A bit off-topic but I'm using this platform as therapy so well yeah.

You know, when you're a rookie, they can teach you everything about bein' a cop except how to live with a mistake.

Ah good old Sergeant Powell, the podgy hero from die-hard, popped into my head today, I made a cock-up at work, I work in healthcare and due to my cock up I almost (thankfully didn't ) caused some harm to someone.

I'm not sure if anyone ever experienced anything similar or how it affected you, but it rips you apart man, this wasn't the first and can probably safely say it won't be my last.

When I was told and realised what I had done I was so bitterly angry with myself, proper self-hatred, I shouldn't be doing this job, I need to quit, what the fuck is wrong with me all of these sorts of things, then the worry if they have found this what else have I done what else have I ticked wrong that could cause problems for people?

12 hours later I am still angry at myself, but what I have done is reconciled with it, tried to work out what caused it, and how to prevent this from happening again.

My process today, was brief denial firstly, "who me? I'm awesome Nah must have been someone else?"

"oh shit it was me"

Then comes the fear, "shiiiiiiiiit are they ok what actually happened ? they are dead aren't they? oh noooooooo"

what needs to happen next, resolve tell them, investigate it fix it

Then when settles down stop think about it, and boom like a freight train all the self-doubt, and neurosis come washing over me like a tsunami, you silly idiot what the fuck is wrong with you to sort your shit out. Your useless rubbish sort your shit out

That lasted a while for me, colleagues could see I was angry, but this is where we started getting better and on track to feeling less like I am a useless cretin, and all I had to do was talk to people, some people got it, some people meh wasn't an issue, happens to everyone move on.

Neither method really helpful, but just talking about it starts to help I think, start realising, fortunately, all is well no one got hurt, start to hear how other people have had their own stories, which does help, we are all human, mistakes are part and parcel of what we do.

Then the don't beat yourself up to comments, Nah mate I want to beat myself up a little bit lets make sure this doesn't happen again, start to realise yes you didn't win on this case but how many good things do you do every day, let's learn from this and move on, let's make sure this doesn't happen again find what the cause was, what you can do to help.

Go home crack open a beer, toast to a shitty day, make a plan to stop this happening again and take away from it 99 times out of 100 you make things better not worse, but this will make me better, this will improve me and my work and we shove on die-hard drink the rest of the beers in the fridge then write a blog on the internet as your last act of self-therapy before going to bed and waking up tomorrow better

So I've found the best way to resolve this is to make a pledge that if I ever make another mistake again ill get al Powell tattooed on my ass