Written within a few weeks of my resignation from the NSW Police Force in August 2007.

"I'll be alright", I kept telling myself. "Just keep ignoring the problems"

But things went from problematic to symptomatic when I started to get anxious each night. I would find myself thinking about my shift at work, the amount of work I had to do and wondering where I was going to get the time to do it. It seemed as though every shift I went to work someone would be off sick, this would leave us short as the Duty Officers (DO) rarely recalled someone to fill the void. So instead of having down time off the truck or away from station duties to catch up on existing cases we were always on the go. It became the done thing that Supervisors would put you on Station Duty as they felt this would allow you time to catch up, knowing full well how busy station duty typically is. Often the Station Officer would end up with more events or walk in domestics then the car crews.

About a year and a half ago I began getting sick on the stomach. I would get home from a day shift and try to unwind. I'd go to sleep thinking about the days events, and the week to come. Within an hour or so I would wake, pains wracking my stomach, then I'd throw up. This mere act made it possible to return to sleep but left me feeling drained. I would toss and turn and by morning felt like I'd had very little sleep. I ignored these problems for a long time before going to see my local doctor, never ever mentioning the word stress. I tried medication, had a scan of my stomach, nothing helped. Finally I asked, "Could stress cause this?"

This was just the beginning... I isolated myself almost completely. I never visited my friends, never phoned my friends for a chat, rarely went anywhere. I began to distance myself from my fiancee (who is now my wife) and I would hide in the office whilst she watched television in the lounge room. I stopped doing things I enjoyed, like wandering town taking photographs to name just one of the many things I ceased. I just didn't find enjoyment in anything, even movies and television offered little satisfaction towards the end.

What was the cause? I don't have the answers. I've not had any treatment thanks to the failings of the NSW Police and more so thanks to Allianz. I only know that the negative atmosphere that I worked in daily has worn me down, so many long serving police hate the job or have such a negative vibe that it starts to bring everyone down. Add to that the failings of management to address the shortages in staffing, meaning everyone knew each shift you were going to get flogged. They even did a cultural survey to find out why sick leave and morale was so poor. I read the results and was happy to see that those who answered the survey told management exactly what was wrong. Did they do anything to fix this? No of course not. In fact when I resigned just this week (26/3/2008) a new duty officer informed me that he had been given the cultural survey to look after, this only being done a year ago.

Things at home degenerated, I was becoming moody and just got lazier and lazier. Early 2007 I had a run in with a much respected sergeant who was nearing the end of his career. He abused me for no reason and we had words. I know this was unusual for him and as someone later pointed out he was under immense pressure. In fact he'd only ever treated me with the utmost respect and I always appreciated that. But on this occasion I was on a slope into the depths of depression and this just helped to push me along.

Then mid 2007 a good friend and colleague attempted to kill himself. I was working when he attempted this and the first I knew about it was when we were recalled to one of the stations to check if his firearm was still there. We spent the next four hours checking park land, local pubs, CCTV cameras on the train platforms. At one stage I was walking through a rather large park convinced he had hung himself in the park behind his house (which management refused us entry pending the arrival of a dog unit). I was a mess and was talking with another friend who had transferred to an adjacent LAC and heard things unfolding on the radio. God knows how he must have felt not being able to help. Eventually my friend was located in the rear yard of his father’s place, having consumed a possibly lethal combination of concentrated weed killer, arsenic, pain kills and a few beers to top it off. I went with him in the ambulance to the hospital where he was treated. During the four and a half hours I spent there my friends blood pressure dropped extremely low on at least three occasions, requiring him to be moved to intensive care.

This was just not happening was all I could think. Only a few weeks earlier a young constable on 18 months in the job shot himself in his station, fatally wounding himself. There was also the death of a senior officer from Newcastle and the death of another well loved officer in Lake Macquarie. It was happening far too often. I talked to my doctor and told him that I believed I was suffering depression and he prescribed me anti-depressants. What I discovered was that these don't make you happy if you are not happy, they aren't a happy pill. They help regulate your ability to accept situations, your tolerance to things. So when I was unhappy I was still unhappy.

Generally I ignored the problems, my sick leave was atrocious at work and I knew why that was. Though I never just didn't go because I didn't want to, if I did that I would feel that I was letting my mates down. I didn't go because I was so tired from the lack of sleep, the weakness, and on occasion the headaches I had started to get.

I found my concentration lacking and on one job late at night myself and the constable I was working with didn't call the detectives out to a job. Now admittedly after speaking to the constable I was working with, my teams Sergeant, and a few other senior constables, they all said that they wouldn't have called them out either. Anyway the Detectives were up in arms over this and when I was next at work I expected to have a chat. Which I did, with a long serving detective who is a generally nice person who always had time for others. The chat went fine, I admitted making a mistake, we both acknowledged that it was very unlike me and that was that. Then he did it! He asked, "Are you okay?"

I don't know why those words had the effect on me that they did but I broke down. I was an absolute mess and hated myself for the display of weakness. I was a 35 year old man and a Police Officer damn it! You just don't do that, you don't have these feelings, they are signs of weakness. We talked for some time and he asked if I would contact the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) which I reluctantly agreed to. And I did what he asked, I spoke with someone there and arranged for someone to contact me back that day. I then left work and went home, crying all the way. I felt so embarrassed, I didn't call my wife when I got home as I didn't want her to worry. So there I sat in my office feeling useless, empty and void of everything.

Over the three weeks that I was initially off I had two meetings with an EAP arranged psychologist. After the first meeting I was a bit more hesitant as it was as if he were watching the clock and on the hour mark he literally pushed me out the door. The second consult went marginally better and he gave me homework and explained things well. I could look at the way he had described my emotional resilience and how there are things which help maintain that resilience and there are things which drain it. Unfortunately all my beneficial things which helped support a healthy mind were all but gone. All except watching television and playing the xbox, which are only short term coping mechanisms to mask the problems.

During the time that I was off work I had one phone call from a DO the day after going off during which I explained about the effect work was having on me. After that I didn't hear from management at all, no one offered advice or information on what I should be doing. So I took the time off as annual leave and after three weeks that ran out so I went back to work. I phoned a few days before and found that I was back at work, back on full duties. It was as if I'd not just had a break down. No one phoned me prior to me returning to work, no one. When I went back I spoke with one of the permanently restricted guys in our station and when I told him I'd not been paid for two weeks he asked, "Why aren't you on HOD?" To which I replied that I had no idea what to do or who to speak to, and I told him no one had given me any advice either. He told me I should contact the Police Association and speak with them about it.

That first shift back I was greeted by, "We heard you had quit" to which I said, "I'm here aren't I?" Again we were short staffed so my Sergeant put me as the station officer for the day. When I went to get my appointments I realised that my gun would be at the LAC as the commander had made a ruling that if anyone was absent for more than two weeks their gun and computer access would be removed. So the Sergeant phoned the Duty Officer to organise the return of the firearm. I protested that without my appointments I was not full duties and therefore could not be the only station officer, this of course was ignored because I was technically full duties.

My day only got worse and I was already feeling the pressure. My sergeant said, "You're not going to be happy. But with one of your cases I was only trying to help as there was a breach of the safe driver policy" He went on to say that he had forwarded it to the sectors Duty Officer thinking that they would sort it out. Instead he forwarded it on to the Highway Patrol DO, who in turn sent it to the safe driver panel. I spent a bit of time explaining the case and how I did not feel there had been any breach, my Sergeant had only been trying to help but this just didn't help at all.

Shortly afterwards I answered a phone call from the DO for the day, who happened to be the Highway Patrol DO. He said that they were trying to find where my firearm was and organise to get it back over to me. I told him that I was on station duty and shouldn't be without my appointments to which he didn't say anything. I then spoke to him about the case with the alleged breach of the safe driver policy and he said it was in the hands of the safe driver panel now and we would just have to wait and see. I next asked him about why the previous three weeks hadn't been put as HOD to which he replied, "We believed it wasn't work related". I told him that I'd explained it to another DO when I went off and he said, "Oh well. If you want to claim a HOD you'll have to do a report and the insurance company may want to investigate it" To which I replied, "I don't care, I'm just not up to that at the moment".

I don't know why I couldn't cope that day but those few things pushed my buttons again and I found myself sitting at the desk crying. I was so angry with myself, I didn't want to show this weakness. I felt like a child. I went and saw my Sergeant and told him I was going home, then had a brief conversation with the same Detective who advised me to call the Association as soon as I got home.

I did phone the Association and didn't receive a return phone call for several days. In all it was a week before I spoke with a lady from the Association. It was a horrible time of the year to go off work, December 2007. I felt like I was letting everyone down, my work mates, my wife, my mother, and myself. I felt like I had failed in life, in policing. The day after going off work I received a token visit from the Highway Patrol DO, we talked briefly and then he left. That was the only visit I received between December 13th and March 25th when I resigned. I did get a few phone calls to see how I was travelling but that was it, and to be honest I was in a deep state of depression and just was not in a position to talk much.

It wasn't until mid January when I finally heard from Allianz. A whole month after going off work. And it took even longer before I could get them to okay me to see a psychologist. I had an appointment with a psychologist for Allianz to tell him my story and he would make a report to Allianz. Eventually I had two visits authorised by Allianz so I organised through my doctor (who was actually a locum as my GP was on holidays at the time) to see a psychologist. This psychologist was a lovely lady but she had no previous dealings with work cover or police so she eventually referred me to a colleague of hers. What I didn't know was that this next visit would be my last. So I had one more psychologist appointment and I had to tell the story of what was happening yet again, it seemed to be all I was doing. She made another appointment for me and said she would contact Allianz to authorise it. The day before I was due to return to the psychologist I received a phone call from my Case Manager at Allianz, Norman Habib, to say that they had declined my claim. I was dumbfounded and left speechless. So I didn't get to return for treatment to the psychologist and a few days later I received the report from Allianz that knocked me for a six.

The whole basis of the rejection was a crock of shit. They listed the substantial contributing factors as non-work related, being a range of personal problems, a predisposition to depression and an ambivalence about remaining with the police service. The report then went on to say that the work factors included being informed I had used all available sick leave, and had been criticised over work performance. What the psychologist has failed to note was that all of these are symptoms of the depression and anxiety caused by the stresses of work. I was very happy, and adjusted prior to the police so where do they think the problems came from?

Then I read the statement the Highway Patrol DO had given, in which he has blatantly lied. This man is such a low life and I cannot understand his motives for deliberately stating mistruths. In his statement he told the assessing psychologist that he had told my Sergeant that I would need to be assessed by the Police Medical Officer, funny my Sergeant didn't know this when I had spoken to him later. He then states that he asked me if I was off on a HOD and he alleges I told him it was not work related. He did get one thing right in that he said he had seen my doctor’s certificate which was not a work cover certificate. I explained to him that the doctor had discussed this with me and asked if I needed a work cover certificate, I told my doctor to give me a normal one and if I needed a work cover one I was sure someone would tell me. I had no idea what I needed to do, as I said no one gave me any advice or information. And I told this to the DO, who then goes on to claim in his statement that he advised me to speak with the Association which he did not. I told him I had been advised by others to speak with the Association. He also claims that I told him I would not be returning the following day, which is also a lie as I never said this at all.

He then claims that when he visited me the following day he spoke with me and I commented about how another DO had said that someone would have a look at my cases whilst I was off. In the statement he said, "I found this an odd comment in that no-one completes outstanding cases while police are on leave, unless it is an urgent matter." Despite the fact that this had been told to me by a higher ranked DO than he. This same DO then goes on to say that he explained to me the realities of police work and also that should I return to work I would need to focus on being able to perform so as to get a future chance at highway patrol. The reality though is that I am very self analytical and these are the things I said to him that I needed to do. I was the one giving myself that advice not him, so why he has taken it on as his own words one can only ponder.

There is much in the report that is spot on and I say that it spells out to me that the cause of my breakdown was work related. Yet reading this comment makes me angry in the viewpoint management take, "Some employer representatives wonder if part of the motivation for the current claim is because of his lack of other leave options. He returned to work after he was advised he had run out of sick leave". Yes it had nothing to do with being unaware of how HOD works, and not really being in a suitable frame of mind to pursue anything.

The report then goes on to say, "Senior management have reservations about his suitability as a Police Officer. Before he went on leave this had been raised with him and he admitted that he also had been having similar thoughts". This was NEVER raised with me at all, I was the one who said that I was having these thoughts. No work issues apart from the sick leave had ever been discussed with me. I was a hard worker who expected far too much from myself, but I did a damn good job as a police officer. There are a few people who will say that for me, including a particular person who I spoke to about being in an abusive relationship. That same person is now out of that relationship and became of police officer because of how compassionate and helpful I had been..

I have never claimed to have a higher work load than anyone else, in fact I always said, "I'm not special, I don't have more work than the others. We are all over worked". Did they listen to me when I said that? No.

Management have claimed that I never approached them to discuss my problem or stress and as such they feel I have fabricated it all. What they don't realise is that the troops doing the hard work do not approach the DO's for the simple reason that they don't care. Management are for the most part only interested in self advancement. Of course there are exceptions, and we lost one such DO who just couldn't stand up for the troops in the never ending battle any longer. How could I go to someone I held no respect for and admit that I felt lost, I was losing control? There are quite a few senior colleagues that I did discuss these things with but did they look at that when making the decision that my breakdown is not work related? No.

It makes me mad writing this and reliving it after I have just started to put things behind me. But perhaps this is a good thing. At the time I decided not to appeal the decision as I just could not cope with the added stress. I had enough difficulty just making a decision to do one simple bit of house work. And that is why I could not decide on whether to stay in the police or not, decisions were just not capable of being made. It makes me mad to see that they turn this around and blame me, saying that I am only claiming because I ran out of leave.

And the grand finale was two weeks ago I received a phone call from a Sergeant at the LAC. He explained politely that he did not want to call but had been compelled to by the HR committee. He had been given a complaint to investigate that I had undertaken secondary employment whilst on sick leave. I told him that it was okay and I was in a better frame of mind to talk and deal with a complaint, little did I realise I wasn't. Anyway we chatted and I explained that it had been a wedding for a friend and that I had taken the photos for free. He then went on to say that I put the photos on my business website so that was advertising. I said yep because people who could not make it wanted to see the photos so I always put them on there, but I had not password protected them like I do for paying customers. I then said that I also had advertising with another website and it was rediculous to expect that I stop advertising when it was paid annually. People advertise in the Yellow Pages what are they meant to do? I also expressed my disgust that whoever lodged the complaint could have called me and discussed it and I would have given them the same explanation. He told me he wanted to interview me over it and we made arrangements for him to phone in two days time.

The following day I felt so black, empty.... as the day progressed my mind began going over and over how petty the complaint was. I was convinced it was one of the DO's and I still believe this. By the end of the day we had to go to my nephews birthday and when we arrived I was an emotional wreck. I broke down again so we ended up going home. The following day I told the Sergeant I wasn't going to be interviewed over the complaint and it had caused me to have another break down.

From my perspective management has done everything possible to shove me into making a decision into leaving the NSW Police Force. I was ready to go back prior to the phone call about the complaint, despite being angry about not having the support and counselling I needed I still wanted a career in the police. But that last call just showed me the level the NSW Police Force and it's senior management will go to so that they do not have to accept that there are problems in the job, that people do need help, that you don't have to be in the job for twenty years to suffer anymore.

And that is why I want to write about other people’s experiences! I want to hear from police, from family, from friends, from anyone who has suffered as a result of the Police Force and Allianz not doing what they should, supporting the ones who do stand on that thin blue line. I am considering taking legal action against the police and Allianz now, and I may look at what action I can take against the DO who lied in a legal statement (though this would probably just come down to his word versus mine, I know I couldn't expect my team Sergeant to back me).

Please send me any comments or contact me via the contact page. If you want to give me information about someone in a similar situation I would love to hear from you. But most importantly if you know of someone struggling at work please take a moment to ask them on the side how they are doing, it could save someone’s life! Thank you Greg!