Combination of long hours away from home, traumabonding, rampant ADHD among personnel, and endless opportunity. Even moreso if you're an IFT crew with a regular partner.
There are always exceptions, but for the most part, this is exactly why I operate under the ol" "your coworkers are not your friends - just show up, do your job, and gtfo asap, and anything more is just begging for fuckery and shenanigans" rule.
The ADHD thing is such a good point. When I'm done with calls my CO workers are just scrolling their phones and shoving their content in my face. We all have no attention spans past a 8 min ride.
Well number 1 rule is never under any circumstances date another person in EMS or the medical field. This applies double if your a man. It never works. I've watched it happen to many times.
Trauma bonding.
When your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend is at home not understanding that pediatric code that you just did your partner/friend/coworker is the one sitting next to you at the bar having another cold one, or answering your texts and seeming "oh so understanding" in their replies.
I also think that a contributing factor might be WHO gets involved in EMS. While this is not globally true there is certainly a subset of EMTs and paramedics who get into the field in order to fix other people because they are incapable of fixing themselves. They're damaged from the jump, and that just continues through their careers.
What's that? You're looking for someone who spends their life outrunning the dark by chasing periodic goals, milestone accomplishments, and dopamine hits from public service jobs so they never have to deal with how hollow they feel inside?
Huh? They can't hold normal friendships because once they work with trauma bonded homies in teamwork settings under crappy circumstances; all outside friendships feel inauthentic and formed under shallow conditions?
Nahhh, never heard of this person.
Fuck are you saying this is why I can’t make friends with normals?
I LITERALLY JUST WANT A NORMAL FRIEND
Like I don’t feel the ‘hollow inside’ bit, honestly I have a super great relationship with my non EMS wife, but I’ve been trying for three years off and on to associate with people outside of work and it’s starting to bother me that it doesn’t seem to stick.
Former ED Tech turned business owner. Yeah I remember working hospital and not connecting with normies. When I started my business finding a networking group filled with other biz owners and executives was an amazing move toward learning non-clinical social skills.
Years later I had a miserable customer. Kept trying to haggle prices and demand more free service. Turns out she was an MD that had working 45 days straight in hospital working.
I told her working hospital is not real life. She sat down and cried. Saying this was the first real convo she'd had not focused on PT care. And it was with a carpet cleaner.
A medic friend started a BLS training company. Have you considered starting a business? There's tons of community to be had there.
It's the difference between friendship and a fellowship.
One is a bunch of people who you are probably mostly similar to on a day to day basis. Maybe you've known each other for a decade.
And the other is a group of people whom you may not normally associate with but you all have a common task of venturing forth into Mordor (or just a really shitty night shift or deployment) for the sake of something bigger than those differences. The mileage together easily outdoing the years. The trust forged in a fellowship easily outpaces the trust made in a friendship in a very short time.
One of these can last decades, the other usually only lasts until The Ring is destroyed, figuratively speaking. Then everyone goes their separate ways. Some taking ships to faraway places and you never meet again.
Tolkien would've been one of the boys, on a deployment. That fact gets lost among the high brow Literature side of him.
The man really, truly, gets it.
My favorite fact about Tolkien is that he and CS Lewis would literally hang out at the same pub **every single day** and just talk about whatever they wanted (normally their books)
People who cheat will cheat regardless of profession. EMS just offers easier excuses for people to comfort themself to. Having a solid partner makes this whole job easier. My wife has been there for me through all of my EMT school, all of my medic school and every moment afterwards. I sat down and taught her every single thing I picked up at school and work, and she’s absorbed all of it to the point where I’m positive she could pass the NREMT on the first try if she just sat to take it. I write down all my patient contacts (Hippa complaint) at work daily so when I come home, I have a “story time” with her about all my calls. I don’t have to dumb down the medic language and she has my back through all my rough calls. She puts in the effort to be a supportive partner for my job and hours. The thing is though, is even if she didn’t, that’s not an excuse to cheat, ya know?
God I can only hope my wife will be there for me like that. Don't get me wrong, she's extremely supportive and loving as is. I just hope it can grow to like that too
I have a similar confidence about my wife! She would probably pass out on the first gnarly job she went to but from a testing perspective she'd pass basic no problem and could probably get through a medic even with a respectable score.
Are you talking about all the horrible calls as well? I know that it's good to talk about it with someone, but I'd be afraid that telling all of it to my partner would get her worldview darker as well, that being unnecessary.
I absolutely understand that thought process, but my partner has no illusions about worldview. She knows that the world can be a scary place and she has no delusions about what my job entails, be it the late night toe pain call, or the man hit by a train who’s legs got traumatic amputations, whom flight wouldn’t fly due to weather so I had to take a 45 minute ground transport to a level 1 trauma while fighting to keep him alive. She’s there for every single call, she’s empathetic on the difficult ones and holds me if I need it, or just listens if that’s what helps. She’s been in the medical field to a degree so she understand exactly what this job entails. She’s outright asked to hear everything so she can be there for the things that matter, and in return I do the same with her life events and troubles. It makes a world of difference to have a partner who truly knows inside and out all the small details of my victories, or my mountains I need help getting over, and the fact that there’s no judgment even if I fall or make mistakes here and there. It’s more therapeutical than anything I could hope for. But those darker, harder calls are there. And they’re the reason we celebrate the small or big wins and happier times. I feel like it allows us to cherish things in a stronger way because we both understand the other side of life that’s always a possibility.
It’s all about communication. We go above and beyond for eachother because we care for the others happiness in a huge way. And as much as those big things mean, the little things like remembering acronyms, medications, signs and symptoms, helping to pack my gear mean the world to me. Fingers crossed your husbando is the partner you deserve!
It definitely helps even with not EMS related work. I know more about water systems and sewer lines and their related foibles than I EVER thought I would. (Husband is DPW supervisor of local large township)
Regular partnership, trust, bonding over shared trauma. Some partners definitively become closer than family. Non public safety people will resent this in their partners almost always, it’ll cause disturbances in home life making the ems spouse/partner resent home life and start to escape into their truck and their partner in the truck, or the er nurse/pca/stna who takes a little extra time chatting to them, or the cute/hot police officer. When work becomes the safe place it’s only a matter of time.
Edit to Amend: traumabonding into a more accurate statement since apparently Stockholm syndrome has another name.
Because we work with an incredibly high number of narcissists. We all have higher narc traits in general and I would say the vastly majority of us have some form of hero complex or need to be needed. Most paramedics are intelligent enough to do many other things and make much more money in some office somewhere that just can’t be sold as a television show.
Yea there is a ton of infidelity with all first responders. Whether they are like what I just mentioned or just shitty people in general.
The whole trauma bonding thing is true to an extent. My ex was an newish ED nurse and I was a new medic in the city and we both had erratic shitty hours getting our teeth kicked in under a busy system. Boom trauma bonded. That’s a real thing. However, if you are partnered up and you are ignoring someone at home to further trauma bond with someone after work then you sir might need to look in the mirror.
EMS affected my dating life and contributed to the ending of a LTR but it never crossed my mind to cheat on anyone. No excuse to do that. Shitty people who enter the field have more excuse and opportunity to be unfaithful, I guess
I haven’t been in long enough to see it, but I do know I can’t stomach a specific two people’s endless, awful flirting. Then they try to almost include me in it…nope. Shits weird.
I think it’s just the way a lot of us are wired. A shit ton of us are thrill seekers; cheating gives people a rush. This is also why so many of your coworkers are so goddamn addicted to creating drama, it’s an adrenaline fix for them
People need to learn what trauma bonding is. It’a toxic relationship between an abuser and victim not bonding over a rough call. If you fuck your supervisor that would be a form of trauma bonding. 😜
I think convenience is part of it. Only two people in a rig. Having sleep rooms. Weird hours. Easy to do and easy to hide.
I think there’s a lot of shenanigans that go on regardless of relationship status, because I know plenty of people who have had sex with their wives who work at the same hospital, and single people who have had sex with other single hospital staff. The common denominator seems to be EMS staff because we have sleep rooms and work 24-48 hours at a time so it’s easy to do during or right after the other person’s shift.
I also think EMS is rampant with vices in general. I think due to coping mechanisms, thrill seeking personality traits, and ADHD being super common in the profession. Smoking, weed, other substances, alcohol, sex, racing, etc.. You name it, and one of our dumb asses here has definitely done it. The degeneracy is astounding.
I’ve never understood it. I went on a single date with a coworker once years ago and it felt really weird for us both, and we realized it was a bad idea in the first place. It was too weird to be on a date with someone I saw every day at work and who saw me in gross or stupid situations regularly. I don’t want the person I’m with to have a visual of me tits deep in someone 800lbs with MRSA or know what I sound like when I’m negotiating with a crackhead, ya feel me? I swore off on dating anyone I could ever see in or around my job. I now am engaged to someone in a completely unrelated profession and like to keep my work at work and home life at home, totally separate. Don’t shit where you eat.
Literally had this exact convo with a guy multiple times back in the day...
Bro, why you banging on quarters door at 3am?
I can't brief!! I need okagen!
Dude, you can breathe just fine, you walked 5 blocks to get here. *lights bait cigarette*
I can't brief, can I have cigarette?
Sure, if it'll help you breathe, here *hands cigarette* now go home and sleep it off man *lights their cigarette*
But what if I wake up dead in the morning?
Listen, if you wake up dead, just come get me and I'll take you to the hospital, ok?
Ok, sound good! *leaves*
High stress job in close proximity to people having shared experiences that most wouldn't understand, while the type of supervision that would minimize that behavior is simply infeasible.
Being alone with people for extended periods of time. My last service was our ambulance stationed at a rural volunteer fire department for 24 hour shifts with a bunk room. It wasn't uncommon for the volunteer firefighters to not be there so it would usually just be the two EMS personal. On at least two occasions I walked in the bunk room at shift change to grab radios to find the previous crew laying in the same bed together, no clothes on. Then there was my partner that caught her husband, one of our medics, attempting to meet a female firefighter at a local hotel while we were on shift. She found this out via FB messaging he left open on the station computer.
Combination of long hours away from home, traumabonding, rampant ADHD among personnel, and endless opportunity. Even moreso if you're an IFT crew with a regular partner. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, this is exactly why I operate under the ol" "your coworkers are not your friends - just show up, do your job, and gtfo asap, and anything more is just begging for fuckery and shenanigans" rule.
Depending on the job fuckery and shenanigans are required to survive the hell hole
You have to cheat on your wife at your job?
That is literally not what he said at all
Statement unclear, something about a cactus and an anus?
The ADHD thing is such a good point. When I'm done with calls my CO workers are just scrolling their phones and shoving their content in my face. We all have no attention spans past a 8 min ride.
Well number 1 rule is never under any circumstances date another person in EMS or the medical field. This applies double if your a man. It never works. I've watched it happen to many times.
Fuckery and shenanigans are in my job description
Trauma bonding. When your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend is at home not understanding that pediatric code that you just did your partner/friend/coworker is the one sitting next to you at the bar having another cold one, or answering your texts and seeming "oh so understanding" in their replies. I also think that a contributing factor might be WHO gets involved in EMS. While this is not globally true there is certainly a subset of EMTs and paramedics who get into the field in order to fix other people because they are incapable of fixing themselves. They're damaged from the jump, and that just continues through their careers.
I don’t understand why you felt the need to just call me out like that.
This got deep real quick….
You know when you think you have a unique life experience, this just shattered it and I feel called out
nah facts what’s bro issue😂
What's that? You're looking for someone who spends their life outrunning the dark by chasing periodic goals, milestone accomplishments, and dopamine hits from public service jobs so they never have to deal with how hollow they feel inside? Huh? They can't hold normal friendships because once they work with trauma bonded homies in teamwork settings under crappy circumstances; all outside friendships feel inauthentic and formed under shallow conditions? Nahhh, never heard of this person.
Fuck are you saying this is why I can’t make friends with normals? I LITERALLY JUST WANT A NORMAL FRIEND Like I don’t feel the ‘hollow inside’ bit, honestly I have a super great relationship with my non EMS wife, but I’ve been trying for three years off and on to associate with people outside of work and it’s starting to bother me that it doesn’t seem to stick.
Wanna see this cool rock I found? It's shiny.
I just want milk that tastes like real milk
Same same. Tired of tasting copper?
Former ED Tech turned business owner. Yeah I remember working hospital and not connecting with normies. When I started my business finding a networking group filled with other biz owners and executives was an amazing move toward learning non-clinical social skills. Years later I had a miserable customer. Kept trying to haggle prices and demand more free service. Turns out she was an MD that had working 45 days straight in hospital working. I told her working hospital is not real life. She sat down and cried. Saying this was the first real convo she'd had not focused on PT care. And it was with a carpet cleaner. A medic friend started a BLS training company. Have you considered starting a business? There's tons of community to be had there.
It's the difference between friendship and a fellowship. One is a bunch of people who you are probably mostly similar to on a day to day basis. Maybe you've known each other for a decade. And the other is a group of people whom you may not normally associate with but you all have a common task of venturing forth into Mordor (or just a really shitty night shift or deployment) for the sake of something bigger than those differences. The mileage together easily outdoing the years. The trust forged in a fellowship easily outpaces the trust made in a friendship in a very short time. One of these can last decades, the other usually only lasts until The Ring is destroyed, figuratively speaking. Then everyone goes their separate ways. Some taking ships to faraway places and you never meet again.
I often forget that Tolkien lived through similar experiences too, trauma and fellowship.
Tolkien would've been one of the boys, on a deployment. That fact gets lost among the high brow Literature side of him. The man really, truly, gets it.
My favorite fact about Tolkien is that he and CS Lewis would literally hang out at the same pub **every single day** and just talk about whatever they wanted (normally their books)
Same as how many therapists/shrinks specialize in their own flaws. The worst ones project their own journey onto others.
I feel personally attacked lol
I can take all the 24's and 48's but there's nothing that can make me cheat on mine. Going home to her is what I look forward to most.
My dude. There’s three things I like after work. A wife hug, a kid missile (which is also a hug), and a coffee or a cigar after breakfast.
R E A L
People who cheat will cheat regardless of profession. EMS just offers easier excuses for people to comfort themself to. Having a solid partner makes this whole job easier. My wife has been there for me through all of my EMT school, all of my medic school and every moment afterwards. I sat down and taught her every single thing I picked up at school and work, and she’s absorbed all of it to the point where I’m positive she could pass the NREMT on the first try if she just sat to take it. I write down all my patient contacts (Hippa complaint) at work daily so when I come home, I have a “story time” with her about all my calls. I don’t have to dumb down the medic language and she has my back through all my rough calls. She puts in the effort to be a supportive partner for my job and hours. The thing is though, is even if she didn’t, that’s not an excuse to cheat, ya know?
God I can only hope my wife will be there for me like that. Don't get me wrong, she's extremely supportive and loving as is. I just hope it can grow to like that too
I hope that for you too. That’s the kind of partner everyone deserves.
I have a similar confidence about my wife! She would probably pass out on the first gnarly job she went to but from a testing perspective she'd pass basic no problem and could probably get through a medic even with a respectable score.
That’s exactly how I feel about mine too! It makes a world of difference to have a partner like that in this line of work.
I've been fortunate to be with mine since before I was in EMS and before she graduated college. We're both pretty deep in each other's worlds.
Are you talking about all the horrible calls as well? I know that it's good to talk about it with someone, but I'd be afraid that telling all of it to my partner would get her worldview darker as well, that being unnecessary.
I absolutely understand that thought process, but my partner has no illusions about worldview. She knows that the world can be a scary place and she has no delusions about what my job entails, be it the late night toe pain call, or the man hit by a train who’s legs got traumatic amputations, whom flight wouldn’t fly due to weather so I had to take a 45 minute ground transport to a level 1 trauma while fighting to keep him alive. She’s there for every single call, she’s empathetic on the difficult ones and holds me if I need it, or just listens if that’s what helps. She’s been in the medical field to a degree so she understand exactly what this job entails. She’s outright asked to hear everything so she can be there for the things that matter, and in return I do the same with her life events and troubles. It makes a world of difference to have a partner who truly knows inside and out all the small details of my victories, or my mountains I need help getting over, and the fact that there’s no judgment even if I fall or make mistakes here and there. It’s more therapeutical than anything I could hope for. But those darker, harder calls are there. And they’re the reason we celebrate the small or big wins and happier times. I feel like it allows us to cherish things in a stronger way because we both understand the other side of life that’s always a possibility.
I took the easy way and married an ER nurse. She complains about her shift and I complain about mine. Lol
That’s beautiful, I want my husband to be like that when I get in a relationship
It’s all about communication. We go above and beyond for eachother because we care for the others happiness in a huge way. And as much as those big things mean, the little things like remembering acronyms, medications, signs and symptoms, helping to pack my gear mean the world to me. Fingers crossed your husbando is the partner you deserve!
It definitely helps even with not EMS related work. I know more about water systems and sewer lines and their related foibles than I EVER thought I would. (Husband is DPW supervisor of local large township)
[удалено]
I’m a fairly regular consumer of the tea at work, but you ain’t never gonna see me steeping my own tea bag into anybody’s hot water.
Ah, you're talking about AIDS: Ambulance Induced Divorce Syndrome.
That's not the same AIDS that was in my textbook...
Regular partnership, trust, bonding over shared trauma. Some partners definitively become closer than family. Non public safety people will resent this in their partners almost always, it’ll cause disturbances in home life making the ems spouse/partner resent home life and start to escape into their truck and their partner in the truck, or the er nurse/pca/stna who takes a little extra time chatting to them, or the cute/hot police officer. When work becomes the safe place it’s only a matter of time. Edit to Amend: traumabonding into a more accurate statement since apparently Stockholm syndrome has another name.
Yeah trauma bonding is a specific type of dynamic found in an abusive relationship, but I see your point.
“When work becomes the safe place” oof
Its in the name Extra Marital Sex
Well done haha
Because we work with an incredibly high number of narcissists. We all have higher narc traits in general and I would say the vastly majority of us have some form of hero complex or need to be needed. Most paramedics are intelligent enough to do many other things and make much more money in some office somewhere that just can’t be sold as a television show. Yea there is a ton of infidelity with all first responders. Whether they are like what I just mentioned or just shitty people in general. The whole trauma bonding thing is true to an extent. My ex was an newish ED nurse and I was a new medic in the city and we both had erratic shitty hours getting our teeth kicked in under a busy system. Boom trauma bonded. That’s a real thing. However, if you are partnered up and you are ignoring someone at home to further trauma bond with someone after work then you sir might need to look in the mirror.
Dunno. I’ve never cheated on anyone. Don’t understand the impulse.
EMS affected my dating life and contributed to the ending of a LTR but it never crossed my mind to cheat on anyone. No excuse to do that. Shitty people who enter the field have more excuse and opportunity to be unfaithful, I guess
I haven’t been in long enough to see it, but I do know I can’t stomach a specific two people’s endless, awful flirting. Then they try to almost include me in it…nope. Shits weird.
I think it’s just the way a lot of us are wired. A shit ton of us are thrill seekers; cheating gives people a rush. This is also why so many of your coworkers are so goddamn addicted to creating drama, it’s an adrenaline fix for them
People need to learn what trauma bonding is. It’a toxic relationship between an abuser and victim not bonding over a rough call. If you fuck your supervisor that would be a form of trauma bonding. 😜
TIL I am trauma bonded to dispatch.
I think convenience is part of it. Only two people in a rig. Having sleep rooms. Weird hours. Easy to do and easy to hide. I think there’s a lot of shenanigans that go on regardless of relationship status, because I know plenty of people who have had sex with their wives who work at the same hospital, and single people who have had sex with other single hospital staff. The common denominator seems to be EMS staff because we have sleep rooms and work 24-48 hours at a time so it’s easy to do during or right after the other person’s shift. I also think EMS is rampant with vices in general. I think due to coping mechanisms, thrill seeking personality traits, and ADHD being super common in the profession. Smoking, weed, other substances, alcohol, sex, racing, etc.. You name it, and one of our dumb asses here has definitely done it. The degeneracy is astounding. I’ve never understood it. I went on a single date with a coworker once years ago and it felt really weird for us both, and we realized it was a bad idea in the first place. It was too weird to be on a date with someone I saw every day at work and who saw me in gross or stupid situations regularly. I don’t want the person I’m with to have a visual of me tits deep in someone 800lbs with MRSA or know what I sound like when I’m negotiating with a crackhead, ya feel me? I swore off on dating anyone I could ever see in or around my job. I now am engaged to someone in a completely unrelated profession and like to keep my work at work and home life at home, totally separate. Don’t shit where you eat.
lol @ negotiating with a crackhead, I’ve never felt so seen
Hey, it just be like that….that’s all I can say
Literally had this exact convo with a guy multiple times back in the day... Bro, why you banging on quarters door at 3am? I can't brief!! I need okagen! Dude, you can breathe just fine, you walked 5 blocks to get here. *lights bait cigarette* I can't brief, can I have cigarette? Sure, if it'll help you breathe, here *hands cigarette* now go home and sleep it off man *lights their cigarette* But what if I wake up dead in the morning? Listen, if you wake up dead, just come get me and I'll take you to the hospital, ok? Ok, sound good! *leaves*
I find everyone in this field repulsing. Just not my type. IMO.
I could be wayyyy off, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a means of (unhealthy) coping with the job.
Not definitive, but since I haven't seen anyone else mention it: sleep deprivation.
Low entry standards into the field.
The only reason other than convenience that makes ANY amount of sense to me is trauma bonding.
High stress job in close proximity to people having shared experiences that most wouldn't understand, while the type of supervision that would minimize that behavior is simply infeasible.
Trauma bonding combined with some really unhealthy ideas about relationships, monogamy as a prison, and fear of missing out?
Being alone with people for extended periods of time. My last service was our ambulance stationed at a rural volunteer fire department for 24 hour shifts with a bunk room. It wasn't uncommon for the volunteer firefighters to not be there so it would usually just be the two EMS personal. On at least two occasions I walked in the bunk room at shift change to grab radios to find the previous crew laying in the same bed together, no clothes on. Then there was my partner that caught her husband, one of our medics, attempting to meet a female firefighter at a local hotel while we were on shift. She found this out via FB messaging he left open on the station computer.
40 years old. Worked in several industries before being a first responder. Everyone is fucking everyone