This Great American Warrior article is brought to you by our partner, philanthropist, and LEO supporter Trudy Jacobson.
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Amanda "AK" Dozanti knows firsthand how being a first responder can take a negative toll on your mental health. But she never saw her own struggles coming.
After years of being in law enforcement, AK hit a wall and simply couldn’t do the job anymore. Little did she realize, her mental health deterioration started at just 17 years old.
“When I was 17, I lost my best friend, my lifelong best friend, to suicide,” AK said in an exclusive interview with LET.
She now acknowledges how difficult that period of her life was, but she never really considered how that would impact her going forward. Just months after the incident, she thought she had “moved on.”
She then found a job in law enforcement that unknowingly added to her stress – undercover online investigations.
“I went fresh from that [friend’s suicide] to two years later, going into child porn investigations as still basically a child myself. I was 19, and then just right into it was chaos after chaos after chaos,” she said.
AK continued with her career path and started with a Sheriff’s Department at 21 years old. She excelled and eventually was named Officer of the Year in 2015. But that’s also when everything started to fall apart.
“By September 2015, I was in a spirally, crispy burnout. I had depression, PTS, adrenal fatigue, and suicidal ideation. And I was like, ‘This is either me or the job.’ So I chose me,” she said.
She left her department to seek other professional opportunities and ended up finding solutions to her struggles.
A New Pursuit
AK said, “I went back for my master's in criminology with a concentration in victimology, which opened my eyes to what trauma is. A lot of it was very familiar and I realized that trauma is not exclusive to victims. Then I asked, ‘How can I heal myself?’”
Her education has led her to understand the physiological aspects of mental health issues. Now she coaches and teaches others how to understand and overcome the stressors associated with the first responder profession.
But she is not your average coach. She has pursued advanced training and education which sets her apart from her peers and average clinicians.
“I've become certified in several modalities of healing. I have taken many additional courses and continue to constantly learn,” AK said.
AK has extended her training to include such topics as Somatic Experiencing, Equine-Assisted Therapy for Clinicians, IFS (Internal Family Systems) for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Addiction & More, Trauma-Informed Certification, and others (too many to list here).
Now she has taken her training into practice by helping countless LEOs and first responders.
AK said, “But the biggest thing that I have heard on the influx is they (first responders) feel very disconnected. They feel very overwhelmed. They can't be present at the moment. They're hyper-vigilant. They're having strange symptoms in their body that they're not able to pinpoint. They're experiencing chronic pain, and they don't know where it's coming from. All kinds of different things. They are byproducts of chronic stress and/or trauma.”
She continued, “When I bring them in, my goal is to help them see these things for what they are and start to work on the peripheral issues so that they can start to feel safe and grounded in their body. Once they do that, then they can start opening up about the core issues, that traumatic event they experienced, that loss that they had to experience and process.”
LET Sunday Reset Series
AK has grown her services to help individuals, groups, agencies, and more. She now hosts a weekly discussion to further help law enforcement and first responders that is posted on YouTube and LET Unity.
The topics vary but are all meant to help.
“The first one I did was on officer suicide. There's another one on line-of-duty deaths and what the family, community, friends, and coworkers can do in the aftermath,” AK said.
She continued, “But the bulk of it is going to be what you can do as an individual, as a law enforcement officer or a first responder to maintain your own personal wellness. A lot of it is quick little tips that you can put in your back pocket, or put up your sleeve, things you can do in between calls, and even little breathing exercises that you can do while you're driving to the next call to ground yourself.”
Check out her weekly Sunday Reset Series on YouTube HERE. You can also learn more about AK and her services by checking out her website, https://akdozanti.com/
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Writer Eddie Molina is a veteran and has over 25 years of combined LEO/military service. He owns and operates the apparel company www.BuyHeroStuff.com
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Amanda "AK" Dozanti knows firsthand how being a first responder can take a negative toll on your mental health. But she never saw her own struggles coming.
After years of being in law enforcement, AK hit a wall and simply couldn’t do the job anymore. Little did she realize, her mental health deterioration started at just 17 years old.
“When I was 17, I lost my best friend, my lifelong best friend, to suicide,” AK said in an exclusive interview with LET.
She now acknowledges how difficult that period of her life was, but she never really considered how that would impact her going forward. Just months after the incident, she thought she had “moved on.”
She then found a job in law enforcement that unknowingly added to her stress – undercover online investigations.
“I went fresh from that [friend’s suicide] to two years later, going into child porn investigations as still basically a child myself. I was 19, and then just right into it was chaos after chaos after chaos,” she said.
AK continued with her career path and started with a Sheriff’s Department at 21 years old. She excelled and eventually was named Officer of the Year in 2015. But that’s also when everything started to fall apart.
“By September 2015, I was in a spirally, crispy burnout. I had depression, PTS, adrenal fatigue, and suicidal ideation. And I was like, ‘This is either me or the job.’ So I chose me,” she said.
She left her department to seek other professional opportunities and ended up finding solutions to her struggles.
A New Pursuit
AK said, “I went back for my master's in criminology with a concentration in victimology, which opened my eyes to what trauma is. A lot of it was very familiar and I realized that trauma is not exclusive to victims. Then I asked, ‘How can I heal myself?’”
Her education has led her to understand the physiological aspects of mental health issues. Now she coaches and teaches others how to understand and overcome the stressors associated with the first responder profession.
But she is not your average coach. She has pursued advanced training and education which sets her apart from her peers and average clinicians.
“I've become certified in several modalities of healing. I have taken many additional courses and continue to constantly learn,” AK said.
AK has extended her training to include such topics as Somatic Experiencing, Equine-Assisted Therapy for Clinicians, IFS (Internal Family Systems) for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, Addiction & More, Trauma-Informed Certification, and others (too many to list here).
Now she has taken her training into practice by helping countless LEOs and first responders.
AK said, “But the biggest thing that I have heard on the influx is they (first responders) feel very disconnected. They feel very overwhelmed. They can't be present at the moment. They're hyper-vigilant. They're having strange symptoms in their body that they're not able to pinpoint. They're experiencing chronic pain, and they don't know where it's coming from. All kinds of different things. They are byproducts of chronic stress and/or trauma.”
She continued, “When I bring them in, my goal is to help them see these things for what they are and start to work on the peripheral issues so that they can start to feel safe and grounded in their body. Once they do that, then they can start opening up about the core issues, that traumatic event they experienced, that loss that they had to experience and process.”
LET Sunday Reset Series
AK has grown her services to help individuals, groups, agencies, and more. She now hosts a weekly discussion to further help law enforcement and first responders that is posted on YouTube and LET Unity.
The topics vary but are all meant to help.
“The first one I did was on officer suicide. There's another one on line-of-duty deaths and what the family, community, friends, and coworkers can do in the aftermath,” AK said.
She continued, “But the bulk of it is going to be what you can do as an individual, as a law enforcement officer or a first responder to maintain your own personal wellness. A lot of it is quick little tips that you can put in your back pocket, or put up your sleeve, things you can do in between calls, and even little breathing exercises that you can do while you're driving to the next call to ground yourself.”
Check out her weekly Sunday Reset Series on YouTube HERE. You can also learn more about AK and her services by checking out her website, https://akdozanti.com/
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Writer Eddie Molina is a veteran and has over 25 years of combined LEO/military service. He owns and operates the apparel company www.BuyHeroStuff.com
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The opinions reflected in this article are not necessarily the opinions of LET
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