“When people think someone gets shot, they think he recovers and goes back to work. I thought I had dealt with it pretty well, the emotional, psychological stuff. But it is the cumulative things over the years,” said Buis, who is now a staff-sergeant major.
He thought he had held his life together with tough-guy bravado, but things started to come unglued in 2017 and totally fell apart last year, when psychologists diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a dependency on opioids and alcohol that he had used to try to self-medicate his pain.
“I think there are a lot of people, particularly members of the RCMP, who if they get into this type of situation don’t really know where to turn. And hopefully we can start talking about the services that are out there for people who may end up in a similar situation to me,” said Buis, who has been on medical leave since October 2018.
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