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By Police1 Staff
OC87 Recovery Diaries is an interactive website that features stories of mental health, empowerment and change.
In the second of a three-part series with first responders titled “Beneath the Vest: Conversations about Mental Health,” Officer Joe Peterson of the Norristown Police Department in Norristown, Pennsylvania, shares how the cumulative effects of trauma took a toll, and “ending the pain” became a mantra for him that led to some very dark moments: “You fight monsters for so long that you become a monster. And I became a monster.”