Dispatchers Must Find a “Happy Place” for Emotional Survival

With the all the stress and heartache that comes with a career in emergency communications, it is absolutely vital to find an escape in order to survive.

All you have to do is turn on the evening news: vehicle pursuits, riots, injury traffic collisions, robberies, violent assaults, protests, etc. Dispatchers handle these calls every day. The men and women working in emergency communications (sworn or civilian) respond to society’s worst nightmares. But at what cost to them? Incoming call-volume, talking with frantic/angry callers, prioritizing calls for service, managing the status of resources, and feelings of helplessness are only a few stressors that weigh on dispatchers every shift. The constant hypervigilance, dissociative emotionality, and exposure to traumatic incidents can have a heavy toll on the overall wellbeing of police and fire dispatchers. It can be overwhelming to the ordinary human emotional response. Dispatchers are, after all, just human, and they experience the same wide range of emotions as the rest of us. Therefore, it becomes vital for dispatchers to find a healthy escape so they can survive the daily stresses of working in emergency communications.

The human mind is a powerful thing, but even it needs time… time to process the things your senses perceive. The ability to touch, taste, see, smell, and hear allow us to experience the world around us. However, sometimes our senses can get overwhelmed and our minds can have trouble processing the signals sent by our senses. This is called sensory overload. Although it can happen on the most pleasant of occasions, like on your wedding day, it is more often associated with something traumatic. A traumatic event can easily cause sensory overload. The overstimulated senses can cause the mind to malfunction, thereby making it unable to process the thoughts and feelings in reaction to the event. Imagine then having a job where you work emergencies and traumatic incidents all day long, a job like police or fire dispatching.

It starts in an emergency communications center with dispatchers answering 9-1-1 calls. They hear the cries, screams, shrieks, and pleas of people calling for help. Dispatchers’ auditory sense can be quickly overwhelmed because that is the only sense they have to work with, since they cannot see/touch/taste/smell the caller over the phone. As a result, dispatchers often formulate imaginary pictures in their minds to help them understand incidents. Dispatchers often imagine the worst in order to help make sense of what they can only hear. It is like a mind racing pedal-to-the-metal at 100 mph. It is easy to see how a dispatcher’s mind can then be overwhelmed when feelings of the heart try to catch up and understand thoughts of the mind. Without learning to slow down, the mind can run away and the heart can burst with a flood of emotions, often causing breakdowns. In order to prevent this from occurring, dispatchers must find a place to allow their minds the time necessary to slow down and process all they have handled.

Simply put, dispatchers must find a “happy place” and they must make regular visits. A happy place… that place you go and all your worries disappear. Everyone has one. The geographic location is unimportant; instead, it is what that place does to recharge your mind and spirit by providing a place of rest that is important. As the mind decompresses from information overload it is more able to process thoughts and feelings, something that is often unaddressed in the world of emergency communications. Addressing troubled thoughts and feelings is a healthy response to trauma exposure, and regularly visiting that happy place provides dispatchers a safe, comfortable environment to do just that. And that is what will give dispatchers the strength not just to survive, but also thrive in a career that might otherwise destroy their humanity.

Follow this link to read how I found my happy place: Finding My Happy Place Somewhere Sunny and 75.

About the Author: Ryan J. Dedmon

Ryan Dedmon, M.A., is the Founder of Operation 10-8. He worked various assignments in local law enforcement in Southern California for nearly twelve years, a majority of which was spent in a police dispatch communications center answering 9-1-1 calls. In 2012, the California Public-Safety Radio Association awarded him with the “Telecommunicator of the Year”, the organization’s highest honor for dispatchers in Southern California. He holds a Master's degree in forensic psychology from Argosy University and a Bachelor's degree in sociology with an emphasis in criminal justice from Biola University.

8 Comments

John DeWilde February 19, 2015 at 8:41 pm - Reply
When we had an older version of Windows on our CAD system I had a picture of a beach on a tropical island for the desktop. Some times I would minimize the programs and just look at the picture for a little while. I called it my happy place.
Janice Lampkin February 19, 2015 at 9:11 pm - Reply
Absolute truth. I lost my happy place and had one of those breakdowns after 25 years on the job. What made this period so much worse was the MD who told me it was impossible for me to feel such stress from a job where I’m not out in the field.
Dawanna Kibodeaux February 20, 2015 at 7:47 am - Reply
Thank you so much for sharing this. I will be printing this and making sure it is posted in our Dispatch/911 Center.
James Lockerbie February 20, 2015 at 2:37 pm - Reply
Absolutely, this article is spot on. After 18 years of service as a communications officer for a local police dept in south Jersey I have to go to my happy place to recharge the batteries. Following my favorite soccer club the Philadelphia Union helps me decompress. I also enjoy taking day trips to historical sites with my children and my nephews.
During my career I have been to two critical stress debriefing. I truly believe that had I not participated in those debriefings I would not be able to function as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I encourage every dispatcher to participate in debriefing after any stressful event. It does not have to be a major event, any call that hits you a little harder then you expect, you should ask for a debriefing.
Dr Kelly Rasmussen February 21, 2015 at 8:42 am - Reply
This js why I wrote my book “Call911, true stories from my life in emergency dispatch”(available on Amazon). And why my dissertation is titled “resilience and protective factors in emergency dispatchers”
David February 26, 2015 at 6:53 pm - Reply
Outstanding words on the situation.
janet April 11, 2015 at 12:35 pm - Reply
Thank you.
Kim Parsons April 11, 2015 at 10:01 pm - Reply
I was a dispatcher in the U.S. that had to medically retire after 18 years because of a single call I took that caused intrusive thoughts based on imaginary images I created to match the sounds I heard. My agency basically left me to fend for myself and my tale of dealing with workers comp is a total cautionary tale. Because I did not get immediate help, even though I recognized the problems this call would cause for me, I have long lasting effects that probably could’ve been mitigated right off the bat.
I saw that some of the commenters are or have written books or done research to help dispatchers with critical incidents and I would be willing to offer any help so that no one else and their families has to go thru what I went thru and what my family is still going thru. Glad to see dispatchers are finally getting the research to back up what they have always known to get them help. Hopefully, the agencies will start to see this too.
Kimparsons86@gmail.com