I had the absolute pleasure reconnecting with Ali Rothrock, a trailblazer in the realm of trauma recovery for first responders. Ali’s journey and the challenges she faced as a young female firefighter navigating a harsh and often unwelcoming environment are the stories that need to be shared continuously on a loop until we can do better.

The Journey of Healing

Ali Rothrock joined the fire service in 2005, dedicating over a decade to her role as a firefighter and EMT. Her experiences in the firehouse were not just about saving lives; they also included confronting sexism, harassment, and violence. The weight of these experiences led her to a diagnosis of PTSD.

Yet, rather than stepping back, Ali chose to stay and heal. This decision was not just brave; it was transformative. “Resilience is an act of rebellion,” she states, emphasizing that healing is not a linear path but a journey filled with courage and self-discovery.

A Mission to Educate and Empower

Now the CEO of On the Job and Off, Ali has dedicated her life to teaching resilience to first responders. With over 500 presentations under her belt, she has become a leading voice in trauma recovery. Her TED Talk, which has inspired many, further solidifies her commitment to this mission.

Ali’s work extends beyond speaking; she is also a published author, with her memoir, *Where Hope Lives*, and the insightful *After Trauma: Lessons of Overcoming from a First Responder Turned Crisis Counselor*. Her writings resonate with nearly 7,000 readers who engage with her relentless resilient Substack weekly.

It’s clear that her story is one of resilience, strength, and hope. Her insights challenge us to rethink how we approach trauma and healing, particularly in high-stress professions.

To hear more about Ali’s experiences and insights, tune into the full episode. You won’t want to miss this powerful conversation!

Tune In HERE

Our baby arrived healthy and loud, and for about a day and a half everything was typical newborn chaos, the good kind. Visitors, love, and the fun of introducing the kids to their new sibling.

Then, less than 48 hours after the baby was born, D’s grandmother died.

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It was early, before shift change. D didn’t call me that early. Ever. A phone ringing before 7 a.m. in a firefighter’s house is never a good sign, and some part of me knew that before I even answered. I was four months pregnant, standing in the kitchen in my pajamas, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. His voice didn’t sound like his voice.

“___ is dead. He killed himself. Can you please come? And can you bring food?”

Wait. Who? What? How? When? Oh my God. Are you okay? Do you need to come home? Where’s the chief? What do you need? What do I do?

I asked all of it in about four seconds, the way you do when your brain refuses to process one thing at a time. D was twelve months into his eighteen-month probation. He was still new enough that he hadn’t worked with most of the department yet, and the firefighter who died wasn’t even on his shift. They’d crossed paths a handful of times. But that didn’t matter. This wasn’t about who knew who. This was a department, a family, a whole community of people who wear the same uniform, and one of them was gone.

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Fast forward to now in California (and probably many other areas but I live in CA so I can only speak for my state). Many firefighters commute hours in to their department. Some even commute from other states. Overtime is not just optional. It’s forced or mandatory. And quite frankly it’s needed to cover basic living expenses.

Calls are more frequent. More traumatic. More chaotic. And there are many more medical calls than ever before. Mental health calls. Repeat offenders. 911 abuse. It goes on and on. The things firefighters did not see much of 20 years ago. Long are the days of just being a “fire” fighter. The expectations are different. The job is more demanding, and more time consuming than ever before.

And the expectation of the spouse somehow stayed the same as what it was 40 years ago but it’s simply not possible today. Most families now require two incomes to keep up with the cost of living. Spouses pull double and triple duty managing work, raising kids, managing the household all while doing it solo more than half of the month. We also carry this thing called the “mental load” while our firefighters are gone.

And we hear all the time: “Why are you struggling?” “You should be able to handle this.” “My parents did just fine when my dad was gone.” “It’s not that hard.” Or the favorite: “Just find someone to help you.” But that village everyone talks about is no where to be found for many of us. We can’t find it. They just aren’t there the way they used to be.

The job demands more of families than it ever did before. And the spouses are just expected to just figure it out and shut up. But we know it’s not the same as what fire families were back in 1980, shit it’s not even the same was what it was in 2001. And it’s not that the spouses are weaker, or less than those who came before us. We’re playing a game with an outdated playbook. We’re navigating life with zero direction from departments. We’re evolving while departments are stuck in the past. You see, the fire service was not designed for a modern family. It was designed for the old school ways; the wife to stay home and raise the kids and the husband to do the work. We’re operating on some antiquated notion that the wife is supposed to be the supportive role. It doesn’t work that way anymore.

And all we are asking for? A tiny bit of understanding. A bit of compassion. A discussion about how the job effects our marriage, our kids, our careers, and our lives. It’s not about the accolades. It’s not the “you got this sweetie…” We NEED to be an actual part of the “Fire Family” not just the ones holding it all together behind the badge. We need to be part of the discussion. The changes. The input to the structure of the service and how to improve it.

The cost of not being part of it, is more mental health challenges, more broken marriages, and more fire family legacies ending because our children don’t want to live the life they saw their parents deal with.

NONE of us knew what we signed up for when our husbands became firefighters. None of us. And it’s not discussed enough.

I was sitting in my car outside my parents’ house with two kids strapped in the back. He introduced himself, made small talk for about five minutes, and then asked me one sentence I will never forget:

“Do you think you can handle him being gone a lot?”

I mean, what was I supposed to say to the man who had just offered my husband the job he’d been working toward for years? “No, sorry, I don’t have a clue if I can handle this”? I took a deep pause and said, adamantly: “OF COURSE I CAN.”

Turns out that was the first and only lie I ever told the chief.

I didn’t know it was a lie yet. That’s the thing about this life. You answer questions before you understand them. Nobody hands you a job description for your side of it. There’s no manual for the wife or spouse. No academy. No education.

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Everyone said it was normal, so I nodded and said I was fine. I cried to the lactation specialist through an entire appointment. She told my doctor I may have PPD. I didn’t even know what it was. He told me I would feel better soon and sent me on my way. Luckily I did feel better but it took longer than two weeks. Long past the baby blues window.

By the second baby I wasn’t a new mom anymore, so I figured I had this.

Except now my husband was brand new with a municipal fire department, and I was home with a newborn, a 3-year-old, and a teenager part-time. A new48/96 schedule for my husband, a new role as a SAHM after being laid off. I didn’t know how to do it alone and had no idea what to expect. With my second the anxiety got so bad I refused to get on an airplane after a terrible experience with turbulence. I was so convinced my husband was going to die in the line of duty, that I needed to stay planted on the ground. It took me 9 years to get on a plane again.

Nine years of excuses because my brain had decided everything was a threat and I was the only one keeping us all alive. That’s not normal. That’s untreated postpartum anxiety, and it went undiagnosed.

He was off probation by our third.

The baby was a month old when he left on a strike team. A month. I had a newborn, two toddlers, and a teenager. I was so anxious and so full of rage I couldn’t tell if it was PPA, PPD, or something worse.

PS. Rage IS a symptom. I had no idea because I didn’t know what signs to look for. No one ever told me even after 3 babies.

The part that still makes me mad?

I did try to get help. I was misdiagnosed so many times I stopped talking to my doctor about it altogether.“ You’ll be fine,” he said. I wasn’t fine. I was drowning and scared, and I thought I was crazy because everyone kept telling me I was fine. If your doctor says you’ll be fine while you’re telling them you aren’t, that is not good patient care. You’re allowed to find a new doctor. You need to be taken seriously. Trust your gut and don’t let them tell you otherwise. I’m lucky. I made it through despite never being diagnosed. A lot of women don’t get so lucky.

Baby Blues effects 80% of women.

1 in 8 women experience postpartum depression.

Postpartum anxiety effects 17%.

Postpartum psychosis effects 2-1000 women.

It’s more than just feeling sad.It’s numbness, rage, dread, anxiety feeling like your family deserves better than you. It’s not feeling like yourself for longer than you should.Each of my pregnancies came with a different version of PPA and probably PPD. I’ll never know if it was, but my gut says yes. That’s why it’s so important to get help.

So how do you know?

Worry is normal. Every new mom worries. Debilitating anxiety is something totally different. When the worry never shuts off, when you’re checking the baby’s breathing all night, when your chest is tight for no reason, when you’re planning your husband’s funeral in your head on a random Tuesday that’s not “new mom/new firewife nerves.” That’s a sign.

When to call.

If it’s been more than two weeks and you still feel the same, or it’s getting worse; call your doctor. Baby blues fade. PPA or PPD doesn’t go away on its own.

And if you’re having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, pick up that phone now: 988, or the Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-852-6262,free, 24/7.

Your firefighter makes that kind of call for strangers every shift. It’s important to seek help when you are struggling.

Tell your firefighter.

Mine didn’t know how bad it was for years. It wasn’t his fault. I was damn good at pretending I was ok to protect him while he was trying to gain his footing in his new career.

Say this:

“I’m not okay.

“This does not feel normal.”

“I need help.”

He CAN handle it.

He CAN help you.

Trust him.

If I could go back in time, I’d tell that girl crying at the lactation appointment: you’re not broken, you’re not a bad mom, and you don’t have to pretend you’re ok.

It took me three babies to learn that. I hope you learn faster than me. I said I was fine for way too long. You don’t have to. Find someone who believes you. Who will help you. Who will walk with you. There are people who can help.

Newsflash: I had no clue what I signed up for. Neither did he. Neither do you. Even if you had a family member who was a firefighter, it’s not the same as having a spouse as a firefighter. It’s just not. And telling someone they knew what they signed up for is like telling someone they are psychic and can predict everything that’s going to happen to them. That would be pretty cool, being psychic. I guarantee most of us are not.

In 2004 I was a full-time working mom. I went back to work eleven weeks postpartum, pumping in the bathroom on my breaks, running home on my lunch to breastfeed, then driving back to finish my day. D was working night shift on the ambulance. My parents helped with the baby during the day so we could make it all work. I worked 9 to 5, came home, and started my second shift from 5 to 9 while he headed out the door to work overnight. We passed each other in the doorway like coworkers changing shifts, except the workplace was our life.

We did that for three years.

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I had to learn not to take it personal, and that was fucking HARD.

You see you don’t fully grasp the concept of a firefighter not getting promoted until it happens to your family. I didn’t just watch my husband who had worked his ass off for a year, take a test, land high on the list, and then get passed over. He was the guy who believed the fire service was the greatest career he could ever have. He was (and still is) the hardest worker, and the most loyal to the department. How could they do this to him?!?! My anger and resentment had nowhere to go, but his anger? It seemed so simple: the process, the panel, the politics.

But me? I got to handle the aftermath of it all. Which no one prepared me for. I watched my husband morph into some kind of angry alien I didn’t recognize. And I blamed every ounce of that on the department. Not only was I grieving the fact that he didn’t get promoted, but I was also stuck grieving for what felt like the loss of my husband.

And it’s not like I could do anything about it. What was I going to do? Call the chief? Show up at the station? Light it all on fire to show them he should have been the one?

Listen I know I’m crazy, but I’m not that level of crazy...

There’s no discussion about what to do when your husband gets passed over. No handbook. NO guide. And there’s no channel for a spouse’s rage. So my rage went where it always goes: deep in a compartment in my stomach where I would hold it like a watermelon seed I mindlessly swallowed in the 3^rd grade. I firmly believed it was going to live in me forever. I rolled my eyes at the mention of anything department related. No, I don’t want to go to the Christmas party. No, I’ll pass on coming for a station visit. No no no. F them and everything they stand for. I kept a burn book of those who had wronged my husband and therefore, me. I trusted no one and resented them all.

Here’s the really ugly part that I needed to hear when we were going through it. My burn book, my anger, my hurt… was all making his bounce back harder. Every time he started to make peace with the job, he’d come home to a wife still fighting his war. He was trying to put the sword down and I kept handing it back to him, because I was not done. I thought I was being loyal to him but in reality I kept putting my armor on and my guard up while he was waving the white flag.

I had to let it go.

Then a few years later he promoted, and I had to walk back into that damn department bright and shiny like nothing had ever happened.

The day he pinned his bugles, I stood in the apparatus bay in a dress, holding a plate full of sheet cake, and the chief crossed the room to congratulate me. I looked him in the eye and said thank you and walked away with contempt in my belly. It took a long time for that contempt to exit my body permanently. That watermelon seed might still be there though…

Truthfully it took me years to realize that my husband’s career didn’t just depend on him, it depends on me too. Not for the department, but for US. I could hold my grudge, or I could hold his ladder. I could not do both.

Learning to not take it personal, even if it was…

I want to be careful here, because the internet is full of advice that says it was never personal, let it go, and I think that’s a lie, and fire families can smell a lie.

Some of it might very well have been personal. Something probably did follow him into that interview room. Departments are human, humans keep score, and pretending otherwise is just trying to politely gaslight yourself.

And also no one will ever know why, so of course it feels personal!

I didn’t learn that it wasn’t personal. I learned that it didn’t matter.
That’s different, and it’s a hell of a lot harder.

It SUCKS when you’re in it. When you’ve lived through that moral injury, and betrayal of your spouse not getting what you think they deserved. It stings soooooooo badly and the resentment is real. But I have to keep reminding myself I’m not the one going into the station every week. It’s his relationship with the department. It’s his decision how to move forward. My relationship with the department is completely separate.

Not taking it personal is the only thing that actually works.

The opposite of that means letting a panel full of people who barely know my husband from the next guy define my family. It means the kids aren’t comfortable visiting the station anymore because they were “mean to daddy.” It means I’m the one who can’t get the fuck over it while my husband moved on months ago. Not taking it personal isn’t a feeling. It’s a discipline.

I had to get rid of the burn book I had made up in my head. And when I look the chief in the eye now, I’m not performing, I’m doing something more honest: I’m choosing my family.


What I’d tell the wife writing her own burn book:

Your anger is legitimate. Your pain is valid. Your resentment is normal. Read that again. It’s legitimate, valid and normal. You watched something or someone hurt him. You had no voice and no vote, and YOU have to deal with the fall out of it all.

Unfortunately, this is a not so gentle reminder that the burn book of resentment you’re carrying has a cost, and your family pays it, not the department. The department doesn’t know your list exists. The chief sleeps fine. The only house your grudge lives in is yours.

You don’t have to decide it wasn’t personal. You just have to decide not to make it worse. Put down the burn book. Stop adding to the list. It’s not about the department. It’s about him. Hold his ladder.

Your husband and your family are the only things that matter. It hurts but time will heal it. Try to be gentle with yourselves, but also it’s ok to be mad. Grieve it, feel it. And if it still hurts long after and its effecting your relationship, talk to someone. Moral injury and PTSI are real.

*And remember, peer support and therapy aren’t just for the firefighter. Many departments and fire service organizations have resources for families. I’ve got a list too. Just don’t be afraid to ask for help. You got promoted into this life and you’re allowed to need help carrying it.

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Nobody hands you a pamphlet when your firefighter decides to promote. There’s no orientation for the spouse, no support group for the kids who don’t understand why their dad is so checked out. You find out what it costs the way we found out: one flashcard, one passed-over list, one closed off firefighter at a time.

I want to tell you what it was actually like for me. Not that version you see at the pinning ceremony, where everyone is happy and the chief shakes his hand. The real version that happens in your home years before that photo ever gets taken, and the family collectively gritting their teeth during the process.

Promotion takes over your entire house and your family

It starts with a stack of books. Fire officer texts, tactics manuals, department SOPs printed and highlighted in multiple colors. It takes over the entire house. My husband would come home from a 48 and instead of sleeping, he’d study. Instead of hanging with the family, he’d study. He’d stay late at work to run through scenarios with his peers, he’d take another overtime to show dedication. He was absent, and then it still felt he was absent even when he was home. Post its were taped to the bathroom mirror with pump calculations, test answers, and positive affirmations and “good luck daddy.”

Here’s the first hard truth: that default parent thing you were already feeling comes with a vengeance. You’ll feel like a roommate rather than a spouse when they are home. The kids will feel like their favorite uncle is coming to visit when he does come home. And you’ll feel guilty for resenting it, because he’s not out doing anything wrong. He’s trying to build something for your family. That’s the trap. You can’t even be mad correctly. And don’t get me started about the resentment you might feel toward the department…

The department is a small town with a rumor mill and a scoreboard

Nobody warned me about the mock drafts. Yes, you read that right! Mock drafts, like it’s fantasy football. Before the list ever comes out, the crews have already ranked everybody. Who they think is the favorite. Whose name the battalion chief says a certain way. Who’s been hanging around the chief’s office more. My husband would come home from shift with intelligence briefings: so-and-so is testing, so-and-so is probably the favorite, the assessment panel has a guy who’s had it out for him since a call in 2010.

Some of it was a lot of BS. Some of it wasn’t. That’s the part that nobody talks about: promotions in the fire service are supposed to be about points and scores, but everyone knows it’s also about loyalty, lineage, and who your people are. Throw in some nepotism here and there and you’ve got a golden ticket. The brotherhood they sell you at the academy has a bracket, and your husband is seeded in it whether he wants to be or not.

And the friction in the department is real. He tested against men he’d crawled down hallways with. His best friend on the job was chasing the same spot. There is no clean way to want something your brother also wants when there’s only one opening. Somebody’s spouse is going to smile at the ceremony and somebody’s spouse is going to help her firefighter pretend they’re fine.

For one promotion, I was the second spouse.

Getting passed over doesn’t happen once. It happens every day after.

The list comes out and his name isn’t where it should be, or it’s on the list but the openings run out one slot above him, and the part that sucks is it’s not just a bad day. It’s a bad year. And for some it’s multiple years depending on when the next promotion period happens. Now he gets to go back to the same station, ride the same rig, and take orders from someone who scored below him on the parts of the job that actually matter, but interviewed better in front of a panel. (Or whatever really happened because we will never know why). He’ll show up and do the job with excellence for an organization that told him his excellence wasn’t the deciding factor.

Watch that change a person. Watch that chip on his shoulder start digging into his neck. Watch him keep making the coffee, keep mentoring the rookies, keep being the guy everybody calls when it’s a real fire all while something behind his eyes goes out a little more each month.

They have a name for what happened to my husband, and I didn’t learn it until we were deep in the hole: moral injury. It’s not burnout. Burnout is being exhausted by the work. Moral injury is the wound you get when the institution you gave your loyalty to violates your sense of what’s right when the thing betrayed you, not the job. He still loved the job. He believed in the fire service the way some people believe in church. And the church told him, that faith and hard work wasn’t enough. Cue the pain showing up every week to the place that is currently causing you pain.

The depression almost took his career. There were months I did not recognize my husband. He stopped studying and stopped sleeping. He talked about walking away from years like it was nothing, because feeling nothing had become the goal. There’s no way to say this nicely: I was watching for signs I never thought I’d have to watch for in a man who runs into buildings for a living. If you are the spouse and you are in that season right now it might be just a rough patch, or it might be something much deeper than that. Get help. We did, eventually, and it saved more than his career.

Then he got it. And nobody warns you about that either.

The next time he went through the process, his name was at the top and the opening was there. Bugles on the collar. The photo, the handshake, the cake in the bay, the whole kit in caboodle.

That other part they didn’t warn me about? The promotion changes your family almost as much as the failing did. New rank meant a new station, a new shift, a new rhythm, and the schedule we’d built 10 years of life around dissolved like ice on a hot day. He had more responsibility. More time away from the family. My work schedule had to change again. The kids had to re-learn which days Dad existed at home.

And we had to re-learn each other. The man who came out the other side of a dark year was not the man who bought the first stack of books. He was quieter. More careful. As an Engineer he was calm and collected, but as a Captain he carried it differently and still does 6 years later. He comes home with the weight of other people’s mistakes now, other people’s safety, and he’d already learned the hard way that the department’s love is conditional. I had spent years running our home like a solo operation, and suddenly there was a dude standing in my kitchen wanting his seat back at a table I had to rearranged to survive. We had to date each other again inside our own marriage. Nobody tells you how much recovery needs to be done on your marriage.

What I’d tell the wife just beginning the process.

Your house is about to feel like foreign territory. You’ll want to keep it the same, but it won’t be possible though no fault of your own or your spouse. It just changes. You’ve got to adapt. The promotion process will show you parts of the department you can’t unsee, and parts of your husband he’d rather you not see. Protect your marriage like it’s the thing being tested, because it is. Learn the words moral injury before you need them. And when the list comes out wrong and it probably will, at least once remember that the list measures some arbitrary factors you will never understand. Don’t try to decipher it. Take it personal for a moment, and then let that moment go. Because he’s going to try again and it will be worth it in the end.

I’m proud of him. I’m proud of us, but I will tell you one thing; we didn’t earn that promotion.

We survived it.

If your firefighter is struggling, I have a list of resources to share that can help. You are not the only family going through it. It just feels that way.

The unpredictability of wildfire seasons

can be brutal. Faith’s husband often spends 14, sometimes 21, days away — a stark contrast to municipal crews who cycle through shorter shifts more consistently depending on departments (we’re not counting mandos or forces). This means longer periods of deep uncertainty, which wears on everyone. When he finally comes home, the transition isn’t quick; it’s a slow reentry into normal life, complicated further if children are involved.

Supporting children through long absences

is a delicate dance. Faith uses small rituals like special boxes filled with drawings and mementos to help her youngest handle their dad’s long departure. And when fire season peaks, FaceTime is a double-edged sword — useful but often disruptive, especially at bedtime routines. Then there’s the emotional toll. Faith describes the mental exhaustion—day after day of carrying all responsibilities alone, managing stepchildren, supporting her partner, and navigating unpredictable schedules. She’s learned to set firm boundaries, like opting out of FaceTime when she’s overwhelmed, and ensuring she and her children have routines that provide stability. The full conversation is a window into a hidden world a reminder that behind the heroic stories are families doing the heavy lifting, often in silence. Let’s keep talking, keep challenging, and keep fighting for a system that values us all.

Maybe that’s the whole point.

Watch the full episode here or listen on your favorite streaming apps.

XO,

Audra

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