048. Love You, Don't Die - Sammy Freyta [Part 1]

In this episode of the Keep the Promise podcast, host TJ is joined by guest Sammy Freyta, a therapist specializing in counseling first responders and military personnel. Sammy shares her journey from broadcast journalism to therapy, emphasizing the importance of mental fitness over traditional therapy. The episode delves into creative processes like art therapy and tailored coping strategies to help first responders manage trauma and improve communication with loved ones. Sammy and her firefighter husband Dave work together to provide on-site mental fitness coaching, breaking down stigmas and offering practical advice for a healthier fire service community.

02:30 Meet Sammy Freyta
03:25 Sammy's Background and Career Shift
07:34 The Role of Art in Therapy
15:04 Working with First Responders
24:27 Building Mental Fitness
28:51 Coping Strategies and Communication
35:11 Peer Teams vs. Critical Incident Stress Management

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Transcript

Sammy: This is our story. I come from a background of having my own struggles recognizing that I can do hard shit and figure it out, and take care of my brain, and I want to give you skills to be able to do that, and now I'm married to Dave, whose brain's super fucked, just like all of yours is, sorry to tell you, but that's the truth, and we have built a process around how we take care of that, we're here because we don't want anybody to die. And we don't want anybody to think that they don't have resources to take care of their brains.

TJ: Well, folks, welcome to today's episode of the keep the promise podcast. I'm your host, TJ, and like I was just talking to my wonderful guest, normally I have these witty intros, but we're just going to skip it today because she is full of incredible stories that are going to benefit all of us in the fire service and nothing I say will do justice to the stuff that we're going to cover.

So joining me live from wonderful Colorado, Sammy Freda, Sammy. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

Sammy: Thanks for having me. I'm super pumped. This is awesome.

TJ: Yeah. How are things over in the beautiful Rocky mountains?

Sammy: Uh, they're a little smoky right now. Like, it's hazy

TJ: that's right. You guys are on fire, 

Sammy: Yeah. Well, it's apparently, it's coming from Canada, the smoke. Um,

TJ: Oh, 

Sammy: yeah. 

TJ: that far down.

Sammy: Yes. Which is kind of interesting. But, um, so, it's not great outside today. Uh, but usually it's sunny and beautiful. I mean, I can't even lie. It's, we usually have great weather.

But, it's super humid and foggy. But,

TJ: I don't want to hear about humidity. We are in Maryland and we're dying a few. Yeah,

Sammy: kidding. It's not that bad. It's great. I'm just kidding. It's awesome outside. You should come.

TJ: I mean, I would say less because I'm a big fan of Colorado. So let's get started. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Start with Well, you're not, you're, you're a transplant, right? You're not originally.

Sammy: I'm

TJ: let's go back. You're not an OG. Where'd you start? Where'd you start off? Where?

Sammy: So

I grew up, oh gosh, I grew up in Chicago, not Chicago, everybody, you know, says you can't say that unless you live downtown. Um, but so it was a Northwest suburb. Um, was there pretty much all of my life through high school, through college. And then I moved to Colorado in 2016. So, um, grew up in a northwest suburb of the city, went to school, um, down, got my master's downtown in Chicago and lived in the city for about 10 years before I moved out here.

TJ: what'd you study?

Sammy: Well, I started studying, um, uh, Broadcast journalism and political science because, you know, that makes sense somehow. So that was my, that was, that was, those were my degrees in college.

And then I hated that. Um, and I, and I ended up going back to school to get my master's in counseling psychology slash art therapy. So, it was a dual degree, um, where I learned how to, how to counsel somebody, you know, do psychology, but then we also paired it with how you would incorporate art into sessions.

So, it was like a dual master's program.

TJ: Why the sudden change

Sammy: You know, I mean, all of it makes sense, doesn't it?

TJ: oh yeah, 100 percent like we haven't even told anyone what you actually do, we're just telling your life story. So you ended up in the mental health world after starting off Far, far away from it. 

Sammy: Totally far. I 

TJ: the hell happened?

Sammy: I thought I wanted to be, um, work for TV. Uh, so I did a lot of like anchoring and working for production companies for a couple of years, um, and potentially wanted to do sports, um, sports TV. But yeah, that totally changed. As soon as I got out of college, I really, um, sort of hated the industry.

There was a lot of stress involved for nothing like, you know, high stakes over. Silly things that I felt. So I started getting really, really anxious and stressed out about all of that. And I didn't have some very great bosses at the time either. Um, and I was going through my own personal struggles, which didn't pair well with the high intensity, um, job that I was in.

So. Basically through my own trials and tribulations, I decided to go back to school and do what I wanted to do and what helped me, which was counseling and therapy. So it was really a kind of a huge pivot, but it was after I had got out of an outpatient. Program for an eating disorder. So I had some pretty low self esteem was struggling a ton with past my past relationship that was abusive and Once I got out of therapy or an outpatient service I was like what am I doing with my life?

Like I'm gonna go back and tell people how awesome they are and pump them up for over nothing Like it just didn't it felt so superficial and so Yeah. I was like, I went home and I told my sister and my family, I'm like, I'm going to go back to school and be a therapist. So, and that's how it all started.

But I was old. Like when I went back, I was one of the oldest people in my program. Cause they were just coming right out of college to get their master. So that was a little weird experience for me being the old woman in the room.

TJ: I mean, it had to have helped at least because you already come with life experience on both sides, right? You're, you're coming into it, approaching it from like the therapist's point of view, but also you have been, um,

Sammy: I was fucked up. Yeah.

TJ: Right, I mean, and we'll get to that, because that's, that's one of the things that I admire the most, you're very open about the fact that, hey, we're broken too, and, and you're coming into it in a very vulnerable way.

Okay, so, so you got those dual masters, art therapy, huh?

Sammy: mm hm.

TJ: How does art fit into the therapy world?

Sammy: You know, it was interesting because I never obviously envisioned that's how my life would go. And I was never an artist. I was always a creative kid. But in my program, my outpatient program, there was an art therapist. And we had to do that as part of our healing process. And that's really when my mind changed around it.

And I had opened up before. Because I was pretty abstinent about telling people anything in the program. I was like, I'm fucking fine. You guys are all the ones who are fucked up. Not me. You, it's not me. I mean, there were, there were. people in there, I don't even want to say women because it was men too, but like they couldn't even eat a cracker, you know, and I was coming in there from a totally different perspective.

I mean, I was using food to cope with my emotions, but it was more of a restriction and how I wanted to look and how I, how I, how I thought I could build my self esteem up. So I was pretty fast to be like, I can fix this, you know, I can fix the food part. Um, so I just didn't think anything was wrong with me at all.

And then this art therapist just opened me wide up. And so that was the moment that I was realized that therapy doesn't have to be. Oh my gosh. Sorry. My dog just pulled her little light down. Um,

so siren. Yeah. Uh, so she, she just kind of opened my eyes up to, to recognize that there was life outside of.

you know, telling, just sitting down and telling somebody your story that there was a lot more you could get out of somebody by being creative and That's when I realized that maybe this was a route that I wanted to go down is how can you how can you get closer to somebody by understanding what's really inside of their thoughts in their brain by using the creative process and so I went home and bought a bunch of Oil paints and started painting.

Um, and that's, and I just, I kind of fell in love with the process. I was not an artist by any means, but just used it as a way to express myself and to get stuff out. And so then, um, I really learned that the. I think more, not just that art is a way to, you know, to get, to get different places with people, but that therapy doesn't have to be so black and white.

You know, I think that that art piece was what, uh, propelled me on this journey of understanding that therapy can be utilized in so many different ways. And it doesn't have to be me sitting across the table or the couch from you and you telling me something and me nodding my head and saying, okay, sounds good.

How does it make you feel? And so I really think that that, that art process was the first indicator to get me to, uh, uh, a more. Unprofessional place of therapy. I like to say an

TJ: which is something that I really want to dig into. But before we go into the unprofessional professional, what sort of so the creative process? Is it just painting or what else? Because I mean, we're like nine minutes in and our listeners are probably going like, Who the fuck is she? What are we talking about?

I want to Uh, build that stages to how this helps responders because so many of us are averse to sitting on the couch across from the therapist being like, my feelings, okay, how else does that make you feel without realizing that a lot of our hobbies and a lot of things that we do. Can be therapy can be a very therapeutic outlet for the stuff that we deal with on the job and off the job.

So what else other than painting, which is what you do, what else can be that creative process for for art therapy?

Sammy: It actually doesn't have to be, um, something so specific, right? So it's just utilizing a tool in therapy to help you expand your thoughts beyond, beyond talking. So a lot of, particularly for our communities that we're talking about, Uh, trauma memories, trauma thoughts stored in your body, we know this, like the issues are in the tissues, but also they're, they're stored in a place in your brain that sometimes there's no verbal response, or verbal understanding.

So we can't just explain, this is what happened. We can go through the motions, like a hot wash, or you know, You know, a debrief and say, this is what happened. This is what I saw. There's the guy's brains on the floor, but we're not, uh, uh, we're not tackling it from an emotional perspective. We're tackling from logistical perspective and we're not pairing our.

How we feel, how our body feels with what happened. Those things get separated when we go into a traumatic event, right? Those things are totally break inside of our brains. Our brains try to protect us from going there and art or creation actually is a way to pair those processes and synapses back together.

So it can be very helpful with responders who are particularly not interested in telling a story about what they have, what they saw or did for the hundredth time, or going back to that space. It's almost like a safe way to go back there. And it helps open up a whole emotive side of them that they might be completely uninterested in, in going.

It's not like it's a trick, but it kind of can be a way

to trick them. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, um, so in, you know, specifically I've utilized it with, uh, different responders, not only to revisit something traumatic that's stuck, that's kind of, you know, coming up for them in different ways, but also to help them reengage with their emotional, uh, connection to themselves and to their partners and their people, um, because a lot of times that's just completely shut off as self, self protection.

So art can be a way to engage and it doesn't have to be painting. It can be writing. It can be, um, you know, drawing. It can be, I mean, I have a whole, um, chest in my room. It can be some, some people like to like cut things out, use collage. I've done masks with responders. Um, it can even be as simple as a Sharpie and a pen.

piece of paper. Uh, it's just a way to connect both parts of those, the brain.

TJ: I mean, I do leather work. A lot of people know me. I started on TJ leather making helmet shields and whatnot. And quite often just a very repetitive act of tooling a piece of leather or stitching or painting, whatever you get in that space where you're moving, you're doing stuff you're creating. And somehow the thoughts just kind of, kind of like a cloud passing by a mountain.

They just come and go and you revisit them. Hey, I remember this happened. And then it just keeps going and it just keeps going. It's, it's kind of, yeah, it is therapeutic in a way.

Sammy: And it's empowering, right? Like to give somebody an ability or a skill to do something and to work through something. That's using your hands and your brain. And, and it can be, um, a way for, for people to feel more, take more ownership over what they've been through. Um, instead of that happened to me and I'm good and I never want to, you know, go back there.

This is now I've understood what happened. I've given it space and now I can move the fuck on from it. We're going to have to live there forever, right? Like that's not,

that's not 

TJ: that's, it's not healthy. It is not healthy at all. So you curse just like the rest of us. You speak our language. You, you kind of know us. You're involved with first responders, right? Tell us some more. He he he

Sammy: um, my, I've been a therapist, um, since 2013. Uh, is when, when I decided to go back to school to do this. But over the last Maybe six or seven years. My focus has really been on working with responders and and the military military families military individuals Prior to that my experiences was I was specifically training in trauma like I wanted to understand trauma I wanted to understand, you know when people go through it what to do what to do with that So I was working with victims at first um, and then my dad was always a really big proponent of You Our responders and people who take care of us and and him and my mom always kind of modeled that for me Like there are people they they care for us and we need to care for them And so that was always in the back of my mind and my dad was always kind of pushing me like when are you going?

To take classes about you know, learning more about working with them You know when's that going to happen kind of as I started my therapy program And so I knew I wanted to do that, but I knew I needed to get the basics down first And so once I moved to colorado, I started doing taking classes to learn how to how to particularly understand and work with responders.

And then it sort of snowballed from there into the company that I run now, which is individual therapy and coaching, but also onsite. So I work onsite with departments, um, all over the Denver metro area and some in the mountains. And, um, I sound and speak like you because I grew up in Chicago and my dad was, you I was his little tomboy for most of my life.

Um, and that was just how we are. You know, we're, we're harsh, but we're community oriented. And I think that that always fit this dynamic, I guess, in the responder world. So that's always been a part of me, but, but I think I, I. Maybe show up that way because. Not only did I, was I, that's who I am, but that's how you guys are.

So it was like this perfect match. Like, I remember I always wanted to be like this in sessions with people, but I had to be a little bit more kosher or watch my words. And then when I started working with responders, I was like, Oh, Oh, these are my people. Like now I can just be myself all the time. Um, so I, I feel like it's a little bit of both, you know, the community was already there and I was similar to that, but then I realized that I could join, join forces.

And then somewhere along the line, I married a firefighter. So I don't know which one happened first, but now I am you guys, because, um, you're, you're literally my family.

TJ: Yeah, I was gonna say, you made kind of like the perfect match. It was, these are my people, I'm like, yeah, no doubt. doubt. And you work pretty closely with your husband in, not as a firefighter, but in the mental health world, right?

Sammy: Yes. Yes. So Dave is, my husband is a firefighter. He's been doing it since um, His daughter was born, so almost 15 years now, um, he's an engineer. And, uh, we, once we got kind of got together slowly over time, we started to realize like that joining forces with each other was actually really helpful for the community because, uh, I had the clinical background perspective and he had the real life experience.

So, got a lot more, um, I would say, you know, rapport from that and, and, and guys and gals had more of an inkling to trust me or want to get to know me because I was them. I wasn't just, you know, this clinician who was like, Oh, I'm going to fix all your problems for you. But, um, so Dave does come with me when he's not on shift and helps me out.

And we kind of tag team and do our little mental fitness sessions with the responder departments together. Um, and then we also bring our, our dog, Siren, who's. A year and a half, and she's a therapy dog, but she's not quite a therapy dog yet because she's still a little asshole, but she comes with us everywhere.

So it's, it's pretty much the three of us, um, when we're all home and able.

TJ: The dog who just pulled down whatever she 

Sammy: ran through the light and pulled it down. 

TJ: Well done. I mean, there's something to be said about coming in with somebody within the community, because we traditionally are so closed off to any sort of outside help. I mean, I started volunteering in 2005, and I remember having traumatizing calls. I think I was, I mean, I was a kid, I was 18, some dude, Pulled him out of a car wreck and his brains ended up spilling all over my hands.

I was like, Whoa, this is what brains look and feel like. And the amount of debrief that we got was like, Hey man, you okay? Like talk to somebody if you need to, if it's bothering you. And that was it. Because back then, and even nine years later, when I started therapy, the thought of putting yourself out there, being vulnerable, say, Hey, I'm talking to somebody, It was unheard of.

It was, you were gonna be a pariah, you were gonna be ostracized, you were gonna be unfit for duty. I remember I used like different email addresses when I signed up for therapy. I barely told anyone my shift, like they're gonna find out, they're gonna pull me off the floor. Fuck, this is gonna be awful. And even though the landscape has changed dramatically since then, for the better, we still encounter that resistance of people who feel that a bottle of whiskey is a better therapist or who feel that bottling it up works way better.

So having somebody in the community that can come in and say, Hello, this is me. This is what I've been through. And these are my experiences with getting help kind of lowers everyone's guard, right? Have you, you too, must have experienced that at least once, if not more coming in. And once Dave starts talking to me, like, Hey, this is who I am.

They're like, okay, now we're going to open up.

Sammy: Yes, and I think that's actually how we got to where we are, is how we went from me being a therapist, working with responders in individual therapy, working with the peer support teams and being like the clinical lead to building this dynamic where now we're. Literally on site with the with the the departments we come in we hang out we sit at the kitchen table Sometimes we have something to talk about sometimes we just bullshit Sometimes we you know have a have a topic or somebody asks us about to talk about something we've gotten there because with our peer teams, right?

That's kind of how we broke into this dynamic was we sat down and we said, the reason why we want to be your clinical lead is because this is our story. Right? Like, I come from a background of, uh, having my own struggles going to therapy, recognizing that I can do hard shit and figure it out, and take care of my, my brain, and I want to give you skills to be able to do that, and now I'm married to Dave, whose brain's super fucked, just like all of yours is, sorry to tell you, but that's the truth, and we have built a process around how we take care of that, His story is pretty traumatic.

The things that he's gone through are very traumatic. And we say that right off the bat. And we're like, so we're not here because we get paid a lot of money to do this and we think we're awesome. We're here because we don't want anybody to die. And we don't want anybody to think that they don't have resources to take care of their brains.

And it doesn't have to be formal therapy where you're sitting down and talking about your feelings. This is a, we can build mental fortitude around relationships and talking about things and being open and vulnerable. And we model that by saying that right off the bat is this is who we are. And the only reason why we're here is because we want to love you.

That's it.

TJ: So I want to get back to the peer team and get you riled up as I talk. Tent to do with people who are the whole peer team versus system. But how do you guys approach these groups? Like, I'm very interested in that opening volley, almost of vulnerability of breaking that ice, like dealing with the elephant in the room with like, oh, an outsider talking about mental health.

This is bullshit. How do you approach it? Because We will get value out of it. Somebody listening to this will be able to understand like, okay, this is, this can be helpful. And I'm with particular emphasis on the mental fortitude, not just mental health, the buzzword therapy, but I think fortitude is a much better way to explain it.

Sammy: we've actually started saying fitness, like mental fitness, instead of therapy. And we actually say that we're coaches because, basically, because I've had to, you know, Uh, break all those boundaries down and now become their friend, their family member, their person who loves them. I don't even like to say that I'm a therapist because it immediately, it immediately, um, puts me in a box that I can't get out of, right?

And so we approach it like we are a first responder family. We have been through extensive amount of trauma. We have problems similarly to your problems. We always say, everybody has very, very different lives in our communities. Like, right, we're all experiencing different things. We're going through different things.

We can't compare that. But what we do know, By working with you guys all so much is that everybody has the same problems like they're just different, you know Versions of the same problems and so if we can start with it telling you that we have problems Then we hope that you can understand that our problems don't stop us from living and doing our jobs and showing up And going on calls and taking care of our family, but we have to build Processes around how we are taking care of our brains and our bodies so that we can do those things.

So it's really just trying to break down the stigma that mental health means that you're sick or there's something wrong. Mental health is about being healthy. And taking care of your brain. And so we just kind of frame it like that. Like you, you, we say this a lot, you know, you go to the doctor when you hurt yourself, why don't you take care of your brain when it hurts or whatever?

But that's, I mean, that's the basic concept and I concept. And I just think that framing it, like it's not wrong. It's going to make you better at your job. It's going to make you better with your family. Is. helpful, especially in these communities, because a lot of us are, you know, we, we want to be the best at things we want to be good at the job.

And so we say, well, you're missing a part of being good at the job. You can only do so much with your, your training and skills. on calls, what about what's behind all that? Your brain. So why aren't we talking about that stuff? Why aren't we teaching you ways to cope in positive ways, ways to communicate with each other when things aren't right, ways to have meaningful conversations that don't mean you're not fit for duty?

You know, and. That's the way that we frame it. I mean, and it's, it's, it, it, it takes a little bit of time to, to build those relationships, but approaching it that way. What we've seen is that there isn't much, many walls to break down because we break them down right away.

TJ: You guys basically come in like the Kool Aid man.

Sammy: Yes,

pretty much. Well, and something we've also realized is if like that doesn't work for the team, then we probably shouldn't be their team. On their team, right? They can find another group or company that's going to work with them in the way that they want it seen. But I mean, I, and I'm not, I don't want to like toot our horns, but I don't, we haven't really seen much, much of that because everybody wants to break the walls down, they just don't know it.

So if we start, they're like, Oh, okay. And

then they're in. Yeah. Mm

TJ: it's important to get that,

Sammy: hmm. Mm

TJ: to be able to relate. Because we, like you said, we're all fucked up. We all suffer from an immense amount of trauma. And It feels so alienating not being able to deal with it as most normal people would, because we're not supposed to, we are strong, we are invincible, we are firefighters, we get called when people have the worst day of their lives, so we cannot have bad days.

And I think coming in and Kool Aid manning your way through a wall, it um, it opens that door for people to just be like, okay. Maybe I can, maybe I can improve my fitness in terms of my mind.

Sammy: Mm hmm.

TJ: What are some ways Exercise the mind and that that takes us perfectly to you talked about different ways to cope and communicate.

What are some ways that we can better cope with the trauma or communicate it or be able to maintain a Strong clear communication with our loved ones in spite of the trauma because from my perspective I know that coming back from a shitty shift or Coming back from a particularly draining call

Sammy: Mm hmm.

TJ: Better leave me alone because I am not going to be the person that you once loved type thing.

I am going to be cranky and I'm going to be nitpicky. So what are some ways that we can cope with the stuff that we see and we do to be more present and more ourselves for our loved ones off the job?

Sammy: Well, I think the first step is awareness, which is what you just said, right? Like, what it, I have to under, be aware of What happens to me after a long shift or what happens to me when I don't get to sleep that night because we ran a bunch of calls or what happens to me when I feel like I'm in a good mood and then I walk in the door and I see my kids and even though I'm supposed to be excited, I actually don't want to be there.

Like what, what happens? What's your process? Because once you can understand your process. Then the next part is being able to communicate that to the people in your house or your friends or your family members or whoever it is, that's going to come in contact with that version of you. So, you know, we always say communication, but it's so important and it's, but you can't communicate properly if you're unaware.

So that first step is that awareness piece and then it's learning, okay, so now I'm aware. Now I've spoken this to my partner. How, what do I need to regulate my nervous system? Like what do I need in that moment coming off that shift or coming down that I need to do? So that's the coping to be able to bring my body back down to a more of a homeostasis level.

And how can I do that? In, you know, the scheme of my life in the first, the first couple hours when I get home. And so it's, it's building a process around that. I mean, to me, it's always process building because we don't have any yet. We just kind of go with the flow and try to figure it out, which leads us into sometimes conflict, which leads us into, you know, sitting in front of the TV and shutting off, which leads us into going out and having a beer, you know, with our friends at eight in the morning or whatever, because those are.

Re ways that will, will help you, you know, help you get to homeostasis, but in an improper and negative. negative coping way, right? And those are going to lead into avoidance, dismissal, repression, all that stuff. So it's learning then what are some positive things that help my body feel good because our minds and our bodies are connected.

And what does that look like for me? So some of it's going to be a different, you know, building a process. Does that mean going on a walk, you know, and exercising? Does that mean doing breathing techniques like Joey talks about all the time from conscious movements and, and regulating my body to. back to a better and healthy place.

Does that mean sitting down with my person and telling her and like him, telling her or him about all the shit that I just saw? Some people like need to do that, like vent it out. Um, does that mean exercising? You know, not to the point of exert, you know, where you're completely burnt out, but exercising to help get some of that, the dopamine flowing and that stuff.

Serotonin levels back up. Does that mean eating a health healthy fats that help clear my brain fog, you know, instead of just going for the donut or for the leftover pizza. Um, does it, it, so it, it can be a lot of different things, but it's learning for you and thinking about if you're a responder out there, trying to understand what this means is what helps you, what helps bring you down to a level where you.

You feel more in control of your actions and your thoughts. What does that look like for you? That's not something that completely shuts down your thought processes like drinking, you know, adrenaline dumping, you know, sitting in front of the TV, playing video games for three hours.

TJ: Should we involve our partners and our family in these coping processes, or should that be something that we shield them from? Because they can be chaotic and they can be damaging. Is that one thing that we ought to, like, do it ourselves or have them be part of it?

Sammy: Well, my initial response is 100%, 1000 percent have them be a part of it, but that doesn't mean they are, um, doing it with you necessarily, right? But if, if our partners, our family members are unaware, because our expectations of how we need to cope, When we get home are not spoken to them That's going to turn into more conflict right or potentially some Repression so that you're not sharing with your family or confusion, right?

so like if If the responder is like okay something that I need to do is maybe go Go for a walk with the dog when I get home or or take a 20 minute nap because I didn't sleep last night And they don't communicate that Well, they're unaware that that's what they're going to do. Right? And then it's an unspoken thing.

Then their partner's like, What the fuck, bro? You know, like, I needed your help, I needed So if there's no communication, verbal communication, going on about what you need, that's beneficial and appropriate for the family in that time frame. Then how does anybody know what's going on? Then we just come, you know, get into mind reading stuff.

And you do this all the time when you come home or you never tell me anything. Or I mean, there's a gamut of relationship issues that can can come out of not being open and honest with your family. I feel like that's a whole podcast in itself.

TJ: I feel like we need a couple more episodes for that. Yeah, we'll have Dave on board for that one. We'll make it a nice family affair.

Sammy: Oh,

he'll talk the whole time though. Oh

TJ: work together with peer teams. Let's talk about the peer team concept versus the critical incident stress, man.

Sammy: Yeah. I

TJ: in trouble. I will happily I

Sammy: in trouble, I don't care. My

chief won't be mad at me. 

TJ: talk about that, but 

Sammy: He'll back me up. 

TJ: give me your thoughts on peer teams versus system teams

Sammy: Well, I don't know. Can I just, maybe, maybe I can open it up with my thought about how, my weird thought about how I believe departments should work. Um,

TJ: it the utopia fire department. This is the fire service according to Sammy

Sammy: is actually where I wish Dave would be here because what he, this is a, uh, one of his favorite pastimes is to apply for chief positions all over the place that he's completely unqualified for just for fun. And so we always joke and we tell our department system, they're like, you know, one day he's going to get a job.

And then what are you guys going to do? And it is true. His, his vision is to become a chief that he's completely unqualified for, and then call the, the department, the friendly fire brigade

TJ: Friendly fire

Sammy: or friendship fire brigade, That's what he wants to do. That's, that's his envision of the department that Dave would like to run.

Everybody's best friends. Um, so.

TJ: I was gonna say don't hire me because I'm gonna come in with my crackhead energy, and we're gonna be fighting each other in no time.

Sammy: He's gonna

be like, this is not aligned with the friendship fire

TJ: former Friendship Fire Brigade. Now we just, we beefin Rude.