There are many truths about stress and its possible chronicity. After incident review and defusing is a recommended as the first step in lowering the body’s temperature following a critical event. First, chronic stress refers to experiences from days or weeks prior to an acute stress and repeat traumatic event. That is important to understand and happens to every human being exposed to life threatening event including weather-related event, major fire, etc. If you have experienced a traumatic event such as this you are at risk.

Critical incident stress debriefing may have met with the officers involved in the event and provided excellent psychological first aid. There was open discussion and many people shared their stories. But 3 months later, another incident came in for an all hands response; and all of a sudden, you are all jacked up, anxious, and an inability to focus.

And you may not be certain what is happening. It could be that the second incident has resulted in a trauma response to enter at an inopportune time.

Update on Stress