*Shared with permission

This is a synopsis of my story and what transpired which ultimately led me to neurofeedback with Mike Pinkston at Heart Matters.

I grew up in a rural lower class household. I was the eldest of five siblings. At the time of my childhood I didn’t know what a normal family was and to this day, I do not recall the majority of my early formative years. My father, while highly intelligent, was very manipulative and largely absent. He became addicted to opiates and alcohol, which resulted in him becoming, increasingly violent, suicidal and in his latter years bipolar/schizophrenic. My mother was a stay at home mom, who was overwhelmed and tormented by her own demons and depression. Both parents had abusive tendencies and had incidents of domestic violence resulting in divorce. I never felt truly safe in my childhood home or loved by my guardians. I remained an emotional trigger to my mother, for reasons I will not discuss in this writing.

As an adolescent, I was prone to extreme risk taking, such as free climbing hundred-foot cliffs (without safety equipment), fighting, and unsanctioned ATV and motorcycle racing. I also trained heavily in martial arts, which is where I learned strength under control. There I met my high school sweetheart. I was fortunate enough to marry her several years later and she brought me down to a more stable level.

Through all of this, I developed a strong underlying desire to defend the innocent, rescue the weak and help others who were unable to help themselves. By now we (the United States) were in the heightened days of the War on Terror, I wanted to join the army, more specifically enlist in the X-ray Program. My wife expressed to me in no uncertain terms, that was out of the question, or she would be out of the equation. To make matters worse, I was experiencing the onset of severe dietary limitations, so unfortunately special operations was out.

My wife advised me, if I wanted to help people, I should look into becoming a peace officer. I scoffed at this because ‘I hated cops’ based upon previous interactions and misconceptions; however, in an attempt to understand the profession better I looked into it. This transpired into my calling. I served in multiple roles to include, detentions, patrol, a field supervisor, narcotics detective and fourteen years on a multi regional SWAT team as a auxiliary duty.

Fast forward fifteen years of law enforcement, most of which were spent in specialized units in addition to patrol. This left me in a state of daily habituation, punctuated by frustration and burnout. Due to a couple of significant events to include several successes, haunting losses, followed by a severe job related injury; I was left with a nagging question, “Had I already served my higher purpose and was just waiting to die?”

I knew several people (both personally and acquaintances) who were killed in action, ambushed and murdered, severely injured, and a close ‘battle buddy’ committed suicide. I watched many other cops’ careers end in a downward spiral of mental health problems, self-medicating, or poor decisions, resulting in the loss of their jobs, and/or families, and in a few cases, their freedom.

I have personally witnessed, been part of, and investigated hundreds of traumatic/critical events. I have survived multiple attempts on my life, and was “honored” to be on at least one ‘hit list’ by a criminal organization- with known and suspected criminals showing up at my house and stalking my family; causing me significant concern for their safety.

At around six years of service, I had reached my worst point of my own mental health crisis, which I attempted to hide from others and myself refusing to accept my own limitations. During this particularly difficult time the only emotions I felt were: nothing. No personal connection, love, happiness, fear, sadness or satisfaction- just frustration and anger. This obviously was a significant strain on my marriage and young children. In an attempt to save my marriage, I began to try and figure out how to get better on my own. I researched PTSD/PTSI and empathetic injury. My limited experience with psychologists made me distrust them and I largely felt like they were characterized by speaking nonsense and falsehoods. I tried to force myself to do other things outside of my circle of peers but largely failed. I no longer enjoyed anything I used to. I attempted to confide in my wife (a big and unreasonable ask) however she was unable to handle the horrors, informing me she didn’t want to know. This resulted in me becoming more distant and less transparent. My only reprieve was weekly intense training. I only felt ‘alive’ in hazardous situations. Though I didn’t have a death wish per say, I did not take steps to avoid it.

My days off resulted in a desire to withdraw from everything and everyone. I experienced so much cessation, I began to feel like the ‘angel of freaking death.’ I observed a video which perfectly depicted the snapshot of my psyche. It’s described as follows: A broken man is sitting alone in a darkened room. Situated in front of the man’s chair was a TV which he appeared to be staring at. The TV displayed nothing but static and snow, however, in the man’s mind was the constant rumination of past trauma, regret, and guilt.

I was not sleeping well. I averaged three to four hours of broken sleep a night. I had regular nightmares and would thrash and fight in my sleep. I would often wake with a start, drenched in sweat, with my heart pounding. I was forced to sleep in a separate bedroom, out of fear that I would inadvertently harm my very tolerant and loving wife. The incident that prompted this separation occurred when I was suddenly awakened by my wife gasping for air and struggling to get away from me, because I was unconsciously strangling her, while fighting invisible demons in my sleep.

I also suffered from constant headaches/ migraines to the point I would notice if for some reason my head did not hurt. I was in a constant state of hypervigilance. My relationships were significantly strained, largely due to my inability for me to have any significant emotional connections. I was angry at myself for having trouble as a result of undiagnosed PTSD. I wrestled with my own stupid pride, over the stigma of accepting therapy, believing other cops- especially my subordinates and the public- would look down upon me. I believed that they would expect me (a peace officer and tactical operator) to be able to handle anything. I thought the need for therapy was a certain sign of weakness. I was failing at always remaining the silent professional. I also felt guilt about accepting help, because in my opinion there were many others more deserving.

Through personal acquaintances, I met Mike Pinkston of Heart Matters who specialized in Neurofeedback and Counseling. I am very slow to trust, however I had a strong sense that Mike was a genuine and trustworthy person.

Over the past twenty months, I have been the fortunate recipient of Heart Matters various services to include Neurofeedback treatment, and some EMDR therapy and traditional counseling. The main benefit of Neurofeedback was you don’t have to disclose your feelings to anyone who you are not ready to. You don’t have a shrink asking you, “How do you feel about that” over and over. The discussions I had with Mike were beneficial, and atypical of my previous interactions with mental health professionals. All of Mike’s staff are thoughtful and kind people.

If you would have told me what I am about to tell you, I would have not believed it. However, in my opinion, Neurofeedback works and you will never convince me otherwise. Of note: I also have traumatic brain injuries, which they have been able to work with. 

The most significant benefit of Neurofeedback therapy has been my overall emotional capacity and wellbeing greatly improving. I am able to connect with people again in a meaningful way. I use an analogy of money to represent what my emotional capacity was. For a given week, I would have $70 of emotional capital. By mid workweek, I would have burned through my $70 and was taking out loans on the weekend just to get through the work week. This left me feeling crushed by emotional debt, unable to invest in myself or my family. Now after twenty months of therapy, I’m not only able to get through the week with a surplus of capital, but I’m able to invest in others.

The effects of my PTSD were greatly reduced, and some were eliminated. While I still bear the scars, the trauma is no longer septic and has largely healed. A word of caution for those who may follow in my footsteps. Initially I felt like I got worse before I got better; so do not cut your sessions short. If given time and the grace of God, Neurofeedback will work for you.

I was told by Mike (from the data he could see from my brain mapping) that I could not see or interpret facial expressions, and he believed he could do something about it. I did not believe this but agreed to try. My profession is reading people, but little did I realize that he was correct. My opinion changed when I was sitting in a drive through and a girl smiled at me. It struck me that I’d never truly “seen” a smile on someone’s face before. For the next two months while I slept, I hallucinated about facial expressions. I now realize that the only expressions I could formerly detect were those of deception and anger. Being able to recognize more of unspoken communication is a great benefit to my emotional intelligence which further helps me understand situations better in my career. I am now able to enjoy little things like music, and scenery, whereas before it tended to make me angry for unknown reasons.

My sleep, while still not perfect, has improved greatly. I do not have the same psychological and physiological responses to dreams. My headaches greatly diminished from several severe episodes a week, to one or two a month.

Speaking to my fellow tactical operators- specifically any profession where you are tasked with being a high level problem solver with dire physical, mental and legal consequences: Neurofeedback will expand your brain’s processing power. For me it is like receiving a brand new computer, when your old one was outdated and infected with malware. Both computers do much the same thing, just the new one is significantly faster. In kinetic environments this is incredibly valuable. Experts previously believed mental capacity was at a fixed level per individual like the processor in a computer. This is not the case. Much like training anything else in the human body, it gets stronger and more efficient. The brain is no different. From personal experience, I am able to observe and process more information, screen out distractions, and better identify what is a threat and, more importantly, what is not a threat. In other words, discern what really matters in a tactical situation where things are often tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving. I process information faster and more accurately; which in turn allows me to make better decisions and establish a proper course of action. And when it really counts, act decisively with a higher degree of certainty.

I’ll give a real world example (which does not have any pending legal actions associated with it). I was training hostage rescue protocols with a tactical team. The scenario included role players, stimulus, and consequences for improper decisions / tactics. We were equipped in armor, duty equipment, and armed with Simunitions. During a crisis entry, I noticed that I could process information faster than before and others were noticing it. There was the proverbial bad guy, holding an infant hostage upside down in one hand and in the other hand a large knife indicating he intended to kill the child. I do not know why it is, but adding children into unexpected situations, whether real world or in training, tends to induce unintended emotional responses from operators. In my mind, I efficiently entered the room and engaged the bad guy -who was moving- with several well aimed rounds as the ‘flash-bang’ (Flash Sound Diversionary Device) went off. The hostage taker did not have time to respond. The time for the crisis entry team to breach the door and make entry was under three seconds, and the time delay fuse on flash-bang is approximately 1.5 seconds. An onlooker stated that he thought that the flash bang somehow caused the magazine of my weapon to explode, because all he saw was the bang go off and cartridge casings began raining down to the ground. Instead it was my increased processing speed and better overall performance of my brain from Neurofeedback. I have since had many first hand, real world experiences, confirming this.

In closing, I want to thank Mike, Ali, and the rest of the Heart Matters team for giving me a new lease on life. They have significantly improved my quality of life and job performance in my profession. If you are struggling or need to upgrade your “operating system”, I would not hesitate to seek out their services. I strongly recommend it.