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Chase Wheeler | Firefighter & Therapist

@firefighter_therapist

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👨🏻‍🚒 10+ yrs as a 1st Responder 🚑🚒
📖Advocate for Men’s Mental Health 💪🏼
Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT-A
Suicide Crisis Line Call or Text 988

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Every firefighter has a choice when they get off shift.

When I was a bachelor, I’d come home after a 48 and go completely in the opposite direction. I’d sleep as long as possible. Play video games for hours. Eat whatever I wanted. I’d spent 48 hours telling my body “no,” so when I got home, I told it “yes” to almost everything.

I thought that was self-care.

It took me years to realize that a lot of it was just escape.

Then I entered the therapy world and heard a different message: You deserve this. Don’t judge yourself. Listen to your body.

I felt caught between two extremes:

Ignore what your body needs.
or
Give your body whatever it wants.

I don’t think either is self-care.

Video games, food, porn, alcohol, scrolling—whatever your escape is—only brings temporary relief.

But relief isn’t always care.

Sometimes self-care is rest. Sometimes it’s getting up and exercising. Sometimes it’s comfort. Sometimes it’s discipline.

I’m learning that real self-care isn’t asking, “What do I want right now?”

It’s asking, “What do I actually need?”

For me, that often looks like being present with my wife and son, being in nature, exercise, rest, cooking for my family, eating healthy food, and living according to my values.

Especially as firefighters, what we choose after the shift really matters.

True self-care isn’t ignoring what your body needs or obeying everything it wants. It’s learning to attune to what you truly need.

#firefighter #self-care #mensmentalhealth #firstresponders #family

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If you have high ambitions, it can be a lonely journey to where you want to go. Sometimes getting there requires letting go of old versions of ourselves—and the preconceived ideas of what our lives “should” have looked like by now.

Sometimes the present feels too painful, so we escape into the future. We tell ourselves we’ll be happy when we make more money, get the job, fix the relationship, reach the goal, or finally become the person we think we’re supposed to be.

But when we spend too much time living in the future, the distance between where we are and where we think we should be can become its own source of pain.

To anyone wrestling with that torturous dance: it’s okay to take a break.

Be mindful of what you need. Practice self-care. Use your five senses to ground yourself. Take a moment to breathe. Look around at what is already here.

The battle isn’t going anywhere.

Take a day off from “I should be doing this. I should be doing that. I should be further along by now.”

For a moment, just be.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
— Epictetus

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I don’t know many active duty firefighters that are also therapists. So figured I should document how strange my days can be. Goes from sitting in a quiet office, processing with people. To responding to 911 calls a few hours later. Don’t wait for the crisis to seek help. Start therapy early. It takes strength and courage to development mental health. I applaud all those that have the courage to face their fears and train their minds. The world needs the best version of you.

*Disclaimer**This is not connected or tied to any particular call. No one was hurt during the filming of this.**

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It’s difficult to explain what being a first responder feels like. Not only because people can’t understand even if you try but your brothers will often criticize you if you do. Haha. Well… staying quiet doesn’t seem to be working for our community either. There’s a time and place to ignore the wounds and a time to get them treated.

I will say, it feels like a Spiritual War is raging. First responders see evil, they come across the victims of evil, the perpetrators of evil and yes they themselves can get infected by it.

In short, it’s my prayer, I hope my brothers and sisters in healthcare find ways to “De-contaminate” themselves. Ya’ll are fighting battles no one else understands. Help each other, save as many as you can, for as long as you can, as smart as you can. Make sure there’s something left of you when the jobs done. Make sure “Everyone goes home”. The most fulfilling calling I’ve found is being a Father, Husband and trying to be a better Christian.

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