With only two thousand inhabitants, sirens are rare in Mariahout. That is precisely why former Eindhoven police officer John moved there, because those sounds still affect him deeply. “I cower or wake up screaming in the night.” PTSD that he suffered from police work kept him indoors for years, until he met a special buddy who opened his world to him again.
John worked for years on the street, with the riot police and in the control room. He enjoyed his work, until a series of very drastic events in 2004 broke him. PTSD was hardly discussed at that time, he says. “I went to the psychologist a few times and then I was ‘declared cured’. I had to go back to the streets.”
But he was by no means cured. He started having persecutory delusions, nightmares and intense re-experiences. An unexpected touch in the supermarket could make him lash out in fright. It was almost impossible to sleep, “but you didn’t talk about feelings then, especially not as a police officer.”
“When I went out on the street, I was terrified and felt like I was being followed.”
Things went wrong in 2015. Years of suppressed PTSD complaints and deep depression took their toll. “My body gave up: I just collapsed.” He stopped working and no longer dared to leave his house. He spent days behind closed curtains, chain-smoking and drinking coffee. He only went outside for groceries, “but I almost did that running, to get back as quickly as possible. I was terrified outside.”
John knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain this lifestyle for long, but he saw no way out. Until an acquaintance suggested something. Doesn’t he want to adopt a Malinois, a four-year-old ex-police dog?
But the former police officer laughed off the proposal scornfully. “I don’t dare go outside, how am I supposed to take care of a dog?” But the idea kept going through his head and one day he heard himself say: ‘Come and bring it, I want to try it.’ “I noticed that I had drifted away from my family and friends. I had to find a way to get outside.”
In the beginning, he only let Herta out when the streets were empty, often at night. But even that was a huge step. “She pulled me away from those closed curtains.” And Herta did more. When he was scared, she would lie on him. She woke him up during nightmares. In the supermarket she protected him by standing between him and others so that no one could touch him unexpectedly.
Because of her he dared to talk to people again. That was special, because Herta had not had any assistance dog training. “She just sensed what I needed. Bizarre.”
John owes his life to Herta, he says firmly. “I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t been there,” he says softly. In addition to safety and social contacts, Herta even brought him love. “I met my partner and her labradoodles at a dog walking field. Without Herta we would not have met.”
“Herta was not an assistance dog, but instinctively sensed what I needed to participate in society again.”
The two were inseparable, but he knew she wouldn’t stay with him forever. “I had her tattooed, a tattoo artist in Eindhoven drew her so well. Those eyes, that tongue out of her mouth, that’s exactly how she was.”
And then the inevitable thing he feared most happened: Herta died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage at the age of seven. “As if part of my life fell away.” John fell back into old patterns. His complaints became more severe again. The supermarket became a battlefield again. “People were greeting me, but I didn’t even hear it. I just ran.”
Fortunately, his partner’s dog spontaneously took over some of Herta’s tasks. John later got an official assistance dog: labradoodle Olaf. “He was trained for it, but what he does was something Herta did automatically. I still find that special.”
With Olaf by his side, John gets his life back little by little. He stopped smoking and sometimes goes to parties again, as long as Olaf can come along. The PTSD has not disappeared, nightmares keep coming back, but Olaf wakes him up when things go wrong. “I don’t expect it to ever go away completely. There were too many incidents for that.”
John looks at the tattoo on his arm. “Olaf is following in her footsteps,” he says, nodding at Herta. “She showed me the world again. And she still does, every day.”
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