packing he punched a hole into a wall from his frustration . At that moment I was afraid for my daughter ’ s safety . When I tried to leave he blocked the door .
I told him that if he did not let me go I would call 911 and his career would be over . At my threat , he let me walk away .
I did not know , that at that very moment , as I was leaving , his world was crumbling and he was contemplating his suicide . He felt that life was not worth living , and that I would be better off without him . I did not know that he was trying to fight his depression on his own . I was wearing rose-colored glasses and they were clouded by anger . In that moment , I hated him . I could not understand what was wrong with him . I went to my friend ’ s house with the intention of calling a divorce lawyer in the morning . He called me an hour later , sounding broken , crying and telling me that he did not want to go on living . He did not want to see someone else raising his daughter , but he felt that my daughter and I deserved better . This was his goodbye call . In the precious moments that followed I learned about the ghosts , about the scar on his leg , and about the drive-by shooting . Up until that point I did not know that there really wasn ’ t any kind of serious debriefing that took place after traumatic calls .
There is a stigma in the fire industry that if you tell anyone what you are going through that somehow you will be perceived as weak . So many of the men and women don ’ t say anything . They just try to deal