Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - I Was Trying to Win at Therapy: Evan Birch

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Evan is more than his abilities as an ultra runner—he's a proud partner, father, friend, and former emergency services professional. His journey into ultra running began in 2017, a pivotal shift from a two-decade career that left him broken but resilient.In this episode Dr. Jody and Evan chat candidly about PTSD and how working in the first responder world really is. Evan tells us how running (amongst other work) helped save him.After years of selfless service, he confronted his struggles with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Through intensive therapy and countless miles on the trail, he found healing and purpose. He no longer ran away; he ran towards joy, showing others that there's always a path forward. Sharing his story is both terrifying and empowering, but it's through vulnerability that true strength emerges. Together, let's break the silence, embrace shared experiences, and remind each other that it's okay not to be okay.Follow Evan:Instagramwww.ultrabirch.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at one you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. At the beginning of every episode, there will always be time for an acknowledgement. You know, the more we do this, people ask, why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode? I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on a land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just

that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost importance to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Pekinie, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better, and stay connected to the good. welcome back welcome, my fellow humans. On this journey with us today, I'm so grateful that you are tuning in. And wherever you are right now, as you start to listen to this episode, I want you to drop your shoulders. We're going to lean into some important conversations around trauma, vicarious trauma, and how the body is responsible for storing all of it. You know,

one of my favorite conversations around trauma really comes from this understanding is that about it's not what happens to you that is important. It's what the most important process is what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you. And I think we're going to dive deep into that today. So drop your shoulders and lean in to this beautiful conversation. I got to tell you about this fella. Okay. I met this guy at the death race, which sounds as awful as it is. And I would really just like to preface the whole thing by saying that at one point in my life, in fact, multiple points in my life, I have run two legs of the

death race, separate occasions. It's this ridiculous ultra running experience in Northern Alberta. And I did it with my husband just to say that I did. Now I'm five foot fuck all on a Ukrainian chassis. I have no business running things. And my team let me know that because it was very apparent who was the weight on both of those teams. It's fine. But when I was at one of those races, when Aaron was running a leg, I met this guy named Evan Birch. And I didn't know who he was or what the deal was, but he came up to me. He just reminded me of this because I totally forgot. At a pregame pasta dinner and just said, thanks for the work that you do with first responders. And so I remember my family asking, who was that guy and what did he say? And it's always such an interesting experience for me when I meet people in the wild and they say, thank you. And we'd never, or I love know, I, I love this or I did this, or I remember you from here. It is the most heartwarming thing. And it, I got to tell you, it is such a gift for me because I always say this, you can't tell people how to do it. You

have to show them. And when my kids get to watch that either good, bad, or indifferent, the responses that we get from people, it is probably some of the greatest teachable moments. So that's how Evan and I met just very briefly. And we now get to dive into a deeper conversation that you get to bear witness to, because I got to tell you about this fella. He is, he has a massively long history of a career serving in the first responder world in a space where we don't talk a lot about as a dispatcher. He has a illustrious career as a 911 dispatcher. And I got to tell you, these are sort of the forgotten folks in the world of first responding. They are at every call, have often very little closure on the conversations that they have with people in their most dysregulated state.

Very few people call a dispatcher when shit's going well. And very few people are regulated when they call 911 unless it is a mistake. And so most of the time, these humans are holding people in their most distressed and vulnerable moments, and they get very little opportunity to know the outcome. And very few people circle back and say, thanks for that, or you handled that beautifully. And so now we're going to dive into that for a bit, but Evan now is known for his abilities as an ultra runner. He's also many other things like a proud partner, a father, a friend, and of course, a former emergency services professional. He started running in this ridiculous ultra world in 2017, which was a pivotal shift from a two-decade career decade career that indeed left him, like many others, broken but resilient. He describes finding healing and purpose, and I can't wait to dive into this with him. Through his countless miles on the

trail, he was no longer running away but running towards joy, showing others that there's always a path forward. So we're going to dive in today with this incredible human. And I got to tell you, Evan Birch, it is such an honor to sit with you. What I know to be true on this podcast is that empathy and judgment are very, very connected and often can be dissipated. We can land on the side of empathy when we know somebody's story. So tell me in this big, long, beautiful story of yours, where do you, where do you come from? Mr. Evan Birch? Oh, big, big question right off the start. Hey, um, you know, and it's funny to come full circle, even for meeting you in 2020 and not realizing at that time how much I also needed the help that you offer people. So thank you for that, first off. Now, for me, where do I come from?

So I am born and raised Calgarian, still live in Calgary, which is pretty odd for a lot of people to be able to hear. But I stayed, one of the few that stayed. And I grew up, you know, normal household, mom, dad, played soccer my entire life for a better part of 25 years, as competitive as you can get within Calgary. And, you know, my parents, obviously, you know, everybody has their, you know, relationship issues. My parents separated when I was younger. And I grew up not split between households with my parents. I never had any trauma to speak of in the sense of the direct trauma that I've experienced with dealing with emergency services. But it was a fairly amazing childhood.

I can't say anything more than that about my parents. They did everything they could for me that they had the ability to do. And we always had sports. We always had activities. There was never, I never didn't have is the best way to explain it. Right. Okay. Which was, you know, obviously not a lot of people get that opportunity. So I'm grateful for that aspect of it. And after soccer, I decided to, um, jump into a sport that

was for myself. I always playing team sports. So I did some off-road triathlons for one year. I registered for six of them in 2014 and hated, hated the swimming. People either love that part portion or they're like you know i don't find anybody who's kind of like i'm in the middle but you hated it like full legs sinking like it was even in a wetsuit i just i couldn't i'm yeah either way it was uh it was the running aspect of those off-road triathlons that really kind of like gripped me and i'd run five like a lot of people who are in the running world may understand five peaks as an organization that's really yes and a grassroots entry-level trail runs there's you know across Ontario BC Alberta that's where I started you know 20 years ago

doing those short runs and I got into these longer runs in these off-road triathlons and I I just knew there was something there for me. And that's where it kind of, kind of kicked off and we can maybe talk more about as we get into that. But, uh, that's, that's where my love for the longer distances really started. It's addicting, isn't it? You know, I, I mean, I, I ran a lot of road races before just for the sake of like, okay, can I do a five? Can I do a 10? Can I do a half marathon? And I never really loved the concept of trails because I was like, I'm going to get eaten by a bear, um, all the things, but I will never, if I have the chance

now go back to a road race because a trail race is just so amazing because you're up and you're like, it's not that, and I just, I fell in love with it. And I mean, again, I speak facetiously about, you know, not having a body built for it, but I, but I think what I love the most about it and the trail community was really like, Hey, the job is in the journey. You, it takes you 24 days to get up that, well not 24 days, but like a very long period of time to get up. Going down is much harder than going up, I've learned. um it's so interesting to me and I I just I loved it and I and I hear you saying that it just sort of evolved into this place of like wow there's it's just getting more and more it's honestly the trail community is about the people

and I know you can relate to me on this the the humans that are a part of this community are absolutely incredible. It's, you know, and the, the difference for me between running and I run road and trail, but I've never done a road marathon, but the difference for me is road is very extrinsic in the sense of you're following paces. You're looking at your watch. You're trying to like count down the kilometers until you're done. Whereas trail running is very intrinsic.

It's very like personal. It's for you. You're not worried about paces all the time. You're, you're thinking. Whereas trail running is very intrinsic. It's very like personal. It's for you. You're not worried about paces all the time. You're, you're thinking about your journey the entire time. So that, that's really the difference for me between the two. Cool. And I can even see, as you talk about the trail community, you know, there there's often healing in community. We can never do any of this alone. We weren't meant to. And when I think about the world of first responding, it often is very isolating, particularly as a dispatcher. And I just, I bet there was just such a dichotomy between the loneliness or isolation of that world. And although this is an individual sport in so

many ways, it is such, it's so connected by a community, isn't it? Yeah. Without a doubt. That's the, that's what keeps drawing me back into these longer races. And the longer the distances you do, the more and more running becomes a team sport and the people that you surround yourself with. I love that. That, that is the, that's really what it is for me. The people that I choose to have around me. And I mean, we talk about it. You hear the saying all the time that, you know, you're the sum of the five closest people around you. And I maybe don't aspire to that aspect, but I do believe that like finding your tribe and your people that are going to be there for you in all the crazy races that I choose to do and the runs I choose to do and the training that I choose to put in, that's where it is.

Right. And so, I mean, I'll just fill our listeners in in case you're not big runners. What I love about this process is, you know, you do a coach to 5K and you're really just sort of beating yourself. Like, you know, let's run five and ones, which means you run for five minutes and walk for a minute and you just go back and forth. Anybody can do this shit. Once you get into the higher levels, and so I have crewed or supported my husband when he went and did a 50k, which means that basically every time, you know, they have a checkpoint or they come back around, whatever. I mean, every race is a bit different. You're there with predetermined snacks and motivation and, you know, blister pads and really this idea to keep their body and their mind in this optimal

place of just really seeing how far they can push their whole being to safely to do. And this is what I think, you know, I fell in love with the death race because here I am, you know, this newly minted mom of twins and really like, no, I'm going to do it. I'm going to, I'm not going to be the fastest. I'll tell you that. I mean, I got passed by, I don't know if you remember Dag. So at the time, Dag passed me. He was in his, I think, late 70s, early 80s. And like just fucking blew by me on the trail. And I sat down and I cried because I was like, I can't do it.

Somebody needs to take the coin because you have to pass the coin. Do you know what the saying is? It's, you've been geezered. Is that what it is? That's when somebody older than you passes you, that's the phrase. God, I got geezered so many times. It was like-

I'm sorry, geezered. Geezered? Oh, I thought you said geezered. See, I don't even want geezer i am a massive geezer kind of person because i'm just and i hate running with people because i don't want i want my own anyways never mind what is so important about this is that i want to know what you're so you've the races so death race you've done sinister seven you've done um some races that sort of get bigger and bigger and bigger.

And you are headed, um, probably by the time this airs, I want you to just look up Evan again and see how he does here. Because listen to this, listen to where this human is headed on Saturday. Tell the people, tell the people Evan Birch.

So starting Monday morning at 4. A.M. Uh, so March 25th it's stanamonica pier in los angeles to las vegas and it's an unsanctioned race called the speed project they invite anywhere from 20 to 30 soloists worldwide to compete it doing it solo on the fridays they have relay teams that run it but there's only there's only a small number of us that are crazy enough to take this on solo and uh yeah it's like those choose your own adventure books that you had as a kid where I get to map out my own route I get to map out

all my own stops we have an RV we have a Jeep I'm gonna be pretty much 50% road and 50% like power line desert road in the middle of nowhere. Um, so it's, uh, yeah, it's so about 300 miles, give or take. I, it should be a little bit less than that based on my route that I mapped out. And the first person to the old Las Vegas welcome sign is the, uh, is the winner. So. Okay. What are our chances? Cause I'm now team Birch. So like, what are our chances? Like where, where do we, who are we up against? Like what's happening? Yeah. Like the, it's interesting when

you look at the names of the people that are doing these longer distances. I mean, I, my, I ran my first 200 miler in September and down in crow's nest pass here in Alberta. Yes. The inaugural divide 200. Oh my gosh. my gosh how was it so i finished it took me 83 hours evan you're kidding me yeah so that was the first kind of foray into really really long stuff and uh yeah it's it's interesting the people that are choosing to do this when i talk about the trail community being amazing the over 200 mile plus category people are like again it's like i can't even describe the people that i've been able to connect with already and i haven't even met them in person oh i love that and it's i think yeah it's just it takes a select

group of people and people who want to do something like this who come together that you just automatically have some level of synergy with yeah yeah it's just a like you don't even need to talk about it it's just there you feel it it's the energy exchange between those people you're like we're here to do something that most people would never even dream of yeah and we get the opportunity to do it we got selected because of our stories and that was that's the big thing is that with the speed project they really choose people based on what their story is and what they can bring to the speed project community so my story obviously with my mental health journey which we'll get into i'm sure here really spoke to them and how I'm really using

running as a way to give back now, as opposed to a way to avoid. So take me into that story. So you, Calgary, Alberta boy, you decide that you want to be in this world of emergency services. How does it start? Why? How come? So I came out of high school and I had a love for the human body, you know, anatomy, physiology, sports med. I didn't have the grades to be able to get into physiotherapy right off the bat. So I thought to myself, hey, like being a paramedic would be kind of cool. I had a cousin who was a paramedic in Saskatoon at the time. I was like, you know what, that's a cool way for me to be able to use all this knowledge that I really enjoy doing. So I went and took my emergency medical responder course and two of the instructors, you might recognize the names if I mentioned them. So John Doyle and

Dave Harris were my instructors at the time. And they were working as flight paramedics at STARS. And they said, you know, it'd look really good on your resume to get some experience and come and volunteer at stars. It looked, it'll, you know, it's a good opportunity. So I went and volunteered there and fast forward.

It basically turned into me doing my EMTA. So that's basically the next level before paramedic. And I ended up going to stars and fell in love with what they were doing in the dispatch center and asked if there was any entry-level positions. So I started registering oil and gas sites for safety at STARS when I was only 18 years old. So I got into this world before most people even consider this line of work. And six months after I took that position, they asked me if I would train to be a dispatcher or at that time it was called a communication specialist. So that's, you know, taking all the phone calls, arranging consults with doctors and ambulances on scene calls.

So any car accidents, that type of stuff. So, I mean, I was, I was quite literally a adolescent baby learning how to back then you know 2005 2006 nobody talked about mental health nobody talked about what you needed to be able to support yourself and I think that's you know looking back on if I were to fast forward to why you know I struggled with what I struggled with over the last number of years it's because at that that time, like I wasn't, not that I wasn't given the tools, but the tools weren't even talked about. They weren't even, it wasn't even a thought at that moment. And I just imagine this kid, you know, with, with his paramedicine background, which would have been so helpful in this dispatching world, because you can easily translate some things that are happening in the field to physicians,

you know, using some very important jargon that really just facilitates, you know, the speed of care and facilitating that process. Take me back to those beginning ones. Like, is there something that sticks out in your mind, a call, an experience that you were like, oh, fuck, and I'm going to just push this one down? Like when, when you sort of in the beginning, is there something, and I see you look away for a minute, which is always like, I'm just going to file through my resources here and figure out where, what, what sticks out for you the most? I think the, when you're, the thing is when you're that young, like you're, I mean, you'll know, I mean, your brain's not even developed at that point yourself. Like until you're, you know, 26 as an adult male, your, your brain is still developing. Yeah. So I was quite literally hearing and experiencing, you know, the work like I call,

you know, the calls that come into stars are like the top 10% of the sickest of the sick people that you'll deal with ever. Right. Barely hanging on. We got minutes. So, you know, there's definitely some calls that really stick in my mind because at that time when I started there, we were dispatching EMS for Mountain View County area at the time. Yeah. Which I know you're familiar with.

I'm sitting on Treaty 7 right now. So for me, like that was my kind of first foray into it. And looking back on it now, in order for me to do the work that I did then, I had to teach myself how not to feel. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to do that job. And now knowing that, that's really what it was for me. If I look back on it, I wasn't feeling. I didn't know in order to basically push it away.

And I unconsciously was just like filing it away. And I was the person that everybody would consider as like, Oh, how can you just like leave work at work? And I was always touting that. And the number of people that I trained to do that job to this day, like I, everybody was always just so amazed at how calm, cool, collective, I was managing these like crazy incidents. Like we're talking, you know, if we were to think back to even some of those incidents, like Mayor Thorpe with RCMP and, you know, RCMP shootings up in Slave Lake. And there was just so

many situations that occurred during my career. Massive MBAs, lots of moving parts in a call, people bopping up in and off the phone, you know, you trying to sort of, I mean, and I think sometimes that, you know, begging for help and, you know, the emotion that is so massive and try to regulate somebody or even get the knowledge of what is happening on scene so that you can, you know, relay that and then keep the people that are coming to the scene safe. And, you know, there's so much that happens in those phone calls that I think so many times there is, thankfully, you know, many people don't even have to consider those things. But is that true, Evan?

Do you think that there's so much that happens, you know, in a center, a call center in any one given day or an op center where, you know, just, I mean, think about that level of cortisol. It is constant. You are pretty much in fight or flight mode all the time. You are always on, you have no idea what's coming through that phone. It could be a wrong number. It could be a kid playing with a telephone, or it could be the worst call that you're ever going to take in your career that you didn't know was coming so you quite literally have to be switched on because my job is to speak to people on their worst day and this might be the

only interaction they ever have with a 911 operator in their entire life yeah So for me, like I'm getting there, like you're getting the most human visceral reaction on the phone when you answer it of any person you've ever experienced in your life. You, you are getting their first reaction to somebody who is quite literally feeling helpless and not knowing what to do in the situation that they're in and you are responsible for helping them. Yeah. And that is the, yeah, that, that's the big, big one for me that people need to understand from the dispatcher world is we get the first reaction all the time. Yeah. And, and the weight of the responsibility that comes with that, hey, you know, and, and the closure, the lack thereof.

Can you speak to that a little bit? You know, how often did you know, you know, what would happen in a domestic violence situation or, you know, a kid that's concerned, you know, or, or even just, I mean, in a car crash, you know, somebody on that side of the road, tell me about that. How often during the early years of my time with stars and everything it was it was a little bit of a different mentality back then with regards to closure because the paramedics would always kind of we were a very tight-knit group with the organization because you're you're you deal very closely with them you're responsible for tracking the helicopter talking to the crews patching them in with the hospitals so there there's a very different relationship. Moving over to strictly 911, there's almost no closure because there's just a little bit of a,

obviously there's privacy concerns and FOIP and all these other things now that have really come into the forefront in the last 10 years. And that's really the, I've trained enough people and that is probably the number one thing that I can say. And let's say if I've trained, probably I'm going to say maybe a hundred people in my career to do the various jobs that I've done. And the number one thing that people struggle with the most is not having the closure. And I've really had to, you know, help them through that and understand that it's, you know, why are you seeking that closure? Like what, what is that going to give you to know whether or not somebody made it or didn't make it?

Like, what is that to you? And that's really what it is. Like, you need to figure out your why behind it before you just start asking, because sometimes when you get that answer, it may not be the answer that you are actually looking for. And then what happens inside your body? Yeah, exactly. And where do you put it? Yeah. So how did you, I mean, again, when did you start to know? Cause the evolution of your career was stars. Then you went into a call center, an op center, and then, um, you took on even more

important position, not important. My goodness. You took on even different positions. I think in this world of supervising and creating space. Yeah, so I ended up moving to a role where I actually was responsible for policies, procedures, liaison work with large organizations like the fire departments, police, Alberta Health Services, all the rural fire departments that we dispatched for. And then the other big one is call reviews. So it was, you know, anytime something really bad happened, it was my responsibility to go in, do an assessment. Did we follow our policies and procedures? So I'm, I'm quite literally the difference being when you take a nine one call, you take it, it's over. You don't normally listen back to it, but when you're doing incident reviews, you're listening to it, not trying to catch somebody doing it wrong. My, my intent was always to try to catch somebody doing it right right that was always my goal was like i really like i want my team to be operating at a very high level and i really am looking for like the right

things if the wrong things show up show up then we'll work on those things but you're listening to those calls over and over again so you're constantly hearing the trauma and the screams and the everything that's actually happening all the time on repeat. And then COVID obviously happened. I was working from home doing that role. And then we, you know, obviously two years out of the dispatch center, completely removed your body is like, Oh, I get to sleep again. Oh, I get to go back to a baseline. Oh, I don't have these lights and these sounds and these radios and all these things going off all the time. And then you go back after. And that's when everything came crashing down for me. It was and again, those feelings in your body, you don, you don't recognize because you have no idea where they're coming from. Yeah. Tell me about that. After having, you know, two hours of sleep the night before because of nightmares and hot sweats and night terrors on repeat for better part of, you know, a month to two months on and off and repeat.

And I was just, I was a shell of myself. There was no doubt about it. I was not functioning at whatever level I thought I could. And I hid it from everybody. I was so afraid of what it would mean to actually voice it to somebody other than myself. And I think that was a big struggle for me. Oh, tell me more. I can see it's a struggle even as you start to talk about it, right? Because you feel it still in your body oh without a doubt like i i feel more now after two years of care and healing than i've ever felt in my entire like situation because i mean i the way i describe

it is i took on if i were to think of the i can't even if i had to put a number to how many calls I've answered over my 20 year career, it's easily upwards of a hundred thousand calls, if not more like things that have passed through my ears and through my body. And I was quite literally taking on other people's pain without them asking me to, and just like filing it away, being like, give, give it to me. Like, I'll take it for you and that's I think that was to my again it we I talk about the unconscious incompetence and I don't know if you've if you've heard these phrases before there's like conscious and conscious incompetence unconscious incompetence those types of things and it was like I was unconsciously taking all these things on even though nobody ever asked me to.

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Get Maple. Get well. Sooner. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Well, and I think that's interesting. You know, and I imagine this young, fit, healthy kid with a pretty solid background

that comes into this work. And you are, it's surprising, you see, because you are capable and competent of handling those things because you have such a great big, you know, a support system, a family system to fall into. People are proud of you. Like, oh my gosh, I haven't looked at you. Like, this is amazing. And, you know, you start to develop your identity, which is not uncommon in this first responder world. And in the beginning,

there is some expectation that this is what's going to happen to you, right? Like there is that expectation in your body that like, okay, yeah, no, cool. I got that. I got this. I got that. Good. I'm good. Look at me. I'm good. And generally speaking, most people are good for a short period of time because you can selectively numb in the beginning, which is so fucking bad. I wish our bodies wouldn't allow that because it tricks us into believing that we actually got this shit under control. There is then that threshold that is of, different for all of us. And it is, you know, depending on our support system or if we're using, if we're numbing, what are we doing? Is there a whatever those things happen in our body that you just can't hang on to it anymore?

And for some people, it comes in this like massive wave of like holy shit. But generally speaking, it is a slow chipping away of almost like you know you're just trying to stop there's a little leak and then there's a bit of a littler leak and then oh fuck there's a leak down here and you try to hold it together and you think you're you know sort of fooling everybody around you but i wonder evan you know had i asked your spouse uh your kids, what were they witnessing, do you think? So I, so that basically what it comes down to is I hid it for, you know, a good month and a half as best I could, obviously. And I took some time away myself, you know, took vacation,

told work I needed a week off, went back. I thought I could like, again, intellectualize my way through it and fix it. I thought I could fix myself. Like I'm a fixer. I'm a, that's what I do. I'm a, you know, helping people pleasing, serving fixer. And I thought I could do it. I tried again. And then I had some vacation time off over Christmas and I asked to extend my time off. And that was, you know, after Christmas with my kids and everything. And, uh, it was December 27th of 2021. I finally sat down with my girlfriend and then now fiance and finally told her what was going on. And I don't think I would have done that had it not been such a safe place for me to land and I think that's that safety is what we all crave when we're experiencing these things is that safe place where we can go not feel judged not feel shamed and just go like I need to be held right now and

this this is where I'm at like this is I need help and I need to go talk right now. And this, this is where I'm at. Like, this is, I need help and I need to go talk to somebody. I can't do this by myself anymore. And yeah, so it was January 4th. I went and saw my doctor and I thought I would be, you know, three to six months. That's all I need. And he goes, well, you know, it's going to be probably a lot longer than that. Just letting you know now and your body's like yeah you watch me watch me I'll be fine and turns out you they were right I bet yeah yeah so that that's kind of how it was for me with when she said that like she didn't really know what was going on so I I'm not going to say I'm good at hiding it but I was I was so hyper aware of hiding it because I was so shameful of what I was experiencing because I

knew how people relied on me for the work that I did and the fact that I I quite literally and I think a lot of people in the first responder world can relate to this is I defined myself my whole identity was my job and that was now again forward to today, that is one of the biggest pitfalls of the service, you know, the duty that we have to helping people. That is such a big thing for people to really look at. Like, how do you identify yourself as, you know, if you go to a party and somebody says, you know, what do you do? The first thing that always came out of my mouth was, oh, I'm a dispatcher at stars or I'm a 911 call taker, dispatcher, whatever it is. I never said like, my name's Evan. I'm a good person. I'm a kind, like good friend. Like,

or like, here's why I do this work. It was always like the title. And that honestly, as soon as I chose to go and get help, my whole existence, my whole being was gone because I tied myself so closely to my career. It was like, I did not know who I was anymore. So, you know, when you ask the question, like, where'd you come from? Like at that point, I had no idea who I was. I was a complete and utter shell. Wow. And so there's two points that I want to just slow down and back up to a little bit. Number one, I think is this idea of identity, because I think that it is something that many of us define ourselves by when we're asked,

right? Not where do you come from? That's usually not an opening question. Also not like what are the best parts of you? It is always what do you do? Nice to meet you. Oh, where are you from? What do you do? And oftentimes people in the first responder world get tricky about that. They're like, I work for the government or, you know, like, because there's such an insider trading secret in this space that you're like, don't tell them, you know? So there's also that added level of secrecy and we hide behind, you know, all kinds of rules that have been in our head and certainly confidentiality being one of them. But I think it is also this interesting mix of a very old school, patriarchal, militaristic idea of what the world of first responding was to be one time that does not serve us very well today. And it doesn't mean that we

need to compromise all the best parts of the identity, which is a brotherhood, a sisterhood, a personhood, a connection, almost what you describe in the trail running community. You know, you just both identify as a 200 miler and you're like, got it. And this is also very true for police officers or EMTs or paramedics or 911 dispatchers. You introduce yourself as one of those and you're like, got it. There is this unspoken understanding and this very unique profession that very few people can get unless you've been on the other side. And I think those aren't the things that we need to lose because that sense of community and connection are actually what offer us pieces of survival and healing and all

of those things. What I think we really need to revisit in this world is the secrecy and the expectation that you are supposed to handle all of those things alone. So if we could debunk that myth in our respective lifetimes, Evan Birch, then this career, this necessary career, because there's not a single time that you or me or any, I mean, I think about the hundred thousand plus people that you walked home, the hundred thousand plus people that then, you know, in this moment, in this province, had no idea who you are. Because in that moment when my baby isn't breathing or my, you know or I'm on the side of the road, right?

I mean, the three times that I've had to call 911 in my lifetime, I've never had the opportunity to follow back and say, thank you so much. I was so scared, right? And that lack of acknowledgement or closure really just leaves you in this space, I think, of such isolation sometimes. And so I think, you know, in your work, it's this idea that the identity of serving people and connecting to other people who are brave enough to do this work is the critical piece I don't want to throw out. It is the other part of it, which is the expectation that you should do it all alone, that you should be tough, that you're there to serve,

that that is it. There's no other part of like, okay, if you're going to do this holy work, our number one priority, even in training, is you. You and your family. Because if your family's not okay, if they don't understand how to connect to places. So that leads me to number two, which is the telling the conversation that you had with your girlfriend. Now, one of the biggest debilitators that happens in this world of first responding is when we start to want to talk about it, it is typically with our spouses, our closest people. But here's the problem with that. If you're not okay, they're not okay. So rarely do we find those initial conversations going well. Because when you say stuff to me, and I think of my husband, who's not a first responder, when he says things to me,

this job is exhausting. I don't feel like I'm valued or I can't sleep. If he's not okay, this is my initial response. It's like, oh, come on. Right? It's okay. It's okay. Go for a run. Let's have a snack. Not because I don't want to hold space for him,

but there is this unspoken rule that if you're not okay, like I, for example, I got into this relationship with you, Evan, because you could handle everything. You are fucking amazing. You're good. We're good. Evan, because you could handle everything. You are fucking amazing. You're good. We're good. It's good. We're good.

You're not good. Fuck. Yes, you are. It's fine. You know? So it becomes this very interesting dance that I think we also need to do some prep work for in the people who surround first responders. Because you were their hero first. And when that hero starts to show some sense of like, I might not be able to fix this one on my own. The response as your fiance

did so beautifully, which I think it facilitates that beginning of the safety of stepping into it, because the work quite honestly will happen at home. You can see a therapist, you can look for support in your, you know, organizations, which as we know, come in various degrees. And there's way more stories about I feel unsupported than I feel supported, I think in this whole world. And so I think it is that idea of like, can we do our best prep work for when, you know, we feel again? And what is feeling like? You can't dictate feeling. Feelings come at 3 a.m. in a night terror. Feelings come when you can't sleep. Feelings come when you need to sleep for 48 hours. Right. What about this is normal? How do we navigate a family system to tell me about that as a family what has that been like for you yeah it's you know in my case it's uh um it's been unique with my kids i i don't think they have an idea of what's been occurring i mean my girls were quite young when i was experiencing it all and i I don't want to say I wanted to

hide it from them, but I, I felt like they were at the age that they, they wouldn't be able to understand it. So it wasn't a point of burdening with them. And I think at some point when they get a bit older, they'll have an opportunity and I want the opportunity to let them know what happened. Um, not only for their own sake, but just to understand that I like, you know, I am human. I think the, the probably the weirdest thing that got brought up ever was, you know, one of my daughters came to me and said like, daddy definitely have maybe but i haven't but i haven't shown it in front of them and you know for me like i think you know obviously people who experiencing it differently but i think you know being sad and you know crying it doesn't mean you're broken it means you're working really well it means your body is actively like trying to help you through something by letting the emotions out where for

so long i kept all of that in so i think people need to recognize that you know being sad is okay it means you're working very like you're working really well it's just an emotion it's just an emotion yeah so for me i think that's that's what it is for my kids is just making sure that you know not to protect them from it but to just allow them to be kids and not have to take any of those burdens on themselves for any reason whether it be unconsciously or consciously and uh just yeah i think for me that was you know and i i know for a fact that i was not and you know this is a hard thing to admit to but i wasn't fully present for a long time and that hurts like i i missed a i missed a lot of time with them. It's tough. And I don't think people truly understand like what it costs for me to acquire my peace out of this. And I think that's, that's probably been the hardest one is knowing

that I just wasn't fully there all the time. And I, and reckoning that with that, you know, you've served over a hundred thousand people in their worst places. And then you get to look at your own babies and think, you paid for that too. And I think that's the thing that, you know, many of us, when we work in the human services world often feel guilt or resentment about. And I think that it's really as we navigate the necessity to change this first responder world, because will never ever not need you or the people who do the work like you. We will never ever, you know, automate those things to the degree. I need to hear a human voice. I cannot send a paramedic robot in the foreseeable future to an MVA. Like we will always need humans in human services professions. And our capacity to get better in this very disconnected world of reconnecting those humans before they begin their service, during their service, and most critically now, after their service. does it mean when you leave this profession that you so much gave to hundreds of thousands of

people in this province? Do we just forget that? How do we honor that you still every day have to navigate, as you've served this province, this country, now with your own daughters, your own marriage, your own nightmares, all the things that you hung on to while people, you know, who we've served are grieving or navigating their own lives now, right? This, you know, I've always talked about this. I think I would love to implement some very specific things in training across all first responder organizations, primarily a family support program and not support necessarily as education, right? Here's what's going to happen when people encode things in terror, which is by the way, 98% of this job. Okay. Two, here's how you explain it to your children developmentally appropriately. So about why shift work is

necessary and why daddy might be madder here and what happens here. And when he's out in the community and notices somebody, how do we prepare that insular connection during somebody's service? And then we need a third intervention or support system, which is what happens post when you either medical out or you age out or you successfully retire, whatever that looks like. Tell me what it's been like to step away from this profession and what resources are, are, are not in place. Yeah, I think, you know, luckily I say luckily, but I, you know, my injury was workplace. You know, we, we talk about all the calls and things and there's, there's definitely calls that have stuck with me and still stick with me i may experience and i may experience them a little bit different from the therapy that i went through which maybe we can just briefly chat about kind of

those pieces but the tools that exist after especially if it's workplace injury i've been very lucky with my care team that i have in place and have been from the start. And I was, I was the model patient that didn't miss appointments. I was so committed, just no different than my running. I was so committed to healing, not just for me, but for my family. And you have to, you have to go into this like fully surrendering to the process. Otherwise it's, you're going to carry it for longer and I think that's that's my number one piece of advice for people is like surrender to it as deeply as you can because the first four months that I went into it I joked with a few talks that I've done now on my story like, I was trying to win at therapy. I was quite literally, I was quite literally, I was quite literally sitting in therapy going like, I'm going to do

so good at this. Like you give me everything. I'm going to do so good at this. Meanwhile, 50% of the time I was holding back. And it was as soon as I finally like let go and just sunk into the process. Yes, I felt more broken, but the gifts have been so immense with coming out of it. And I think the tools that exist now that I've learned through that are what carry me through. And I, I, I truthfully wish the tools that I've learned through therapy, no different what you're talking about could be given up front. So I'm not, let's not try to, you know, there's a, and I think you've probably heard of this quote, Desmond Tutu of, uh, let's stop pulling people out of the river and go upstream and find out

where they're falling in, in the first place. That is like, that should be the quote above every single building, first responder, everything you go into, that should be like the motive that everybody is striving towards is, okay, these people are hurting. Let's not just put these like, here's a 20 page book

that we want you to go and read on some tools. No, let's like actively teach them, put them in these classrooms, let's like actively teach them, put them in these classrooms, give them like hands on. Like I joke about, you know, imagine walking to a dispatch center. And every single person in the dispatch center who's not on a phone is actively doing breath work before they take that next call. Sitting there actually like doing box breathing or tapping or whatever it is, whether they're writing

or maybe they're just like coloring or drawing or maybe they're doing something for their brains. So when that phone rings, they are regulated because you know that, like you said, that other person on the other line is not going to be regulated. So for me, like all of these tools and I've actually gone

and got some breathwork training myself because I see the power in it and I want to be able to give that to people. So when I'm I'm turning all of what I've experienced on its head to give back. And so when we talk about like what tools are out there, there's not very many, but I'm determined to make sure there are with what I'm going through. And I think that's that's the way that I want to give back in this. I love that. And I, I, I think what you're giving back is just so phenomenal because you can't tell people you have to show them. And I, you know, I'm so grateful that, you know, we, everybody kind of has these resources or these, I think, examples of, of how we've navigated this.

Where, where are you now in this journey? What is, you know, I think, examples of, of how we've navigated this, where, um, where are you now in this journey? What is, you know, in addition to the running and we can talk a little more about that, but what's helping the most, um, at this point? Yeah. So for me, I am, I'll say medically retired now, I'm no longer able to return back to my kind of previous injury position. And, uh, I'm'm I'm still trying to figure out that aspect of it for myself and where where my career is going to go what I'm choosing to do and as I said I'm getting some training for breath work and a few other things and getting into some run coaching and a few other pieces like that and really really just trying not to tie myself ever again to one thing. I don't want

my identity to be what I do. I want my identity to be who I am. And that, that is the, you know, and all of this awareness that I've been able to create through the healing and like the therapy that I did, and you'll be familiar with it is called accelerated resolution therapy okay so I did that right from the beginning like I've probably had 140 ART sessions over the last two years with my psychologist and beautiful for anybody who doesn't know what ART is or maybe they understand EM better, but I call ART EMDR on steroids. Like it is like, wham, like it's coming at you full force and you have to be so ready for it because you are going to be in it so fast. And that's, you know, I credit all of that to, you know, that ART has been not only just for my personal life but also everything that I

experienced has brought me to where I am today and I'm you know I'm always going to be recovering from the PTSD the depression and the anxiety but I am in such a better place and coming at it from you know not an avoidance anymore but uh you know I use the analogy with my running like I'm not running away anymore I'm running towards I'm not using these longer distances and these runs to avoid anything or distract myself anymore. I'm quite literally using it as a tool to go, like, how far can I push my body just purely out of the curiosity and the desire to, you know, show other people that, you know, PTSD diagnosis or depression, anxiety, it doesn't have to be like a nail in the coffin, like, oh, you're going to be broken

forever. It takes work. And it takes commitment. And it takes consistency, and progressiveness. And all of these things, it's not going to happen overnight, you're going to take a step back, you're going to take three steps forward. And it's going to repeat over and over again you just have to again it comes back to that why and that's a huge thing for me in my running is the why attached to all of this and there's an organization that I became connected with last year called bigger than the trail so they are connected within the community and trail running space. And what they do is they provide mental health supports for runners or even anybody connected to runners that provides online counseling for free, no questions asked for anybody who may not have access. So I've really kind of jumped on their

mission. It's a US based charity, but they help everybody all over the world. There's no, cause it's all online counseling. So i've been able to raise money last year and i'm raising money alongside that this year with the speed project as well and it's been so amazing to be able to you know turn my pain into power and show other people that like you can flip it on its head like there is you know i know, I say that, you know, if you can't see a little bit of light in what you're experiencing, you have nothing to move towards. It just has to be the tiniest, tiniest speck of light for you to at least be able to move forward. If you can really focus on that tiny bit of light, that light is going to get brighter and brighter and brighter oh man evan birch come on come on that was amazing where can people find you follow this journey of yours

where's the best place to where you land these days yeah so instagram for me so ultra birch uh just as it sounds and then my website just ultra birch.com. Um, if anybody's again, interested in still participating in fundraising, anything like that, let me know. Uh, but, uh, yeah, everything is on there and that's my kind of running journey and, uh, we'll see where my career takes me at this point. But, uh, right now running is definitely on the forefront of my mind, uh, with that race coming up. So no kidding. Oh my gosh. I will be watching with bated breath. I, uh, you, you have just, uh, developed a huge fan here. Um, Mr. Birch and, um, thank you so much for this. And I'm going to put everything that, that, um, we talked about today in the show notes so that you can connect to Evan if you need to and, um, follow his journey.

Um, I, uh, it was an honor. It was an honor. And I, and I say this to, you know, every first responder that I get the privilege to sit in front of, I think about, uh, I just want you to know that all of that pain and the service, it wasn't for nothing. Not only did you serve so many people, but I think your work in the human services world is just beginning because so many people are watching. So thank you so much for all of those sleepless nights and all of the hard work that nobody gets to see because, uh, gosh, it's an honor. You are just doing some such incredible things. So thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thanks. You're welcome. All right, everybody. That was

a good one today. And I want you to take care of yourself, take care of each other. And I can't wait to meet you right back here next week. Hey, team. In this episode, we talked a lot about trauma and big emotion and what happens when you don't put it somewhere. I've created an additional resource that I just wanted to let you know about if you need another place to land. It's called Hello Hero.

It's a course, and I designed it for first responders and their families in mind. And if you need a place to check out more after listening to this episode, go to drjodicarrington.com, or we're going to link it in the show notes too, in case you want to send it to somebody you love. The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast is produced by the incredibly talented and handsome team at Snack Labs, Mr. Brian Seaver, Mr. Taylor McGilvery, and the infamous Jeremy Saunders.

The soundtracks that you hear at the beginning of every episode were created by Donovan Morgan. Our executive producer is Marty Piller. Our PR big shooters are Des Veneau and Barry Cohen. Our agent, my manager, Jeff Lowness from the Talent Bureau. And emotional support, of course, is provided by, relatively speaking, our children. For the record, I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and maybe even a little bit of hope. you