Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Resources?

Hello,

Suppose a police officer were to kill someone in the line of duty. I am sure that they would be offered counselling. What other resources or support services would be available to such an officer to help them deal with the emotional fallout of having taken a life? Would similar services/resources be available to a war veteran who was trying to re-integrate into civilian life?

This information will be useful for my next fanfic. The story will be a lot more ambitious than anything I have written thus far, and it will also be a lot more serious than anything I have written, with the exception of "If Looks Could Kill." I am not sure how well it will turn out -- for a lot of reasons, writing it will take me way out of my comfort zone as an author. If it turns out OK, I'll post it once it has been completed and BR-ed. If it turns out too awful to be salvaged, I'll chalk it up as an educational writing exercise and I'll post the premise as a challenge in the hopes that an author better able than I to tackle the premise will flesh it out.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Joy,
Lynn

A lot of federal government agencies have what is called an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which offers support to sworn and civilian employees for all manner of personal crises. They usually offer referral services for therapy, counseling, etc. For instance:

DEA
http://www.justice.gov/dea/programs/eap/index_about.html

I can only assume that law enforcement acts similarly on a more granular (ie state or local) level.

As far as veterans go, I have no idea, but I would maybe start looking around on the Department of Veteran Affairs website. They have a special section on post-traumatic stress disorder: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/ They actually have a guide concerning returning from war: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/reintegration/returning-war-zone-guide-sm.asp

Hi Aria,

Thanks for the links. RL has become insanely busy, so it might be the weekend before I can follow up on them, but I will definitely do so before I start writing.

Joy,
Lynn

An article in today's LA Times might give you a feel for the military mindset and problems. It's a very good article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-convoy-20100819,0,752060.story
With the military, sometimes the problem isn't so much in killing another person, but survivors guilt in losing a buddy.
There are more resources now than there ever were, but if your story is set a few years back, there wasn't that much help.
Back in WWII and Korea, the Chaplin Corps was key in helping psychologically when there wasn't much help within the military.
Good luck with your story. Yes, RL does intervene!

Artemis

Hi Artemis,

Thanks for the link! I don't want to say too much about my story, since I want to keep it a surprise. But I will say that I am more interested in the emotional trauma suffered by people who kill in the line of duty than I am about the military per se. Police officers and soldiers were just two sets of people who came to mind as possibly having to kill others. And as the story is unfolding, the police officers' reactions and the resources available to them are actually going to have a bigger impact on my story. The story takes place in the fourth season of L&C.

I started writing last night, and I have a rough draft of about five and half pages so far; I think I'm about a third of the way into writing my first draft. This is proving to be one of my longer stories; possibly it will be my longest to date. (Of course, my longest would still only be about as many words as a single typical part in some of the epics that are posted on the board. LOL.) So far, I think the first draft is good enough that, with polishing, it will eventually be post-worthy.

But I am coming to the point in my story where I will soon have to make use of the information I requested. And in the process of writing, I realized that I will have to re-watch several more episodes to refresh myself on precisely what happened, how certain characters speak, etc. (darn, darn. ) Yes, I know I could just look at the scripts, but they lack the nuance that Dean, Teri, et al. brought to the lines. Not to mention that the lines sometimes changed slightly between the script and the acting, and I would rather be true to the finished show itself than to the script. Plus, re-watching is just more fun!

Thanks again,
Lynn