Firefighter's memoir will help other men fighting depression
Like most first responders, Steve Serbic sees tragedy nearly every working day.
For a long time, he wasn’t able to acknowledge that it affected him.
The assistant fire chief in Surrey B.C. spent years trying to tamp down feelings of despair and depression, but eventually, it all began to overwhelm him.
“I battled sadness every day. I was in a bad place. I was drinking. “At the same time, I thought those who were struggling were weak,” Serbic said during a recent interview.
“I couldn’t drink enough to make that sadness go away.”
Hard to reconcile that guy with the Steve Serbic of today, an in-demand public speaker who runs workshops and helps others — students, colleagues, businesses — with mental health resiliency.
Serbic is also an author, having just published a book called The Unbroken: A Firefighter’s Memoir. The book is about his childhood and the road to becoming a firefighter, and his own struggle with anxiety and …More