The Reality of Police Stress: Mental health in policing

Introduction

This post was originally supposed to be published on 6/7/26, but due to work and other commitments, I fell behind. I do apologize to the community for the delay.

With that being said, let's dive right in.

Mental Health and the Reality of Policing

According to research published through the National Library of Medicine, police officers experience conditions such as PTSD and depression at roughly twice the rate of the general population. Studies have found PTSD rates among law enforcement officers ranging from 9% to 15%, while a 2020 study of a large urban police department found that more than one in four officers reported symptoms consistent with conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, or other stress-related mental health struggles.

Those numbers should not come as a surprise. Police officers routinely respond to fatal crashes, suicides, child abuse investigations, domestic violence incidents, overdoses, and violent crimes. While the public often associates police stress with shootings and major critical incidents, the reality is that the job slowly accumulates over time. It is the thousands of calls, the missed holidays, the disrupted sleep schedules, and the constant exposure to other people's worst days that begin to take a toll. For many officers, the stress of the profession is not caused by one traumatic event. It is caused by years of carrying the weight of hundreds of them.

What Does That Actually Look Like?

Well, speaking from my own experience, I have been an officer for several years now. Not 15 or 20 years like some, but long enough to see more than most people realize. I have watched people die in front of me. I have helped save lives. I have worked disturbing child abuse cases, domestic violence incidents, fatal crashes, overdoses, and countless calls involving people experiencing the worst moments of their lives. Like many officers, I have also been involved in violent encounters where the outcome was uncertain and the stakes were life or death.

Every one of those experiences stays with you.

When I was newer to the job, I never really thought much about it. I told myself I could handle it. Most officers do. The problem is that stress rarely hits all at once. It builds slowly over time. Looking back, the best way I can describe it is like a chisel striking a stone. One strike does not do much, but eventually enough strikes begin to leave a mark.

Over time, I started noticing changes in myself. I became more hypervigilant. I paid closer attention to people around me. I grew uncomfortable in crowds. I became less trusting of others and more focused on worst-case scenarios. At first, I brushed it off as part of the job. Eventually, I realized those changes were following me home.

The hardest part was admitting there was a problem. I did not want to talk to anyone because, in my mind, acknowledging it felt like admitting I could not handle the job. Nobody wants to have that conversation with themselves. It was not until I noticed the stress affecting both my work and personal life that I finally decided to seek help. I found myself becoming less proactive at work, and outside of work I stopped doing some of the things I enjoyed because I was constantly worried that something bad might happen.

Eventually, I started talking with a professional. Through that process, I learned how to better understand and manage the things I had experienced throughout my career. It did not erase those experiences, but it helped me process them in a healthier way.

The reality is that many officers struggle with stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and burnout, but never reach out for help. Sometimes it is pride. Sometimes it is fear of being judged. Sometimes it is simply not knowing where to start. Later in this article, I will discuss some ways officers can navigate these challenges, but the most important thing I can say is this: if you are struggling, seek help. Whether you wear a badge or not, you do not have to carry it alone.

What Stress Actually Looks Like

When most people think about stress in law enforcement, they imagine an officer involved shooting, a major use of force incident, or some other high-profile critical event. While those incidents can absolutely have lasting effects, that is not what stress usually looks like.

Most of the time, it starts much smaller.

It is the officer who cannot seem to turn off their brain after work. It is the officer who sits in a restaurant with their back against the wall so they can watch the door. It is the officer who finds themselves scanning crowds, looking for threats, even when they are off duty with their family.

For some officers, it becomes irritability. For others, it becomes isolation. Some begin drinking more. Some stop doing the things they once enjoyed. Others become withdrawn from their spouses, children, and friends without even realizing it.

The difficult part is that many of these changes happen so gradually that they feel normal. You do not wake up one day and suddenly have PTSD. You do not wake up one day and suddenly become depressed. Instead, those feelings and behaviors slowly creep into your life until one day you realize you are not the same person you used to be.

For me, one of the biggest signs was hypervigilance. I became much more aware of my surroundings. I paid closer attention to people and their behaviors. I disliked crowds and large gatherings. I found myself constantly thinking about worst-case scenarios and what I would do if something happened.

The problem was that I viewed those things as strengths because they helped me do my job. What I failed to realize was that I was carrying those habits home with me. I was treating normal everyday situations like I was still on duty.

There is a difference between being prepared and never allowing yourself to relax. Unfortunately, many officers spend years living in that state without realizing the toll it takes.

The Things Nobody Warns You About

When people think about the dangers of law enforcement, they usually think about getting shot, getting into fights, or being involved in some major critical incident.

What they do not talk about enough are the smaller sacrifices that come with the job.

The missed holidays.

The missed birthdays.

The late nights and rotating schedules.

The family gatherings you miss because somebody has to answer the call when everyone else is enjoying their weekend.

Law enforcement is one of the few professions where you routinely see people on the worst day of their lives. Day after day, year after year, that begins to change your outlook on the world.

You see enough domestic violence, and you begin to assume every family has problems behind closed doors.

You see enough thefts, robberies, and fraud cases, and you become less trusting of people.

You see enough violence and tragedy, and eventually your mind begins looking for danger everywhere.

Again, many of these changes happen so gradually that they feel normal.

For some officers, they become cynical. For others, they become emotionally detached. Some isolate themselves from friends and family. Others become consumed by the profession and slowly lose the hobbies, interests, and relationships that once made them who they were.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was allowing policing to become too much of my identity. The job is important. It is a profession I care deeply about. But at the end of the day, we are still people. We are husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and friends before we are police officers.

The badge should be part of your life. It should not become your entire life.

When the job becomes your entire identity, every stressor, every bad call, every complaint, every mistake, and every tragedy begins to weigh even heavier because you have nothing else balancing the scales.

That is a dangerous place to be.

Navigating the Stress

So what can you actually do about it?

The first thing I would tell any officer is to understand that stress is not weakness.

There seems to be this misconception in law enforcement that if stress, anxiety, depression, or PTSD begins affecting you, it means you are somehow incapable of doing the job. That could not be further from the truth.

The reality is that if you spend years witnessing violence, death, suffering, and trauma, it would be abnormal not to be affected by it.

The second thing I would recommend is maintaining something outside of law enforcement.

Whether it is fitness, hunting, fishing, gaming, woodworking, traveling, spending time with family, or simply having a hobby that has absolutely nothing to do with police work, it is important to have something that reminds you there is still a world outside the badge.

For me, one of the most beneficial decisions I made was eventually seeking professional help.

Now, I want to be honest about something because I think many officers experience this.

Finding a therapist is not always easy.

In fact, it took me multiple attempts before I found someone who was a good fit for me.

Ironically, some of the therapists I initially sought out specifically because they worked with first responders or had prior law enforcement experience ended up being the worst fit for me personally. Some downplayed my concerns, minimized my stress, or approached problems in ways that simply did not resonate with me.

That does not mean they were bad therapists. It simply means they were not the right therapist for me.

The person who ultimately helped me the most did not have a law enforcement background. What they did have was experience helping first responders process stress, trauma, and anxiety. More importantly, they listened. They challenged my thinking when necessary, helped me understand what I was experiencing, and gave me tools to work through it.

That was the difference.

If there is one thing I want officers reading this to understand, it is that finding the right therapist can sometimes take time. If the first one does not work, do not give up. If the second one does not work, keep looking.

You are not looking for someone to tell you what you want to hear.

You are looking for someone who understands how you process information, someone you trust, and someone who can help you navigate the things you have experienced.

There is nothing wrong with asking for help.

There is nothing wrong with talking to someone.

There is nothing wrong with taking care of your mental health the same way you would take care of a physical injury.

In fact, I would argue it is one of the most important things an officer can do.

Final Thoughts

Police work changes people.

There is no way around that reality.

You cannot repeatedly witness violence, death, tragedy, and human suffering without carrying some of it with you. The challenge is recognizing when that weight is becoming too much and taking steps to address it before it begins affecting your health, your family, your career, and your quality of life.

The job will always be stressful. The calls will keep coming. The bad days will continue to happen.

What matters is how you deal with them.

Whether that means spending time with family, talking with trusted friends, working out, pursuing hobbies, seeking professional help, or some combination of all of the above, find what works for you and invest in it.

At the end of the day, the badge is something you wear.

It is not who you are.

And no matter how much stress you may be carrying, you do not have to carry it alone.