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June 14, 2017

 

The True Cost of Being a Cop

How writing helped heal and manage my PTSD

By Karen M. Davis, author of Fatal Mistake

 

Karen

Karen M. Davis was in the NSW Police Force for twenty years

 

I'm often asked why I became a cop. Well, I wanted an interesting and exciting job with lots of career opportunities. I liked the idea of shift work. I was drawn to the idea of helping people and possibly making a small difference. And of course the prospect of working with a bunch of fit young men in uniform didn’t hurt either.

 

I can honestly say I had a great career. However, after twenty years of working as a uniform officer on the streets of Sydney, a detective, and sometimes undercover operative, the accumulation of violent and traumatic events I'd experienced took its toll and I was diagnosed with chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), forcing me to leave the job I loved for my own health.

 

It was not a good time to say the least. I was in a bad place, suffering from severe and constant anxiety, along with frequent panic attacks, and I  didn’t  know how to pull myself out of the dark hole I'd fallen into. My mother, the late Lynne Wilding, author of thirteen internationally bestselling novels, suggested that I write about my police experiences as a form of therapy. I decided to give it a go. What did I have to lose?

 

At first it was hard to write about some of the horrible things I'd seen; fatal car accidents, cot deaths, teenage drug overdoses and suicides. But I persevered and eventually found documenting my stories, some in which I'd long suppressed thinking about, was in fact therapeutic. As the saying goes, I was getting a weight off my chest.

 

Eventually my real life stories grew into a book of memoirs I entitled Cop This. By this time I had developed a love of writing, which gave me a new purpose, a different direction and a fresh and unexpected passion.

 

My literary agent, Selwa Anthony, told me to write about what I know – not for publication, but for the love of writing.  That's when I had the light bulb moment; I would use my police experiences as inspiration to write a crime fiction book. After all, I'd lived the life of a detective. I knew what really went on inside a police station; the politics, the camaraderie, the powers struggles. I’d carried out numerous investigations into all forms of organised crime. I’d headed search warrants and drug operations. I’d worked undercover, locked up murderers, paedophiles, rapists. I’d attended autopsies, all types of suicides, and too many drug overdoses to remember. I’d had chairs thrown at me in pub brawls. I’d been hit, punched, bitten, scratched and spat at. I’d had a broken beer bottle held to my throat and had my life threatened on a number of occasions. I’d also had some great, rewarding times and helped people on the worst day of their lives . . .

 

Surely these were all the elements required for a good drama. Add into the mix a crime full of intrigue and suspense and there you have it; the perfect crime novel. Only problem: my mother had sadly passed away by this time and I had no idea how to write a book. So I studied numerous novels and wrote and read and re-wrote and edited, chopped and changed, then re-wrote some more. Drawing from former workmates’ personalities and character traits helped to build my fictional characters and I used real events and locations to drive the story. I’m lucky because my primary research is my memories, and my husband  a serving police officer  keeps me up to date on procedural changes. So I suppose you could say my novels are a work of fiction derived from reality.

 

After a few manuscript rejections and then four years of editing and re-writes, Sinister Intent was published in 2013, followed by Deadly Obsession in 2014. I'm now very excited to be releasing my third novel, Fatal Mistake, in July 2017. All three novels feature Detective Lexie Rogers and a cast of characters at Bondi Junction Police Station. They are set mostly in Sydney because that is where I have always lived and worked.

               

As far as my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, unfortunately it's not something that just goes away. Though with the support of therapists, family and friends, and with the outlet of writing, I have learned to manage it well. It is still a continual work in progress, but then so is life.

 

On the other hand, if I hadn’t developed PTSD, I may never have written a book. So, from a negative has come a positive. If you’d have asked me ten years ago whether I’d ever write a book I would have laughed and said I didn’t have the time, the talent or the inclination. But life is unpredictable and so much stranger than fiction. The plot we set ourselves can change when circumstances do. What I've learned is that change doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.

 


 

Fatal Mistake
 

Karen M. Davis was in the NSW Police Force for twenty years, and she draws on her experiences heavily in her novels. From front-line policing to investigations and undercover operations Karen really has seen it all. Karen’s third book Fatal Mistake (Simon & Schuster, $32.99) is out now.