Ignite your life. The importance of a resilient mindset.

Rob Verhelst or ‘Fireman Rob” has been a fireman in Madison, Wisconsin since 2000. He was just 23 years old when he worked in search and rescue after the 9/11 attacks in New York and this impacted on him and changed his life completely in many different ways. In 2011 he undertook his first Ironman in Wisconsin with a 2.4 km swim, a 112 kms bike ride and a 26.2 kms run. He did the whole of the run element in his fire gear which weighs around 50 lbs. Since then his has completed 23 full Ironman and 28 Half Ironman around the world and also speaks to people about the importance of having a resilient mindset.

When 9/11 happened he was 23 years old. This type of event can have a huge effect on people – they can be scarred for life or thrive and move forward. At 23 with only a year in the fire service Rob found the situation very surreal. He didn't understand how to process it. Rob feels that the biggest problem people have is that they try to find meaning in it. How did this happen? How could this happen? What’s the point? He had these feelings for many years. He was married twice and used alcohol to quell the darkness. There were a lot of things going on in his life during those years that dragged him down before he started going forward. To get out of the hole was hard and it was not until he was older that he started to look into his mental health.

Rob tried to find all the positives he could find from what had happened. One of the biggest was that for that time after 9/11 everyone was working together regardless of religion, gender, colour or political beliefs – they were working together for a common purpose. He now looks at that as one of the most impactful things in his life, that its possible for us to work together and have a bigger purpose than just having our point heard and being right.

A situation like 9/11 is caused by the worst of human behaviour but after it he saw the best of human behaviour. Many people who haven’t been through this type of trauma don't understand how this could negatively affect you because they think that the good of what you see outweighs the bad but this isn’t necessarily the case. As humans we are more predisposed to seeing the negative or having our mind go to the trauma. There are many things in your mind neurology and we don’t always know what goes on in our mind. When you go to a fire you have a multitude of tools to handle a dynamic situation.  For mental health you need to have a toolbox because you never know what you’re going to need to use.

There are certain triggers for trauma and you don't always know what they are. PTSD covers many things, from sexual assault to trauma in the fire service, and it is hard for people to rationalise it because each trauma is unique. There is something unique about people who experience physical post-traumatic things rather than mental ones as different criteria link them together. A diagnosis of PTSD is something that really affects your life. It can get hold of your neurochemistry and affect you in the way that alcohol can affect your neurochemistry.

Rob’s coming back process started with his first Ironman. He initially did a Half Ironman as a trial. It was a challenge but in the military and fire service a lot individuals challenge themselves. When he completed it he realised how much he enjoyed seeing how people were impacted by what he was doing. The pain he felt and went through during the race was actually what he needed. It made him feel he was still alive and was doing something that was beneficial but this was hard for some people to understand.

Rob has his own Fireman Rob Foundation which donates bears to children in hospital and is also part of the First Responder Resilience Project which will be launched in September. This is a mental health programme for first responders that has been built by first responders. The aim is to provide understanding on the most basic level - you can’t get help unless you accept you have something wrong.

Managing our brain and our brains health is a natural part of life process. We can have dysfunction, mental illness and mental health and can go though the three conditions regularly without trauma. Too often we set people up to be victims before we give them the opportunity to learn.

Rob feels there are no day’s off from depression, anxiety etc., you just have to learn to live through it and not try to get past it. It is important to him that people see many different sides and understand different perspectives - if he can find other things or understand other ways of doing things its gold to him.

You can find out more about Robert at https://www.firemanrob.com/ or his book Forged In Fires

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