My story. Where life as I knew it, changed forever.

I’m Sharon Williams, an ex police detective, who retrained as an Approved Driving Instructor and then further retrained as a professional Counselling Therapist. 

Sounds impressive? It was one of the worst transitions of my life.  

In this blog post, I will share with you where I was back then, what happened and where I am now, along with some information that I have always kept private, until I didn’t need to anymore.

Life as a Police Constable

Back in March 2005, I joined the Police Service. 

Proud as punch and loving my job! I completed my 2-year probationary period and was let out on ‘independent patrol’. My colleagues on that first shift were incredible.  So supportive and welcoming and they are still friends to this day.  We had an absolute ball on rest days together sometimes and this became my work family. 

We had each other’s back 100%.

But, little did they know, I had been recently diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis which is a form of autoimmune condition called Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).  I felt like I was ready to face this head-on.  I kept myself to myself, cracked on with my job and then found that it started getting very troublesome.  I would use my annual leave allocation for days off when I felt so ill that I couldn’t function and arranged all my hospital appointments to happen on rest days. 

And, I didn’t tell a soul about it. 

“I didn’t want to be treated differently, to be held back or restricted in my career, and I certainly did not want the ridicule and bullying that I had very sadly, seen first-hand with another colleague who also had a chronic autoimmune condition.”

From Ulcerative Colitis to a near-death experience

One year, near Christmas time, I contracted Sepsis alongside Glandular Fever, as I was on drugs that suppress my immune system to treat my Ulcerative Colitis. 

I was taken to the GP surgery every day for 3 days by my family.  I couldn’t hold my head up or speak.  By the time I arrived in hospital, I was close to organ failure and had experienced a mild heart attack (I had no idea at the time). 

I had a temperature of 40 degrees and yet felt so cold. The doctors kept asking me if I had pain in my chest as they were anticipating another heart attack.  They kept taking bloods so often that my veins collapsed and I had track marks down my arms.  My family were told to expect the worst.  I can vividly remember thinking to myself, I don’t mind if my time is up now.  I just feel so exhausted, I can't fight this any more.  I felt totally content with facing death.

That’s how unwell I was.  

After a cocktail of two antibiotics which I can still remember the names of - Gentamicin and Tazocin - I started to feel better.  I was moved from the emergency assessment unit onto a ward.  My view out of the window left a lot to be desired though… I had the perfect view of the mortuary. 

I could see trolleys being wheeled in and I could picture what would happen next to those trolleys as I had accompanied the deceased to the mortuary there numerous times.  That did nothing for my recovery or mental health.  I felt really low and just wanted to go home.  I couldn’t sleep properly in the hospital and the food was awful.  I had to get back home! I finally got home in time for Christmas with my amazing family who I depended on a lot whilst I rebuilt my strength both physically and mentally.  

Uniform back on, back to the emergency services

In the new year, all I wanted was to get back to work and I did, probably way too early as I had very low energy levels but, I could not let my team down and I wanted to be there with them. 

It’s a lifestyle rather than a job and I loved it.  I kept on going despite my health. 

I dealt with daily trauma, violence and some very odd individuals. I was kept awake at night seeing images of dead people, infantile, young, old, in varying stages of decomposition or sometimes,  just the parts of them that remained.  Some of who found themselves in very unfortunate circumstances, some that had taken their own lives and some that were victims of horrific crimes.

I laid in bed at night, wondering if I could have done anything differently, would they have lived, would the outcome have been different, what about the family, the friends, all of their emotions, grief and loss, the impact of crime, the impact of delivering a death message. 

At times, it consumed my thoughts.  But I had to get to sleep, I'm on shift at 7am and it would be buried again.  Safely tucked away and boxed off until the next time something triggered the memory.

Mental health is as important as physical health

This life continued shift after shift, day after day and looking back now, I can see that this took its toll on my mental health alongside my physical health.  Remaining ready to respond to whatever came my way. 

There were no mental health or wellbeing discussions during the yearly professional development reviews.  There was no ‘checking in’ to see if I was able to cope after attending serious incidents. 

You just get on with it. 

Which was getting increasingly tough for me as I was living with Ulcerative Colitis, the daily pain, the fatigue, the unpredictability.  Not only was my working life unpredictable, but now my health and my private life were too.  I found it incredibly hard to say ‘no’.  No to the extra shift, to staying on late because I didn’t have children and didn’t have to rush home or to the nights out that we had planned for our rest days.

The persistence and resilience took its toll, and my pride. 

Sometimes I would be ok, other days I would be in constant pain, exhausted, fatigued.  When I started to get back pain in addition, it became increasingly worse and impossible to ignore.  It affected my mood, it affected my tolerance and patience levels.  I had to get this checked out.  I thought I had a kidney infection.  The pain was excruciating.  I went to get checked out.  

Ever been fobbed off at your GP Surgery?

Being told that there was ‘nothing skeletally wrong with my back’ was concerning.  As I left the Nurse Practitioner’s office at the GP surgery, I thought to myself that she must have been on another planet.  Just because I was flexible enough to touch my toes whilst keeping my legs straight, according to her, my back was fine.  

I went to see an actual GP on the second visit and he sent me for an MRI scan.  The diagnosis was a degenerative disc. 

I went for my first steroid injection for pain relief in my lumbar spine and whilst in recovery, the surgeon came to my bed to explain that my scan had been misread and I actually had a spinal fracture and he said I would need surgery in the form of a spinal fusion at L5, S1 (Lumbar and Sacral spine).  This was as ‘out of the blue’ as you can get!

I thought I would get this injection and be back on form to resume my career and my life.  I updated the Occupational Health department at work and they began their investigation and assessments and I, well, I had to go with the flow.  This was out of my hands completely and not what I expected to be told when I went for a pain relief injection.  I was hopeful despite the shocking news.  I’ll get fixed and be back out there eventually.  

You never know what is around the corner

My surgery was delayed for several months as my surgeon had to have surgery on his own hand before he could fix my back. 

The waiting felt like forever.  I had a total of 4 steroid injections into my spine, guided by a CT scanner.  Each time, risking damage to the spinal cord but the relief in the pain was incredible. For around 2-3 weeks. 

Finally, the surgery day arrived.  Everything went as well as it could.  The next day, I walked unaided to the X-ray department for my first weight-bearing X-ray.  Everything looked as it should and I went home the following day.  I was physically fit back then which aided my recovery which was going really well, I felt very positive.   But again, some life-changing news came my way.  

Medical Retirement from the police service

It was during my recovery, that I was medically retired from the police service.  

My world had ended.  I was working in a specialist covert department as a detective and I had achieved what I set out to achieve in my policing career, and then, all that was cruelly snatched away.

I had sustained a spinal fracture at age 35 and had major surgery in the form of a spinal fusion.  Following that surgery, I was diagnosed with Adrenal Insufficiency and Fibromyalgia.  As if I didn’t have enough on my plate already. Then came the medical retirement process. 

Not many people knew that I had several chronic health conditions at this point and that was ok, I could just leave with a life-changing back injury for all anyone else knew, and that is what I did.  With Ardrenal Insufficiency, I was advised that I would not be able to tolerate stress.  My adrenal glands had stopped working due to the amount of steroid treatment I had had in my lifetime.  If I was under stress, they weren’t able to produce cortisol and I would go into adrenal shock.  This is the most frightening experience as unless you get treatment within the next hour or so of symptoms starting, your organs start to shut down. 

How could I continue my career like that?  I couldn’t. And I knew it.  

The Emergency Services Family

Handing over all of my uniform, PPE and other work kit was a clinical process.  I slid my warrant card on the desk towards my Inspector who had a tick list of things he needed to retrieve from me, and that was it. 

I walked out of the nick and went home. 

And, I never heard one iota from my colleagues on that team when I left.  Things had changed in the police service, morale was at an all-time low and that shift had been ‘carrying me’ for months on restricted duties.  What an utterly crap feeling that was. What was even worse, was that nobody knew the full extent of what I was really going through, apart from some very close police colleagues who are and have been fabulous friends whom I love very dearly.

What on earth was I meant to do with my life now?

Titanium plates, rods and screws in my spine, several chronic health conditions and what on earth was ever going to match up to my experience as a police officer? I cannot articulate how low I was feeling at this stage of my life.  I had lost my career, my physical health was restricting me from doing a job I loved but was conflicting with my mental health as I had to learn not to get frustrated with my body.  It had been through the mill.   I had always been so determined that it would NOT get the better of me.  It didn’t control me, I controlled it.  But this time, I was faced with a whole new mental battle.  My brain still works but my body doesn’t.  One of the hardest things to accept.

With other life events going on at the same time, I went for counselling.

Time to go for therapy sessions

It wasn't the first time I had been to see a Counsellor. 

I had been allowed 6 therapy sessions whilst I was in the job on restricted duties and they flew by.  We had barely touched the surface after just six 50 minute sessions.  Most of that time was spent scene setting and trying to explain to a totally independent person, my whole life, at home and at work and why things had gone the way they had, describing all the procedures and jargon that comes with the police service and then all about each medical issue and other devastating aspects of my family life at the time.  

I asked my inspector for more sessions.  I had to battle to get another six sessions and begrudgingly, they were authorised.  Authorised? This is my mental health and huge life transitions that rocked my world and I had to plead my case for more counselling sessions.

I can see it now, what was the point sending me for more sessions, at the job’s expense, if I was being medically retired… cynical? Maybe… but that’s another police trait that’s ingrained in me.  At the end of the retirement process, I left with nothing.  No qualifications in policing that you get today, no resettlement support, no further counselling support.  I was on my own.

Feeling alone and getting life back on track

Tenacity and downright stubbornness is some of what’s required to overcome everything that life throws at me and so far, I have and I will continue to do my best to make the most of my life experiences. 

Counselling helped me to get my life back on track and I was amazed how the therapist was able to help me to unravel the contents of my mind, to process it and to file it away neatly, so I can revisit those experiences if I needed to, but I had processed them and learned from them which helped me to move on.  

Physiotherapy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, some strong drugs (legal, prescribed ones) and hard work and I had made a recovery - physically.  I had new challenges to face, new potentially life-threatening and life-long conditions to live well with and manage. 

“But, all I could think about was becoming a Counsellor.  The seed had been planted.”

Leaving the Emergency Services

I qualified as a Driving Instructor in the years following leaving the job.  I loved it! Working outdoors, flexible around my life commitments, no boss keeping tabs or demanding targets to be hit.  I felt a new sense of freedom.  A weight that I had carried for all those years, lifted.  I WAS FREE! 

Free to live my life without restriction, without expectation, with new hope and excitement.  I studied to become a mental health professional alongside my work as a driver trainer and here we are…

Blue Light Counselling was born!

I qualified with an advanced diploma after 4 intense years of life-changing study, some of which was during a global pandemic, several lockdowns and interesting Zoom sessions with a group of incredible people who will always remain in my life.  Our graduation is planned for next year hopefully and I will once again, feel pride at being able to professionally and clinically help others overcome their struggles.

Lessons were learned, life does go on

Although I strongly felt it, I’m not just a number (1065 in case you were wondering), I’m not just an officer on a list of resources,  I’m not the one that is expected to stay on after shift to deal with prisoners or work Christmas because I have no children.  I’m not just medically retired and thrown in the reject bin. 

I have identified another opportunity to help others because I totally get it.  I get what needs to be done to triumph over adversity.

I now see all of this as a blessing in disguise albeit traumatic and life-changing.  There are many emergency service workers that are silently struggling, that have so much of their own stuff going on that they are beginning to lose grip.

There are people that feel stuck in the job, financially and through fear of there being nothing else out there for them.  There are still emergency service personnel who are dealing with their own stuff, or trying to, or maybe cannot find a way to deal with it all. But, the sad thing is, they don’t seek the support they need.  I have lost friends and colleagues to suicide.  It’s heartbreaking. 

“I want to provide a safe place for emergency services personnel to completely ‘stand down’. Completely, honestly and truthfully without fear or shame.”

How I can help you without detriment to your career

I’m here to offer you an ear.  One that is not going to be noted on your occupational health record against mental health, one that is never going to hold you back in your career due to your current struggles that are temporary.  One that is completely independent but has the lived experience to be able to walk alongside you through your therapy discovery and completely understand you.

These feelings are temporary and I’m happy to help you recognise and process things and learn ways of coping with them so you’re back on track making the most of your life, whatever your role, whatever your rank, past and present as this doesn't just stop when you leave the job.  It changes you, for life.

Thank you for reading this.

There is a whole lot more that I could have written in this blog but I’ll save that for another time maybe?  Take care out there.  Look after each other.  Stay safe.