Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens

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The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, welcome to the Behavioral Corner, it's me against Steve Martorano. Gee, I hope you found us by now I know it's a vast, vast wilderness of podcasts out there. And many of them are very specific fact their role sort of specific. The Behavioral Corner is a podcast I like to refer to us about everything. Because everything is what affects our behavioral health. So we're fortunate because we're at a great corner here. The corner is at the intersection of all kinds of interesting people that we run into, and gain the benefit of their wisdom, expertise, and experience. It's all made possible by our underwriter partners Retreat Behavioral Health, about which more you will hear later on. We are welcoming someone to the program today, who has an unbelievable story to tell us of an event that had the potential to shatter her life. Perhaps irrevocably, but instead, after the pain and suffering resulted in some very positive stuff about which we're talking, and that is, first responders, and veterans and their struggles with post traumatic shock and a myriad of problems as a result of what they do for us. So we welcome to the Behavioral Corner for the first time and not the last time I'm hopeful. Mirian “Bev” Perez. Thank you. We want to refer to you as Bev, right?

Bev Perez 
That's right. Hi, Steve.

Steve Martorano 
Bev Perez is our guest on the Corner. Thanks, Bev. I just want to set this up for people that I want you to tell the story, because it's an amazing story. Beth as a police officer in Prince George's County, which is in Maryland, found herself in responding to an active shooter event this took place back in I think it was March of 2016. Right?

Bev Perez 
Right.

Steve Martorano 
And she heard on the radio active shooter. Ironically enough, the shooting was taking place right in front of the police station, one of the police stations that Bev worked at. And of course officers from all over the area began immediately respond two of which involve Bev who was on duty that that day, and her boyfriend, fiance or boyfriend was my friend. Yeah, boyfriend, who is an undercover officer also was in the vicinity of the shooter. And the story of what happened to the Jacai Colson is what sort of brings us to this event. The shooter is ultimately brought down by Officer Coulson, who is in civies, because he's doing undercover work, and Bev, as I said, as an active duty, and she is racing to the scene. Tell us what happens from there, Beth?

Bev Perez 
Sure. And first off, Steve, thank you for having me on the show. I'm really excited to be here. And no, it will not be my last time. So much like you were saying on March 13, 2016. You know, myself in Jacai. We have been dating for about three years at that time. The first couple of years. We kept it quiet until he ended up working for the narcotics unit, at which point we decided okay, we can start letting people know that we're dating because we're not working on the same squad anymore. And on this particular day, he had an overtime assignment in an area south of where headquarters is where the shooting was. And I actually had an assignment at headquarters. So before we depart ways from my home, he said he was going to pick up some food and he mentioned, hey, I'll drop the food off, on my way going south. And so that was the plan. And he would always do this thing right at the red light. And he's in his unmarked Nissan, and I'm in my mark cruiser. And he just looked at me at the red light. And I looked at him and he used to do this little wave, you know, like the little rascals and did that he went to grab the food to meet me at headquarters, and I went straight to my assignment. As I was getting closer to my assignment, I had my radio on for the area that I was going to where headquarters is station when I heard you know, complete chaos over the radio. It sounded like a detective in distress. And he was essentially yelling that they have an active shooter. And you could hear the sounds of shots every time he keyed up. And he was yelling for more units to respond to his aid. What was happening was the active shooter, his name is Michael Ford. And it was him and his two brothers, the Ford brothers, Michael Ford, for whatever reason, decided that morning that he wanted suicide by cop. So he went to headquarters, knowing that there's a lot of police officers obviously housed there, and he was shooting at headquarters. And he was also shooting at anybody that drove by. So if you were a civilian, just driving through the neighborhood, he was shooting at you. Right across from our headquarters is a shopping center. So it's a really hard backdrop for law enforcement to just fire actively at him because there could be a host of innocent people behind him. So he's firing his weapon. And I immediately think to myself, one, let me get there because I'm on the way anyway, so I turned my lights and sirens on, I'm going priority. And then the next very next thought was, oh, no, like Jacai. Like, where is he? Because I had to make a stop before I went to the station. And I caught him immediately. So I'm driving with one hand, and I have my cell phone in the other hand, and I'm going priority. It's a rainy Sunday. I'm in a Crown Vic. And I'm driving as fast as I can. And I called Jacai and he's like, "Hey, I'm right here. I just got, you know, I just got here. Where are you?" And my first thing was, "Babe, just get out of the area." And I'm trying to keep calm. I'm not trying to panic him. I'm not trying to panic myself. I'm gonna just get out of the area. And he's like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like, "I don't know, there's an active shooter, just..." And then you hear signal 13, signal 13 You know, the feedback from the radio signal. 13 for us is sent me help from any and everywhere. Like I'm in complete distress. So at that point, he's like, signal 13. I'm like, yeah, there's a signal 13 There's an active shooter at headquarters. Can you please just get out of the area, please? At that point, I'm approaching closer to headquarters, and I'm now no longer hearing Jukai talking back to me on the phone. I'm like, "ey, babe, where are you?" As I'm turning into Barlow Road, which is where our headquarters used to be. I hear about, I want to say 13 shots through my phone. At that point, I dropped my phone. I started banging on my steering wheel. And I'm like, "Babe, where are you? Where are you? Like, say something." It's like, you know, you can almost like feel something went bad. I had my windows down because we always drive with our windows down even though it was a rainy Sunday. I turned my lights and sirens on. And I heard Jacai. And he was yelling "Police" trying to identify himself.

Steve Martorano 
To the other responding officers?

Bev Perez 
To anybody.

Steve Martorano 
Because he's in plain clothes and he's armed. And there's an active shooter event going on. He needs to identify himself?

Bev Perez 
Correct?

Steve Martorano 
Yes.

Bev Perez 
And the reason why he was trying to identify himself mainly was because he had been shot.

Steve Martorano  
He'd already been shot?

Bev Perez 
Correct. He was on the ground, shot, yelling "police" attempting to identify himself.

Steve Martorano  
Shot by another police officer. Correct?

Bev Perez 
Right. He was shot waiting for aid or something to identify himself. And that's when I heard him. I drove past him, but I heard him faintly, and I reversed my cruiser. I remember parking it a little bit ahead of his body, kind of like a 45-degree angle. And a means to shield him. The Crown Vic houses the most metal in the front. So we're trained to utilize that as a wall or shield for underground fire something. And so I put the cruiser like that. And I remember taking my weapon out and kind of like duck walking around the cruiser. And I shielded him with my body, and I pointed my weapon out toward where the shots were coming from. And all I saw was police officers. So at that moment, I knew one of them shot him. I hosted my weapon and I just held him and said "Please stop shooting at him. This is a police officer. Where you see these lights this cruiser please stop shooting at him." And I holster my weapon. I put my radio away and now at this point, I'm just holding him trying to find out where he's heard. I'm on my hands and knees and I'm holding him in my arms. And he's looking at me and he's yelling "Police." And he had been shot on the side on the side of his body and he was choking on his blood. By the time I got to him. He was yelling police like that and choking and rolling his eyes and he's looking at me and I held him. I looked at him and I was like, "Baby, I got you." Like, "I got you. I'm with you." Then he just looked at me and stop yelling police. He's looking up at me. And then he just closed his eyes. And I was like, no, So at that point, we're clearing out the backseat of my cruiser kits. It's the one that's immediately right there. We put your car in the backseat of my cruiser. And the guys are like, "Who's cruisers is this? Who's cruiser is this?" And I'm like, "It's mine." For whatever reason, I would not have let anybody else drive that cruiser I was gonna drive. I was gonna drive. So I got in the driver's seat. And I drove as fast as I could to Prince George's Hospital. In the back seat was one of my boys, Cats. He was doing chest compressions on Jacai the entire way there and also grounding me, which I didn't recognize at the time. But when I look back at the dash cam, I hear him you can hear Cats telling me "Perez, slow down, slow down. Make a left right here, slow down, we're gonna crash." And he's like talking to me, and "Hey, I got him, I got him." And I remember his words, you can see the speed of my driving slow down. Anytime cat was like, slow down, slow down. And eventually, we make it to PGH, which felt like the longest drive of my entire life. It's literally 10 minutes, 13 minutes there. And, you know, by the time we get there, I knew Jacai died out there. I was hopeful. And they took him into er. I walked in the ER with him. And I just I lost it. I completely lost it. I started hitting equipment. I walked in like with my hands on my head. And I'm like, looking at him and they're ripping his shirt open and they're doing, you know, the whole thing and trying to bring him back in his lifeless body is just moving. And I'm just like, "What the...? I'm just like, I told him not to go. And I'm punching stuff. And the nurses were like, "Get her out of here!" And I said to them, you know, I was like, "No, because when he wakes up, he's gonna want to see me. He doesn't know you." And that's when one of my boys when I used to work, my first squad. He came in, grabbed me up, and literally took me outside and was like, "You can't do that here." Basically, what happened Jacai, he jumped out of his unmarked, which was Bluetooth compatible to his phone, hence why I was able to hear everything. He jumps out of the car and sees this guy shooting at the station. He fires 13 rounds while running for cover. One of those rounds hit this guy.

Steve Martorano  
So he brought down the active shooter.

Bev Perez 
He brought down the active shooter. The active-shooter had a belly, and the bullet went through the belly. It went through and through. But it put the active shooter down.

Steve Martorano 
Put him down. And the other officers responding had no idea of what to make of this situation. As a result, Jacai dies in a friendly fire incident, correct?

Bev Perez 
Once he was able to put this active shooter down, that allowed officers to finally come out. They were almost like barricaded inside of the station, you know? Once the firing stop, they all came out. And the first person they see is Jacai in plain clothes, with a gun-running. And although Jacai did not fit the description, he did not meet any of the descriptions. Actually, the officer had a long gun, miss, the first time, and then shot the second time again, and that's what struck Jacai and killed him.

Steve Martorano 
It's an unbelievable story. And to be clear so people understand. You are not here to tell a story of police neglect or foolishness. You're here to talk about a tragic circumstance that changed the course of your life. Am I correct?

Bev Perez 
Absolutely. And I always say because I'm constantly asked different questions about, you know, what do you think happened? Or what would you have done? Or what do you think the intentions were? And quite frankly, I can't answer any of those questions for anybody but myself. And all I know is that I absolutely love Jacai. And all I know is that the officer that shot Jacai in my heart, I've forgiven him. I have no ill will towards the department or anybody, or any of the people involved that day. It was a horrible, horrible accident incident. And really, if you look at it, three officers will never be the same. A lot of people will never be the same. But the three of us, myself, Jacai, and the officer that shot Jacai, I mean our lives, we pretty much parts you we died out there, too.

Steve Martorano 
Yes. Yes. I want everybody to be clear that this is not a story about willfulness. It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy, and a mistaken people were shattered, not least of which is our guest, Bev Perez. As a result of this, you went into a deep depression. (You) had several mental health episodes that ultimately made it impossible for you to stay on the force. Is that right? Tell us about that.

Bev Perez 
Yes. So what I noticed, you know, I had learned about PTSD and depression because I was, like, taking courses. I did a minor in psychology. So, I learned about this stuff. But I would always say like, "Man, it's all in your head, like, figure that stuff out." until something happens to you. I remember, a week after the incident, I was called into the station to the major who was going to ask me if I wanted to work the desk, like to come back to work, literally like a week or two after the shooting. I remember getting there and just seeing the cruisers hearing the radio, from the cruisers, from other officers and their radios, and then seeing the officers in uniform and their guns in the station. And it's just like. It's almost like I felt nauseous, I felt nauseous. And I felt completely sick. I felt like throwing up, and I started hyperventilating. And then I started crying, and I got pissed. And I remember they wanted me to sign something in my hand was literally like, and I'm over there about to throw up and trying to sign, and they were like, "Get her out of here. She can't be here."

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, you say you gotta. You got upset and angry. It was because you were you had lost control of your of situation emotionally and physically. And that surprised you? Weren't you expecting that?

Bev Perez
Oh, it pissed me off. I'm like, "What are you, like..."

Steve Martorano 
Am I a cop? What am I doing? Right?

Bev Perez 
It's bad enough, you know, you're going through all this stuff. And it's like, I don't know why, you know, in the back of your mind, you go through something like that. And your thought is, alright, well, I need to get back to work. And I need to get back to work. Like I need to honor him. I need to continue. I need to do what I have...life has to keep going. I can't stop. It hurts. And I'll cry, and I'll cry and hurt. And I want to die. And I don't want to be here anymore. But I have to work.

Steve Martorano 
That's what you're trying to do. And you're right. There's a sense, first of all, of honor duty. And after all, he would want you to keep working. But that wasn't possible. You could not do it, right?

Bev Perez  
I was by no means in any way, shape, or form ready to even go back or be around. I hadn't showered. I hadn't been eating. I was barely sleeping. I mean, I was a mess.

Steve Martorano  
How long after the shooting did you ultimately turn in your badge?

Bev Perez 
The way it works, after that, I had to get on workers' compensation because they wanted me to work the front desk, but I couldn't I literally couldn't even be there. And so, I had to talk to someone to get the file for workers' compensation which I got granted. So they allowed me to get on that. And then I was out of work for about a year. Once you're out of work for a year, the Department has to kind of make a decision. Are you staying? Are you resigning? Are we retiring you? But after a year, they really can't allow you to just not be working for on job injury, whether it's, you know, an accident, a physical accident or a mental whatever it might be, they need to know are you coming back to work? For me, it was about? Well, after March 13, 2016. I've never ever gone back to work as a police officer in any capacity. I didn't put on the uniform ever again. Then I want to say that maybe the mid-2017 like a year and a half later, I had to turn everything in.

Steve Martorano 
That would be a story that people should hear all by itself. It's so heartbreaking. But it resulted in something extraordinary. Now you've got firsthand knowledge of what a first responder or police or veterans are confronted with very, very often. And what's this, the trauma of their jobs, which can lead to all sorts of things. It results in your case, since you experienced it in your creation of a nonprofit, which I'd like you to tell us about. And now that the nonprofit is going to team up with our underwriting partner Retreat Behavioral Health in the event that's going to be happening in a couple of months from now, but tell us about your nonprofit SHIELDUS. When did that idea occur to you and what was the purpose?

Bev Perez 
It occurred to me after I started doing some work on healing. I had a couple of options. I could have kept going in the direction I was going in, or I could do something about it in September of 2016. After the incident, I had a suicide attempt. After that, I had many ideations afterward. I remember one time I had been going through trainings, I left Maryland, I drove 16 hours to Florida, I didn't have any friends, family, no work, nothing. And I was like, I just don't want to be in Maryland. It's like, the entire state upset me. And so I came to Florida, I stayed with...I stayed at a family friend's place. And I stumbled upon some great people that put me in some wonderful places. And I did training through the Center for my body medicine, which incorporates mindfulness, meditation, guided imagery, all these holistic things that you can do. Journaling. And so I knew what to do to kind of calm myself down. That was the first time I learned about being vulnerable. And being in a group, I had never been in group therapy before. A few, maybe a year later, after being certified in this program, I had a suicide...suicide ideations that were really strong. And I said, But you know what to do. There are resources. Steve, I went on Google, and I called whatever number I could find, like, I do not care. I just need to talk to someone. And I was okay with doing it. But just give me a place. I couldn't find anything. I'm not a widow. We were never married. The places that you could go, if you lost someone, even though you're not a widow, we're dealing with people that were married for years and had kids and grandkids and then lost the like love of their life. I felt I couldn't compare to that. I was girlfriend for three years. Then there were other groups that were just opened public for grieving and bereavement. And I made...the first thought in my mind, I'm like, I'm gonna tell them that my police officer boyfriend died. And I was a police officer, who knows if there are people in there that hate cops and or had a family member die by a cop, a police officer incident, and I was like, I can't go somewhere with the public. Like, for there has to be somewhere for police officers to go. There just has to be. And I caught, and I caught and Steve, I promise you, I didn't find any place for me. I didn't find any place. So what I ended up doing, I ended up meditating. I ended up crying and telling my roommate at the time, hey, I'm gonna meditate and I'm gonna cry, and it's gonna get heavy. And I'm by myself, please just be in the room next door. And that's what I did. On my own because there was no face. And that right there triggered something in me like, well, if nothing exists, why don't I create something? And it gave me purpose. And I said, "Well, how do you start a nonprofit? I said, Well, just like I Googled places, I can gGoogle how to start a nonprofit. And I was connected in the Broward County in community with a lot of nonprofits, and I asked for help. I asked for advice. I figured it out. And I just, I launched it, I just started it.

Steve Martorano 
And SHIELDUS is, as you've just described it, dedicated to getting the kind of help first responders and veterans need, specifically, first responders, and veterans, I want to get into some of the things that they are confronted with. But I do want to highlight the fact that your nonprofit and your work will coincide with an event that's going to take place in Florida. You'll hear more about it in the weeks coming here on the Corner. That's being, as I mentioned earlier, co sponsored with Ben's group called Healing our Heroes, which will take place at retreat, behavioral health. But let's talk a little bit about the unique nature of the problems confronted by first responders and veterans. You're in a great spot to talk about this. When you are an active duty police. Did you ever witness other officers whose behavior, in hindsight, you might now know, as post-traumatic stress that maybe they didn't talk about? And maybe they didn't get any help? But their behavior demonstrated it. Did you ever see that in your work?

Bev Perez 
I think as I moved into this place that I'm in, I mainly saw it in or see it in or didn't recognize it and was myself. Number one, primarily, I remember now just kind of as I go on through life, I'm like, "Man, all those days that I used to be at work, before the incident, before me and Jacai started dating. He wasn't even in the department yet. I was like a rookie. I remember two years or three years after coming on. I would drive priority, and in my mind, I'm like, "Oh, somebody T-bone me please." I was so tired. And just that thought alone. That thought alone of wanting to get T boned or get hurt. So I don't have to put this uniform on. I don't have to work on dealing with people. That's dangerous alone.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah.

Bev Perez 
And I would always say things like, "I hate people. People...I hate people." I mean, it was heavy, like just dismay. Like, this is what...

Steve Martorano 
I think you know. It's an interesting concept. Most people associate post-traumatic stress with a specific event, a horrific event, perhaps, that has caused the trauma. But it can be a cumulative kind of thing, as you say, just putting on the uniform every day. And going in very often and seeing people at their worst every day can cause trauma. Can I ask you before we get into some of the other things that police and other first responders suffer from? What attracted you to this career in the first place? Why did you want to become a cop?

Bev Perez 
I wanted to be part of the SWAT team, which I tried out three times. I didn't make it. That's on me. But I remember just as a little girl, I always wanted to be like, whatever the best of the best of the best was, and to be infantry in the military. And at the time, they didn't allow women in the infantry. So I said, Well, what else can I do? I was like, become, I'm gonna join SWAT team on some police department and I was living in Prince George's County. Did I figure out why not? Also, recall a moment when my family house we were I was a little girl, our house got broken into. And two officers came in. My parents didn't speak English. And just the disregard for how my family was treated. And I remember they left, and my mom said to my brother, because my brother was the one translating, he's the oldest, she said to him, "Do they do fingerprints here? Can you call them back because they didn't even do fingerprints." The same two police officers came, and they just threw black Drust very bad black dust very arrogantly all over the house. And they're like there and left. And I remember watching as a little girl, and I said, you know, "Wll, if they're not going to protect my family, I will" And incorporate it into my desire to want to be like the elite, I guess you could say.

Steve Martorano  
So as you've moved further into helping others who suffer from these things, well, what are the kinds of stuff we're talking about? Besides post-traumatic stress? You mentioned suicidal thoughts. That it's a real danger for people that aren't confronting it, isn't it?

Bev Perez 
Yes, after a while, I mean, just the thought, right? Just the thought of I can't do this anymore. I can't do this, or you wake up, and you're like, What do I wake up for? Those are little. Those are clues. You don't see them. We don't know that. They're clues. But those are clues, just like anything over time that grows, it grows, and it grows until it develops into something else. If we don't place it somewhere on top of the suicidal ideations. There's depression, there's, oh my God, there's a host of thing. There's displaced anger. There's self medicating with any type of substance or any type of addiction, whether it's a shopping addiction, or a gambling. There's isolation, where you kind of walk yourself up this sniper tower, and you're up there guarding yourself from everybody because everything is everything. There's the hypervigilance. There's the betrayal, there's moral injury, there's so many things that go on.

Steve Martorano 
And as if that weren't enough, that shopping list of things that can occur under the stress of first responding and veterans. There is a sense among that group, male or female. I'll use the word "macho." But it's the sense that you man up. That you don't, you know, "Yeah, okay. I'm depressed. Okay. Yeah, I'm anxious. And I have a few beers after work. But I got a job to do. And I'm, there's nothing wrong with me." It's how do you crack through that? How do you let people know that it's okay to say "I'm hurt. I'm hurt."

Bev Perez 
The difficult part is getting someone to recognize that there's a problem. Now, while it is not up to us to be tasked with such a heavy task, we can have conversations that leave...the way I do it is I plant seeds, right? Because I speak on large platforms. I speak, and I present to different groups. What I do is plant seeds, I say certain things. And I just know that people have a-ha moments. And maybe it's that everybody. For me, the way I see it is if I at least touch or help one life once a day, I did my job for that day. As a friend, if you have a colleague that's kind of showing some signs, and you want to just say little things to drop hints because maybe they're not ready to address the fact that something is wrong with me. I think that's a good way to do it. There are also interventionists that can be hired, there are professionals that can be hired. There are resources out there that you can call to have these conversations. There are a host of things that you can actually do. If there's a loved one that just isn't seeing that they are the common denominator in their bad luck in life.

Steve Martorano 
One last point about first of all, recognizing that there's a problem and then getting help in your experience, how supportive in that area is the police departments and the Veterans Administration? I mean, are there places that someone can turn to?

Bev Perez 
There are places someone can turn to. And what I'd like to say is that we are on a wave, where mental health and wellness is becoming like a thing, you know, everywhere you're hearing about it, you're hearing about all this, all these things that that people can do. And it's kind of becoming a new trend. What I like that I'm hearing is that a lot of departments are coming up with peer support. There is resources. And if, for whatever reason, you feel like your department doesn't have a resource, what I always say to people is, "If there is no resource, you be the resource. You do something about it." If I'm in a department where there are no resources, and I know that peer support is important, what's stopping me from starting the peer support program at my department? I promise you, if you Google peer support, you will find resources of departments that are already doing it, and have training that exists of certifications that you can get, it's like if we have to want it that bad, where you're gonna do something about it and can't stand around. Wait for departments to put something on a platter. You know, but yes, to answer your question, it is out there, and you might have to work a little bit harder to get it. But it's how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to smile again? To live your full life to be happy and be at peace? You know, then you'll work.

Steve Martorano 
Bev Perez is our guest. She is telling us about her organization, SHIELDUS, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping first responders and veterans with their myriad of potential problems. And she's coming together with our as I said, underwriting partner Retreat Behavioral Health. We're going to have more about it later. I just want to remind people that there's going to be an event on the 31st of March. Is it March?

Bev Perez 
It's March, yes.

Steve Martorano  
It's at West Palm Beach. We'll have lots of details for you down the road called "Healing our Heroes." And Bev, just briefly, there will be speakers, and there will be a q&a. And everyone's invited, correct?

Bev Perez 
Absolutely. So the event is called "Black and Brown, and Blue in Red." And what we're doing is we're inviting any of everybody that's interested in learning more about law enforcement, firefighters in, just mental health in general. And our speakers are mostly law enforcement. We do have a military police officer, and they're going to share their story of resiliency, much like I have mine, right? We all have a story. Each of them comes with their different reasons for why they are now choosing life or what's keeping them going or what, you know, kind of how they turn their tragedy to triumph. And we're inviting clinicians that work with law enforcement or first responders or want to learn more about that. We're inviting adult relatives who are interested in learning more about it. We're inviting other first responders to come out and learn more about it. And the title of it is "Black and Brown." Because statistically, in law enforcement specifically, it is a white male-dominated profession. However, I wanted to do something for the black and brown people who are in these professions, who I don't often see at the conferences, conventions, and training that I go to. And I've been doing this for about four years, which isn't a long time. But anytime I do go, I'm like, "Where are they? Where's everybody else?" You know, and I understand that you know, it's just a white male, predominant profession. But I know that we're out there, and I know that we're hurting. And that could be due to culture that could be due to the stigma, especially as a person of color, and talking about depression in the States.

Steve Martorano 
It's often thought to be a luxury. I don't have the luxury of the feeling of getting down on myself. I work too hard to get here. I've seen that problem of before. Anyway, Bev, it's a remarkable story. As I said earlier, you took a heartbreaking and shattering event and didn't let it crush you. And now it turned into something that helps other people. We thank you for that. It's a very instant. As I said in my note, your story is both heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Thanks for joining us on the Corner. We will be talking more down the road.

Bev Perez 
Yeah, so please make sure to follow shield us on social media. It's SHIELDUS.app. Also, you can find me at @bevy.bev and follow me as well. And we look forward to seeing you all on the 31st and you are meeting our speakers. And thank you again, Steve, for taking the time out to do this with me and with us.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, my pleasure. We're gonna have all links to all that stuff on the Behavioral Corner website. Thank you, Bev, again. Thanks, guys, for hanging again on the Corner. Don't forget...please don't forget. Push the subscription button. Subscribe to the Behavioral Corner. Follow us, like us do whatever you got to do. We're everywhere. We're everywhere. Thanks. See you next time. Bye bye.

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