A retired Winnipeg police officer who lives in the Interlake is raising awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and helping a Winnipeg Police Service PTSD support group organize an upcoming fundraising event for Wounded Warriors Canada.
Jerry Maryniuk, who has lived with PTSD for about 40 years and is a founding member of the police service’s Retired PTSD Peer Support Group, said PTSD is prevalent among public service personnel such as police officers, military veterans, paramedics, firefighters, corrections officers – as well as their families – and that they may not be aware of the therapies Wounded Warriors provides.
“It has only been in the last while that we’ve started to talk openly about PTSD in service personnel. Many still don’t talk about it and they’re not getting help. And we wonder why we have suicides and why there are people struggling with everyday life,” said Maryniuk, who has taken part in two Wounded Warriors’ therapy programs. “They don’t have to go down that dark road. Wounded Warriors is a great place to get help.”
PTSD is a trauma- and stress-related disorder that results from exposure to death, threatened death, serious injury or actual or threatened sexual violence. The symptoms include recurring and intrusive upsetting memories, emotional distress, flashbacks or nightmares. The condition leads to changes in perception and mood that can include feeling isolated, avoiding people, places or activities that serve as reminders of the event, feeling fear, guilt, shame, irritability or aggression, being hypervigilant and having difficulties concentrating and sleeping.
Maryniuk said he knows of at least five retired Winnipeg police officers who died by suicide in their late 60s and 70s because they just “couldn’t live with it anymore.” Others continue to “muddle through” without professional help.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s police culture was different from what it is today, he said, and police officers typically wouldn’t admit they were suffering from psychological stress out of fear of being labelled “weak” or “crazy” or being potentially denied a promotion or a sought-after transfer.
“You’re a macho police officer and nothing phases you – that’s the mentality of most police officers. You think, ‘I can get through this,’ so you hide it to survive. It’s embarrassing to expose your weak underbelly to people who may not understand it and when you don’t quite understand it yourself,” said Maryniuk. “I can see why current police officers are reluctant to talk about this. It could affect their career, their marriage and family.”
It’s estimated that 20 to 45 per cent of public safety officers (i.e., any frontline personnel protecting the safety and security of Canadians) have PTSD or some other mental health issue such as anxiety, depression or substance abuse because of repeated exposures to crime, violence, accidents or disturbing materials, according to a 2023 Public Safety Canada report titled Evaluation of the Initiatives to Address Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI) Among Public Safety Officers, Evaluation Report.
Maryniuk said his PTSD symptoms arose after a shooting that occurred over 40 years ago when he was working as a plain clothes detective in Winnipeg.
“A guy had just shot a cab driver and was trying to escape. The cab driver lived, but it was a robbery with violence. My partner and I happened to be close by so we attended. The guy saw me and fired at me but he missed. We returned fire and killed him,” said Maryniuk. “That was one of my many traumas. That haunted me for a long time that I killed somebody, that I myself came that close to dying, and that I could have left behind kids and a wife.”
The department’s “therapy” at that time was a bottle of whisky and telling them not to be late for work the following day, he said. Officers were depended on to help people in need and it wasn’t their place to seek help.
“There were many other incidents that happened which you suppress and put to the back of your mind, but you can have violent dreams at night and end up on the floor,” he said. “I lived with this for 40 years and knew lots of people with PTSD. I thought to myself, ‘I can’t have it’ and was basically in denial because I didn’t want to admit I had some mental issues. It takes a big step to admit it because it’s embarrassing and re-traumatizing.”
Maryniuk said police culture has changed over those 40 or so years. The Winnipeg Police Service now has a staff psychologist offering officers support after traumatic incidents. It also has about 50 wellness officers among its ranks that can provide additional support. Some officers may get additional psychological assistance through workers compensation, the healthcare system or be referred to Wounded Warriors.
Maryniuk and two other retired Winnipeg Police officers started the peer support group for retired officers with PTSD to bring more attention to the suffering, to put a “name and face” to it so that other retired officers going down the same road know they’re not alone, and to provide them with information about therapy options. The support group has brought in speakers such as psychologists and tax experts (to explain the disability credit), and has seen as many as 20 people attend their meetings.
“We thought if we can try and help those out there that are suffering, perhaps we can prevent some of these suicides and get people pointed in the right direction as far as support and therapy programs go,” said Maryniuk. “We’ve all navigated our health care system here in Manitoba, which helps people with PTSD but doesn’t really go hand in hand with pressing 3 for this or that service and talking to a recording. Unless you’ve called the suicide crisis line – which responds immediately – you’ll be waiting for a referral. That’s almost impossible for a PTSD sufferer.”
He said he had spoken with a Winnipeg Police Service staff psychologist over another traumatic event, a murder-suicide, and when two colleagues told him about Wounded Warriors, he decided to reach out to the organization for further support a few years ago.
“Wounded Warriors is much easier to navigate than our public health system or the Workers Compensation Board, and there’s no cost. They did a couple of phone interviews to determine if I had PTSD then I was off to B.C. to do two therapy sessions,” said Maryniuk. “The therapy they provide gives you the tools to cope with PTSD. There’s no cure for PTSD, but you learn how to live with it so that your life is better. You don’t have the same amount of anxiety. Your nightmares aren’t as frequent. You don’t have the same amount of rage that you used to have. Basically, the symptoms are still there but you know how to control them.”
Wounded Warriors Canada is a national mental health service provider that specializes in treating PTSD. The registered charity offers a range of therapies to service personnel, who are repeatedly exposed to events such as death, injury or sexual violence. Programs include trauma resiliency training, peer support, a preventative operational stress program, a trauma program for couples that includes work with horses and a kids’ program.
Phil Ralph, director of health services for Wounded Warriors, said people can acquire the condition after a single trauma or events that occur over years.
“For some people, it can be a horrific experience so outside their understood reality and the world they know that it just shocked them. For others it can be accumulative after years and year and years of seeing things that make no sense,” said Ralph, who served in the military for 26 years. “You could be overseas and confronted with making a decision about a child who’s armed with a weapon. What do you do if you’re faced with that given our values about protecting children? Or it could be a whole series of minor events that just keep building. People can also be affected by hearing about traumas.”
As a first step, Wounded Warriors provides psycho-education to explain to sufferers what’s happening in their brain and normalizing it to make sure they understand that this is “how the body reacts to trauma,” he said. Then the therapy moves to “unpacking” one of the traumas the participant dealt with and teaching them there’s a pattern for unlocking all other traumas.
“What you want to do is move the trauma from this memory that controls you, to you controlling the memory,” said Ralph. “There’s a perception out there that you’ll cure people, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about how do you deal with trauma and how do you resolve it. You can’t erase the things you’ve seen and experienced, but you can make them less intrusive.”
The organization offers a program to help children and spouses cope with the negative spillover from living with someone with PTSD.
Ralph said the organization ran 75 programs in 2023 and currently has a waiting list. The programs are expensive to run because clinicians who specialize in trauma have to be hired. It will also pay for participants’ costs to attend therapy if they have to travel to another province and don’t have the funds.
“We bring people with PTSD from Manitoba to B.C., Ontario or Alberta because we want them to get help in a timely manner. Manitoba has a smaller population and we don’t want to wait until we have enough people to offer the program,” he said. “However, we’re starting to see more and more people in Manitoba step forward so we’ll probably in the next year or so offer programs there.”
The organization is also building relationships with police, fire and paramedic services across Canada, offering preventative resiliency training and peer support training.
“Municipalities, provinces and federal entities can send their personnel to proper programming that teaches them the principles of resiliency so they’re prepared for what they see,” said Ralph. “We’re starting to get services across the country to invest in this.”
The organization receives a mix of funding, such as from the Alberta solicitor general’s office, for instance, and relies heavily on the “generosity of Canadians,” said Ralph.
Maryniuk and members of the Winnipeg police peer support group are organizing a fundraiser for Wounded Warriors that will take place next week in Winnipeg. The proceeds raised will benefit countless Canadian police officers as well as military veterans, paramedics, firefighters, corrections officers, call centre dispatchers and other service personnel and their families who reach out to the charity for help.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the event or purchase a ticket to support the organization. People and businesses can also donate an item to the silent auction, which will have prizes such as Jets jerseys and a vacation. Maryniuk is an artist with a small business and will be donating a couple of sculptures and paintings to the auction to help raise money for Wounded Warriors.
Wounded Warriors is a registered charity and any donation of $20 or more is eligible for a tax receipt.
The fundraising social will be held from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday, April 26 at the Canada Inns Destination Centre, 2100 McPhillips St. in Winnipeg. The event will be emceed by Big Daddy Tazz and feature the Canadian Air Force Band. Tickets cost $20.
To purchase a ticket for the event or to donate an item for the auction, contact Jerry Maryniuk by email: ptsdjerry@gmail.com. Tickets are available at police credit unions in Winnipeg and the Henderson Legion at 215 Maxwell King Dr. in East St. Paul.
Manitobans experiencing suicidal thoughts can contact the Suicide Crisis Helpline by calling or texting 988. The service is available 24-7. People can also call the Reason to Live, Manitoba Suicide Prevention & Support Line toll free 1-877-435-7170, which is also available 24-7.
