Former police negotiator-turned-mental health advocate Lance Burdett.
Lance Burdett is one of the most recognisable names from the New Zealand Police this century.
During his 22 years on the force, Burdett was a lead crisis negotiator, and came to national attention for his role during the Napier siege.
But during that time, he was struggling with his mental health, including depression and suicidal thoughts.
Speaking to Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast Ask Me Anything, Burdett said in a way, that helped him succeed in his job.
“I really didn’t hit my straps until I had depression myself and I became very unwell.
“I’d just become a crisis negotiator and fell into a deep, dark hole. And it happens so fast you don’t even know what’s happening, and it just suddenly hits you and you think, ‘Oh, you don’t sleep, you don’t, and it just - what’s going on with me?’ The voice in your head is relentless.
“And I’d managed to work myself out of that over the next two to three years while continuing as a crisis negotiator, and you don’t learn then.”
He said the job was a “baptism by fire” but when it came to one-on-one crisis suicide intervention, he was able to bring his personal insights to the job.
“Crisis intervention is when everyone’s in crisis, whether they’re angry or sad. But when somebody’s really wanting to take their own life, it gave me that insight that few others had, I think, and I just would say something like, ‘I’ve been there’. I don’t think it was my skill. I don’t know [if] this [is] for others to say, but I just had that ability to connect with people inside.
“There was a little boy doing back flips, scared as hell when I was talking with them, thinking, ‘What are you gonna say?’ And it just came out and it was just the right thing to say at the right time.”
Burdett said the hardest part of doing any suicide intervention is to get the person out of that situation because they’ve made the decision to take their own life, but often there’s something in the back of their mind that urges them to hold on.
It’s called “the hook” and is the part he and other negotiators would go for.
“That whole midway part is quite a challenge, and I just seem to be able to come up with these ideas very quickly. They just [fly] into my head and I don’t know where they come from, and I still don’t half the time. So while I’m talking with you, I’m like, ‘Where’s this conversation going?‘”
Burdett’s experience with mental health has informed his latest book, Anxiety is a Worry, which aims to be a guide to help people navigating an “increasingly anxious world”.
He said people often try to say life was tougher decades ago, but the number of distractions we have today has rewired our brains.
“Your brain’s different to what it was 10 years ago. All of our brains are different. And the reason is we have easier access of information, the way we do things has got more complicated. We are being bombarded by everything.
“Because of that, we’ve become hypervigilant. Now the brain has what’s termed a negativity bias. So the brain is wired to look for danger, to avoid it, so it’s continually looking for and listening and smelling.
“And so if you smell something that takes you back to a memory of danger, all of a sudden you go into fight-or-flight. That’s happening a lot more. So we’re hypervigilant to risk these days, and it’s to do with the wiring, the hard wiring of the brain.
“We haven’t kept pace with technology and with the advances in our world.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Lance Burdett on his experiences with the police and what he has learned about anxiety.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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