband. I didn't like my children and I pretty much didn't like the woman in the moon.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:31] Okay. Okay. So you didn't like anyone including yourself.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:06:35] Especially myself.
Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:38] I want to understand the calls. So you become this nine one, one dispatcher. And as you're taking these calls, did you recognize that things were getting worse for you in, life? Or was it something you didn't notice?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:06:53] I didn't notice. I didn't notice it was other people's fault.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:57] Okay.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:06:58] If my husband would have given me what I needed, which I had no idea what that was, it would have been fine. You know, if my kids would just listen to me, if I could just get two more hours of sleep, if the callers weren't so rude, it was everybody else.
Everybody else could fix my life. Yeah, I was powerless in it. I was, Oh, I'm very snarky, very cynical. I lost my faith. Yeah, it was a pretty strong downhill slide. Now I have this smile. I
Damaged Parents: [00:07:32] do it's. It's beautiful.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:07:34] I have, a personality that. Tends to be upbeat. I would gather, I would guess that a lot of people didn't realize how miserable I was, because I'm really good at putting on a fabulous front. but there was a point where I was actively suicidal. And so when I moved away, I left Colorado. I moved to Northwest Florida to get a new star. It was after the divorce, I wanted to leave 911. I wanted to leave. The area, I wanted to leave the memories.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:05] so that's not during that break. That's
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:08:07] That is the break when I moved to Florida.
And yes, so I moved from Colorado to Florida for four years and tried to do something different and ended up going back to emergency communications. And when Colorado, when I left, I was making $16 an hour and had full benefits. The agency that I started working for in Northwest Florida paid $8 an hour. And so I called my old boss and said, if I wanted to come back, would you rehire me and she said, when can you get here? And so I went back to Colorado and back to the job that I had left.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:42] When you were in Florida though, did you notice a change in yourself? Did you feel better down there or the same, or it just didn't matter.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:08:50] I felt better. It was more, that everything was new. I felt refreshed, but in Florida, my relationship with my youngest child was at its worst. So she was about 12 when her father left and we went through the divorce and my life fell apart. My, my son joined the Navy. A few days later, my father-in-law died and a few days after that, my mother-in-law moved in with us.
So then my former husband has, Two daughters, a wife and a mother, in the house and no other male. And I think that was really hard for him. Six months after she moved in and after everything fell apart was when he said he needed a divorce. And it was because I was a bad wife, I wasn't the only one who was not well,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:41] So it, it was ever, it sounds like a lot of people were suffering and just not able to talk about it maybe.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:09:49] Not able to recognize it because all the blame was there.
Blaming is so disempowering. When we blame other people for our problems, we have absolutely no power to fix it.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:03] Okay. You were saying everyone was blaming each other because it was always someone else's fault. No matter who's saying it, because no one ever took responsibility. There wasn't a need to change because it was someone else's
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:10:20] right. There's no need for me to change. If you would fix themselves. If my kids would fix themselves. If my mother-in-law would have fixed herself and it was the same with them, that it was someone else's fault. You know, if I hadn't been so awful and if I weren't so difficult to get along with and so that's one of my biggest learnings is it doesn't matter.
Who's really good blame. I always figured out what my part is. I'm going to work on my part.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:48] Did you start learning that in Florida then? Or is this something that you started learning a little bit later?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:10:55] I think in Florida, I started getting a glimpse of it. I had through the divorce through the time of the divorce, I started looking for faith, because it was gone. And so I looked into other world religions besides Christianity. I was raised in the church. And ended up going back to Christianity, started visiting churches.
And so the move to Florida was bathed in prayer. I had prayed for a church to be able to serve, and I served in Florida. And I became a youth director, which will challenge every fiber of your being. And I loved my kids and my, because I wanted my daughter to be involved in with the group.
I wanted her to have sprints. I wanted her to be in church. I wanted her to get a taste of this and
Damaged Parents: [00:11:41] I've got to ask. Did she just because of the nature of the teenager, right. Was she glad that you were there? Did she get involved or was it kind of like, well, mom's involved. I'm going to be honoree.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:11:53] Yes. It was more the latter. She did get involved some because she said she liked the other kids.
And they really liked to put in one over on me, so,
Damaged Parents: [00:12:03] Oh, that's even better.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:12:05] yeah. Oh yeah. They were a great team. It was awesome. But I prayed for her and I would pray, Lord, help her, see how much I loved.
And that was to no avail. And I gave up on that. I said, Lord, teach me how to love her, the way you do
Damaged Parents: [00:12:22] Okay. And what happened when you shifted that prayer?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:12:26] Everything changed. One of the things that happened. She was experimenting with alcohol and drugs. And she had an accidental overdose on, an over-the-counter medication and combined with alcohol and She spent the night in the ER, and while she spent several hours in the ER and they put her in ICU for overnight because they did not know what she had taken and she did not know what she had taken.
And so they closely posted monitoring. When the psychiatrist came to visit her, he determined that her behavior, because she had gotten picked up in the middle of very busy streets, out of it. She didn't know where she was. She was impeding traffic. And he said that, you know, she says she's not suicidal, but that's kind of suicidal behavior and I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Her life is for savings. So she was committed for 72 hours. And that was during this time when I'm praying for the ability to love her. And so I went to the facility, every chance I got there, very limited visitation. And I went and visited her every single time. But she's in this facility with several other young people about her age, and none of them got a visit from anybody. And that helped her realize how much I love her. And she came through it. She still doesn't drink she's pushing 40. She still doesn't drink. She avoids all substances. She's hard pressed to take an ibuprofen when she has had it. She's just not going to do that stuff because it was so hard for her.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:58] Yeah. So it sounds like to me that, because you were willing to love her the way God loves her, that you were in those moments, instead of being angry at her, it was loving her at her worst.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:14:12] Yeah, compassion, compassion. I had lost self-compassion I was so tired of compassion and I had lost my ability to be compassionate towards my own child. And that was restored and it, you know, yeah, .
Damaged Parents: [00:14:27] Okay. Cause that, and that kind of takes us or doesn't kind of, it takes us, it takes me back and in thinking to being a nine 11 dispatcher. I would think in a lot of ways you're required to be compassionate. In fact, that you are trained to specific way, I would think, and that you're not allowed to panic or be, I mean, I'm not sure what goes into the training, but my assumption is that it's, pretty intense and that your emotions are not allowed at all.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:15:00] Yeah, basically, you find a way to shut it off. When, so most calls. It depends on where you are. And in major cities where there's a lot of crime where there's a lot of homicide and a lot of violence it's different, but I was in smaller towns. And so most of the calls that I had were things like staffed and, gas theft and harassing phone calls and that sort of thing.
But violence is part of our world part of our culture. And so domestic violence calls did happen. And I worked primarily the overnight shift and that was probably our greatest number of calls to get a domestic violence call from a child hiding in the closet.
Damaged Parents: [00:15:46] That's so hard.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:15:47] You can't rescue. I can't go put my arms around them
Damaged Parents: [00:15:50] so what do you do? I mean, you're this color and you have to stay on the phone, I think, right.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:15:57] you stay on the phone with them until the officers are there until the safe, the scene is secure. And then you have to let it go. So one of the great One of the biggest stressors in 911 and in emergency communications is, not knowing no closure. So these children that I talked to in the eighties and nineties are adults now, I don't know where they are. I don't know how their lives unfolded, unless they were taken into, to. Foster care. They were still in the same situation. Domestic violence is a very difficult pattern to break it's, I believe it's, it has addictive elements to it that there's the same kind of release pleasure cycle to it that the tension builds and the tension builds and then somebody provokes a fight and then there's a release.
And so.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:51] Yeah.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:16:52] So it's a habit. It's the kinds of things that we do time and time again. And I know from my later work, how devastating that sort of thing is for the child. So when I left 911, apparently if I'm lonely, I go to school
Damaged Parents: [00:17:08] You go to where?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:17:09] school.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:10] Oh,
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:17:12] I went to college and I got a degree in counseling and I became an addictions counselor and I worked in the addictions field, for several years.
And then I went to seminary and got my master's in divinity and became a pastor and got assigned to be a chaplain in the children's home. Because when I was in addictions, I ran the adolescent program. And so I became a chaplain. At a children's home. That is a psychiatric residential treatment facility for young people, between 11 and 17 years old with mental health and behavioral health issues.
So these kids are the same kids that I answered nine 11 for, I mean, not physically the same, but the same kind of kids they've experienced the same sorts of things. And so I do have some understanding now of what these kids go through and it's horrible. Domestic violence is awful.
Damaged Parents: [00:18:04] Would you say that that transition actually helped you find some closure to what may have happened to those children on the other end of the nine 11 calls that so that maybe you were able to tell the rest of the story in your mind.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:18:22] It helped me understand more of what they went through and this they're still not good closure because I want a happy ending
Damaged Parents: [00:18:29] okay, so you want a happy ending and that may or may not happen.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:18:34] Yeah. I went through the compassion fatigue when I was in school. I got counseling and, got some help. And went into addictions counseling and found myself suffering some of the same symptoms again, but I, had more strategy and at the children's home, I did it again.
Now each time it was it wasn't just the work and see with 911, it wasn't just the work it's grief. It's grief. It's the life going on? You know, it's having. My big brother died and then a few months later, my son leaves home and a few days later, my father-in-law dies. So I've got all grief stuff stuff, but I can't express this right.
Because I'm busy. I've got too much going on. I've got kids to take care of. I got to get that dog sped, you know, I've got to do this, I gotta do that. And there's no time and no margin in my mind for grief. There's no way to, to manage all this stuff.
And so when I was in the addictions counseling, my mother was dying and it just, it's when we're full, when our pain is full and we're trying to help other people in pain, there's no room for it. And so it spills out and the pain leaks out. It's like an acid and it leaks on the other people.
It's like was spurt pain everywhere we go.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:54] okay. So I think I can understand that in that even so if I'm miserable or sad because of something that's happening and I try to ignore it, it still seeps out whether I want it to, or not because it's there and I haven't dealt with it. Right. I think that's what you're saying. So it doesn't matter.
It comes out.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:20:20] And it still hurts and the things that we do to keep it from hurting partis. Right. That's where that's the root of addiction. I, over the years I put on 85 pounds.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:32] Okay.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:20:33] Yeah. That's a sugar addiction.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:35] Okay. So you're putting, so you were feeding your pain or trying to. Well, sugar is what more addictive than cocaine, right? Or isn't that? What said? So every time you would give your self a shot of feel and you would feel good right. For
that
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:20:53] Right. For a few moments. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:55] Okay.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:20:56] Yeah. Yeah. Well, it tastes good yeah, so destroying my own now.
Damaged Parents: [00:21:02] Okay.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:21:03] Just so the stuff we do unconsciously to deal with that kind of pain does not surface pain needs to be felt. So when we're grieving, the most powerful thing we can do is sit and being in pain.
Damaged Parents: [00:21:18] I don't like it. When you say that.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:21:20] I've never met anybody who said, Ooh, what a good idea. That sounds fun.
But the thing is pain needs to be found. Our fear is that we will cry forever, that we will always, always feel this way, that it will be terrible the rest of our lives. And that's not true when we go ahead and feel the pain. When we allow ourselves to cry.
When we sit with that misery dissipates and then we can move on. Now it might come back and visit
because you know, it liked it here. And every time we experience another grief cycle, we'll, re-experience the ones we've already been through. Every funeral you go to. You find yourself thinking about other tools you've been to and it's part of life.
Death is part of life. Grief is the price we paid for love. Isn't that a great quote? That's CS Lewis. Yeah. It's surprised we pay for love if we love. Well, we will grieve from they're gone. And when we go ahead and grief we can be joyful.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:28] so leaning into it is extremely important. how did you learn to lean into it though?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:22:35] Grief taught me. So when I was at the children's home, now, if arched in 92, I don't even remember less than true. I met and married another pastor and he was a delight. We had so much fun together. But when I met him, I knew that he had massive health problems. He was a transplant survivor. He had somebody else's liver and he had been on someone else's liver for a long time and eight months after we married he died. And I had been off work for five minutes when he was in the ICU and I don't remember how long it was. It was a long time I'd been gone from the campus. And I, I really held the campus in my heart. I really believe that my presence mattered. And I was anxious to get back to work. I was, I just to be normal again.
So the day after the funeral, I went back to work and I cried at home. I thought I was doing a good job of grieving. He died in March. We're coming up on seven years. In November. I remember one night when I went to bed, I couldn't stop crying on a Saturday night. I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't stop crying. And I woke up the next morning.
I would still cry. That fear that we will cry forever. I believe was coming true because I could not stop. And I got it together enough to go in, to get the chapel ready for services so that I could preach well, I had two volunteers who came in and played music, and so they circled me and prayed for me.
And when I started preaching, I started crying again and big fat tears flowed through the whole sermon while I preached on God's faithfulness and God's presence. Because I was able to say with full conviction that I believe that was present with me and then I was going to be at home and it is all right to feel grief that it is all right to cry.
And we could do this with God's help, probably the most powerful sermon that I preached, but honestly, Angela. That certainly was for me more than anybody else. And so allowing myself to feel that turned the corner for me, I was much better able to coup. I still have moments. It's been seven years. I still talked to him and still missing because we just had this amazing connection. Okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:03] I want to say that being able to cry. When you're giving a sermon was even perhaps more vulnerable than just the crying at home. instead of walking away from the message, I believe you believed that God wanted you to give in that moment. You stayed, which probably I'm thinking that took some courage.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:25:27] Probably
Damaged Parents: [00:25:28] Okay. And I'm thinking people didn't say how sick, bad and wrong you were for having those emotions.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:25:38] no, no, no.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:39] Okay. So you noticed so, they thanked you for sharing. That vulnerability.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:25:45] Now, these are teenagers who are dealing. I mean, being a teenagers and emotional storm. Anyway, these are teenagers who don't have coping skills. They don't have support systems. They don't have the grace of family around them. And for me to be able to be vulnerable like that and to demonstrate that I think it was pretty powerful for some of those,
Damaged Parents: [00:26:07] Would you say that after that they were a little more open to emotional expression? Or at least sadness after that. I mean, I don't know if that's something you noticed.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:26:20] I did not notice. I didn't, I don't know, probably a few and maybe some of the staff.
Damaged Parents: [00:26:26] Yep. Yeah. Because if you've lost your family
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:26:29] Oh grief is part of your story, it just is
Damaged Parents: [00:26:32] yeah. And I'm, thinking on a. A whole nother level. The, that emotional intelligence is just not there. And then I think in some ways maybe for them might be shameful to reach out. Maybe like for you, the blame of everyone else that you had been talking about early on, it's really easy for them because they've been so wronged to blame everyone else. So how would you reach these kids then when they're in that place?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:27:04] Oh, I had the best job. Cause my only job, my only goal, my only real requirement was to love them. And God has given me a gift and I do acknowledge that it is a gift that I see the best in people. I see the absolute best. When I meet someone and I'm so grateful because I could just see, the shiny awesomeness of everyone.
And so to have somebody actually listened to them and smile at them and care about them, it has a profound effect. We don't know how much something small, like our smile. Means to other people, but I promise you, your smile means something to somebody. And the more you deploy that weapon against evil, the better our world is.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:56] That reminds me of an email I received from a gal on a mission. And she was talking about how she waved and smiled at everyone and how in that particular community, it was not something that was normal or done. And someone who had questioned on it. And it's like, because I know what makes a difference.
And she kept doing that and that warmed my heart. You know, even, I think sometimes walking down the street and walking, looking around you, instead of looking at the ground is different than just going for a walk. Yes. The walk is healthy and it helps you feel better physically and emotionally. And what happens if we also just look up.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:28:41] What if we put our cellphones away I know here I go, being radical and Metro. I live very near a beautiful park and we go for walks in the park and I'm appalled when I see people walking along with their cell phone, because there are deer in the park and it's just gorgeous.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:01] Wait, they're looking at their cell phone. They don't just have it. And they're
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:04] I don't know. They're looking at their phone
Damaged Parents: [00:29:07] while they're exercising.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:09] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:09] Okay. Yeah.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:11] Got to get their attention to say hello.
And even in COVID time, I say hello to people.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:16] Okay. I have a question for you. So do you really try to get their attention when they're holding their phone? Are you like,
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:22] Oh yeah. Hi. Yeah.
Yeah. Hi there. It's a gorgeous day. Isn't it?
Damaged Parents: [00:29:27] What are the responses like?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:29] Well, either they ignore me or they don't.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:31] Okay. Okay.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:33] You know, I don't have a lot of stake in it. I'm probably not going to go home cry if they ignore me. But if they don't ignore me, then they might actually see a leaf.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:43] right. And it seems like, at least you've put that out into the universe.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:49] Yeah. I think the good we do by loving anyway, it's worth it.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:54] Yeah.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:29:55] It's worth the risk.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:57] right? So you went from being blame, blame, blame, blame. You go to Florida, it sounds like that's where you really learned to open up, or you, at least your journey started. And then you come back and you said that the compassion, fatigue happened more than once. And in fact, now it's something that, I'm not sure if you didn't say this, but this is the conclusion I came to in my mind, is that when something does happen that that would you've had experiences like that. You can come to expect that it will happen again, that you will trigger it.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:30:36] And now I know how to manage things. So the key to emotional wellbeing when you're in a high stress occupation is self care. So we have to eat, right. We have to get my exercise. We've got to drink plenty of water and rest, and we need a spiritual connection with other faith we have, but we also need to pay attention to mental health constructs, how we're thinking about things, that whole blame game and what we're putting out into the world.
And you know how we're caring for our body, how we're caring for our emotional and spiritual health and how we look at ourselves. It turns out that the way we love others is how we love ourselves. Think about this, biblically, I don't know your faith journey, but you know, I'm Christian pastor biblically.
We are commanded. Jesus said that the most important commandment is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and soul and spirit and love your neighbors as yourself. They're the two most important, well, I think they're sequential. I think you can't love your neighbor and she loved herself unless you'd loving God and receiving love from God.
But it turns out that the way we love others is the same way that we love ourselves. And so if we are people who like I was, I beat myself up all the time. I knew I wasn't good at my job. I knew I was, I promise you, I was good at my job. But there were days when I felt like I wasn't any good.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:02] But in your mind, in those moments
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:32:04] in my mind I would beat myself up, you know, I'd make a mistake. And it was because I was a terrible, terrible, terrible parent. Those kids ate every single day. You know, I didn't murder any of them. And so the way that I treated myself was how I was treating other people. If I'm not good enough, you're not good enough. If I fall short, every time I turned around, you're falling short every time you turn around and how many times do we do this? How many times do we love others? Just the same way we love ourselves. And so part of my mission is, well, my mission in life now is to help people recognize the kind of habits that we need to adopt and help them figure out how to do it.
Because that was my big barrier. When I first started counseling and the counselor said, well, you know, you need to take care of yourself. How can you do that? I've got three kids. I've got three kids at home. My house was a mess. We've got three dogs for some God only knows why reason. I'm working we're short-staffed to dispatches chronically short staffed.
So I was working 60 to 80 hours a week. Oh my mother-in-law. And I love my mother-in-law. She was a wonderful, wonderful human being. I loved her, but she loved her plants. She brought, she, she called her plants. She cut it down. When she moved into my house, she only brought up. So now I'm living in a jungle and I love her and I love the plants. And so there's this conflict that, but I love her. Oh, which is it ? And that was my internal struggle. Right. I don't know what to do with that. And so all this stuff is going on and, and I'm blaming everybody else. Yeah. It was a recipe for disaster.
It was awesome.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:47] But you didn't see it. Didn't see it. I'm just trying to think of the listeners that might not see it because I think, well, I'm pretty certain, we all have blind spots. Right. So how does one begin to even see it?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:34:05] Okay. My aha moment. I had several little ahas. One was one day I walked into the dispatch center and I said, hi there. And everybody who was already working, got really busy and turned away and didn't say, hi. And there was no phones ringing, and there was no chatter on the radio. Only they were too busy to look up.
And so I spent a day stewing about that, what's wrong, what's the matter with them. And then at, toward the end of the day, I was like, you know what, yesterday I was really snapping shit with them. I really, I was ugly to them. Two days later, I had a run in with my kids, but one of the Hallmarks, the, one of the crystal moments was coffee date with a friend who said, I'm worried about me.
I think you might need counseling. So having an external thing, but another thing that happened was one day I looked in the mirror and I made eye contact with myself and I looked into my green, green eyes and did not like that woman. I didn't like her at all. I didn't like the way she was treating people.
This is not who I am. This is not how I want to be. This is not it. And so I think that moment of realization was huge, but having my friends tell me that she thought I needed counseling was not, I probably took me two or three months to pick up the phone because phones are really heavy when it's asking for help, because that's not my style.
I don't ask for help. I was raised to be independent. I'm an American.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:35] Ooh. There's so much power in what you just said.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:35:38] Yeah. We pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps
Damaged Parents: [00:35:41] I don't ask for help. And I am an American we're supposed to be strong and independent,
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:35:48] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:49] not vulnerable.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:35:50] No, not vulnerable. No. And in law enforcement in emergency services, we're so tough people and. as much stigma as there is around aspirin for mental health help in the general population is exponential in emergency services. We don't ask for help. You got to toughen up, you got a tough enough because you're seen as weak.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:15] When in reality, it probably makes you stronger. The stigma says, if you ask you're weak,
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:36:22] Then I internalized that. I don't think anybody ever said that to me but I believed it. I believed that if I needed help with mental, I was weak. And if you needed help that way, because any, any judgment that I had for myself, I had said everybody else around. If I thought I was terrible, because I made a mistake, I thought every other person who made a mistake was terrible.
Well, we all make mistakes. Remember. I said I had been ugly to my team the day before.
Yeah. I chewed him out because somebody burned popcorn.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:52] they burnt popcorn.
Oh dear. So you were, you chewed them out over the burnt popcorn?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:36:59] Right. No wonder they wouldn't speak to me who deserves that?
Damaged Parents: [00:37:04] So, okay. So you've started recognizing it. When you came in with a smile, wanted to interact and they turned away from you in this and saying, we're not, we don't want to say hi to you,
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:37:17] we're not buying it.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:18] Yeah. We're not buying it. And then your friend says something and then you look in the mirror. What do you think are the possibilities of, knowing it sooner than when you actually figured it out. Yeah, I think that's the question I want to ask.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:37:33] I think that's, I think that's my work now is to help, people become more aware that we have a responsibility. We not only have the responsibility, we have the gift. That we can learn how to take care of ourselves so that we don't get so off and we can learn to accept ourselves so that we can accept others and we can make getting help be a normal thing.
Be an okay thing we can say, yep. This one's tough. I've worked with people who had a person who is suicidal, actually shoot themselves while they had them on the phone. They heard that person's. Gunshot and last breath, if that's not trauma, I don't know what it is. you got to be able to find a way to work with that.
And trauma needs. We need a compassionate witness. We need somebody to walk with us through it and help us to be able to express it, to be able to put it in its place. Horrible things happen in this world. Not all of it is people hurting other people. Some of it is random accidents, you know, things falling out of the sky.
You know, when, when the challenger exploded in their spaceship, falling from the sky, things happen.
Okay. And we have to find a way to be able to keep life in its place to accept the horror and still find the joy. If we cannot accept the four, we also posted on mutual. We can't feel good if we don't allow ourselves to feel that.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:08] And I'm just thinking about what you were saying about. The way that you would help your hands, maybe think of catching people when trauma happens and the trauma doesn't necessarily need to happen. The specific trauma, for instance, the car accident or the, whatever the trauma could be to the support person also.
And as I was picturing your hands and having those thoughts, what came to mind was a net that, because you also had said, we all struggle and we all have these things happen to us. And so what I was envisioning in my mind was this net of. Woven together, people that we have around us, at the same time, I think we need to weave that net. Like you were saying, it's really hard to reach out and make that phone call and get you did it. And you started weaving your net in that moment. And now when something happens, you've got this support network or this net you can fall back on so that you don't hit the ground.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:40:07] And in because I'm part of that net, the other people in the net have that same. Assurance. We are all in this together. We're not alone and you're right. We weave the net. I love that.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:24] It just really is, because we're all damaged in some way. But together woven together, we make it the world's stronger. And by recognizing that maybe I'm not so good at one thing. And yet I can also be great at another thing. Then we're lifting where we stand, where we're utilizing.
Everyone's. Well, the best parts of each person and we're supporting and loving the tough parts, I think is pretty amazing.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:40:55] Cause we all have phones.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:56] We all have them and it's so hard to recognize those so
hard.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:41:03] Oh yeah. It is very hard and finding people who can be honest with you. I mean, I am forever grateful to my friend for being honest now that's true. Cause there were probably plenty of people around who thought I needed help, but she told me. She told me. And then she loved me through my not remembering to call, Oh, I can't get ahold of EAP.
No. Now when I got back from Florida and I went back to the nine 11 center, I had a call that
to say it was horrible, would be an understatement. It was really, really a bad call for me. And the call center really touches are often connected. One of the harder calls I ever dispatched was a child had gotten hit by a car, the child riding a bicycle. Now the car was going slow. The child was banged up, but not critically injured.
Like didn't even stay in the hospital was scratched up and was going to hurt for awhile. Probably be afraid to ride a bike for a while, but. It's going to be okay. But it was a few days after we'd given my daughter her bicycle. And so that would touch me. I can't talk about being wrecked by this call.
I've got five more calls coming in. I don't know that it, you know, suppressing that it came out in therapy like 10 years later. Oh, that was a big deal.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:20] So you like, did you not want your daughter to go ride the bike then after that, was that part of it? Or did you even acknowledge it?
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:42:28] was not conscious. I wasn't consciously aware that that was something that was, that had increased my fear. I was always worried about her when she rode a bicycle on the street,
Damaged Parents: [00:42:37] That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:42:40] Yeah. And so, but then I had this call, and I had talked to with this person for about a half an hour. While they were driving.
It was the first call I had where I had to call her on the cell phone. It was around 2000 when cell phones were just coming in and she was on a, uh, an interstate in heavy traffic and going to her child who was injured.
I had physical effects, but I was well enough in my journey to recognize that I was having problems. And so I immediately called the EAP, the employee assistance program and the therapists that they referred me to. They gave me an appointment in six weeks. I was going to have an appointment in six weeks.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:26] And you're struggling.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:43:27] I can't sleep. I'm having cramps in my legs, in my thighs, in the back of my thoughts, which is an odd place to have cramps, toes. Yes. But the back of your thigh calves, yes. Back in the fall. And a friend of mine, who's a nurse said, you know, I know I have somebody who can help you.
And so she referred me to a massage therapist who was really big and We talked for a little while, and then he did the massage. And when the massage was over, we talked some more and he released what was going on in my thighs and we talked about it and he said, I've seen this in people who wanted to run away from the situation.
I'm like, okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:07] That makes so much sense. I would never have thought about that.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:44:12] I didn't think of it. And, and I said, I asked him, I said, how do you deal with other people's pain? How do you do this all day and not experience it yourself? And he said, well, I meditate for two hours every morning. I was like, Oh, okay, well, I'm not going to meditate for two hours every morning.
I do meditate now, but not for two hours. I didn't want him. But that deep put me on a journey to learn how to meditate. And it took me forever to learn how, but when I'm working with people and working with groups, that's what I teach is to start new habits. You take care of yourself is my big message.
You got to take care of yourself. And it's all habit, right? 40 to 70% of what we do in a given day is habit. And so what I teach is give yourself five minutes of silence a day, just five minutes, where you sit and listen to yourself, breathe. And one of the great things that you can do is when you breathe in, breathe in life.
And when you breathe out, just think of your heart and open up your heart and just breathe. And think about the feeling of love and experience that feeling of love within your body. It has a physiological feeling, you know, when you feel loved and recreate that physical sense and it invites love and start a day.
And so even if everything else is wrecked all day long, if you spend five minutes actually feeling love and feeling loved. It's sets your day for success. It sets your day to be able to get through it. It gives you a comma so that you don't have to react immediately. You have a comma there. It's just awesome.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:53] Yeah. So three things. They don't, you don't already have had to have talked about them or anything like that. Three, three tips or tools that you want everyone to walk away with from our conversation today. So that if they're going through this, something like what you went through, they have some things they can do.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:46:13] Okay. The first tip or two is to love yourself enough. To ask for help, whether it's from a friend, a counselor, a pastor, or some guy in the grocery line asked for help, we do not have to do this life thing.
The second is to believe in yourself that you have the power. To do what you want to do with your life. Do you have the power to make your life better in everyday? When you take incremental steps, you're not going to wake up tomorrow and have everything be perfect. And you're probably not going to wake up any day and have everything be perfect.
But one step at a time we can lean into a life that is of our design. That is. What God has created for us because he's created us for joy and abundance and love. And the third is if you don't already meditate, start meditating, it makes the biggest difference. Mind, body, and spirit. It affects every facet of our lives.
We are much, much better able to cope with things when they go wrong. We're much better able to. Relax into enjoying life. We're much better able to live a life of joy excitement and love because we need that margin.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:39] That's amazing. I'm so glad I got to have you on this show today. Your story is, is just phenomenal and full of what I really got from you was compassion. I really, really feel like being compassionate with myself and is not only okay, but important.
Edie DeVilbiss: [00:48:01] Vitally necessary, not
just for your wellbeing. Every person, you come in contact this that's the thing we think we don't have any influence. Every person you come in contact, every person who hears your voice on this podcast, every person you pass by in the local store is influenced by your please bring.
The best of you to this world.
Damaged Parents: [00:48:24] Don't worry. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Edie about how she genuinely loves people and thinks about them regularly. We especially liked when she described how she found healing for herself and wants to share it with others. To unite with damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
