The Echoes We Carry

Mental health is finally starting to be talked about in policing and law enforcement. And rightly so. The toll of frontline work, the emotional impact of reviewing harmful material, and the ongoing stress of high-stakes decisions all deserve attention and support.
But there’s a whole side of digital forensics that gets left out of those conversations.

We don’t often talk about the mental health of defence experts, or those working on civil and private cases. We rarely hear from freelance consultants, intelligence investigators, or academics who still engage in casework alongside research and teaching. Yet many of us are dealing with similar evidence, similar responsibilities, and similar emotional burdens. Sometimes with far less structure or support.

This blog is my attempt to share what that looks like. Not because I’m looking for pity, and not because I think my story is unique. But because people are struggling. Some have already broken. Some are holding on in silence. And I can’t help but wonder if things might have been different, if we’d all been brave enough to speak up sooner.
So this is me, adding my voice. This is what it feels like to do the work I do. If it helps even one person feel less alone, I’ll be overjoyed.

I’m not a police officer. I don’t wear a uniform or sit inside a law enforcement agency. But I’ve spent my career walking alongside those who do.

I’ve worked closely with officers, with prosecution teams, with defence barristers, and with specialists across a wide range of contexts. I’ve seen the toll it takes. I’ve watched people unravel slowly over the course of a case, and I’ve sat with them when they couldn’t quite find the words for what they were feeling. Sometimes we’ve found ways to laugh in the quiet moments. Sometimes there has been nothing to say at all.

From the outside, the difference between law enforcement and someone like me, an academic forensic investigator, might look clear. But when you are in the middle of a difficult case, when you are dealing with harm or piecing together someone’s digital footprint to understand what happened, the lines blur very quickly.

The emotional weight is the same. The silence after is the same. And the risk of carrying it with you long after the case is over is just as real.

My work does not always follow the same paths as my law enforcement colleagues, but it walks close enough to know that we are in the same storm, even if we arrived there by different roads.

When people imagine digital forensics, they tend to picture one thing: disturbing images. And yes, sometimes that is part of it. But it is not the whole story.

My first case came when I was just 23 years old. There was nothing illegal in terms of imagery. But there was a vast amount of adult content, and there were text messages that stayed with me for far longer than I expected. It was the first time I realised that even content considered “legal” could carry weight. The kind of weight you do not expect until it is already inside your head.

What unsettled me most was not the content itself, but the way it crept up on me. I had no warning, no expectation of what was coming. One moment I was reading something technical, and the next I was inside someone’s private, painful world. That unpredictability is a part of this work that never truly goes away.

It is not just what you see. It is what you read, what you hear, what you begin to understand about someone you will never meet. You start to build a picture of them from the fragments they left behind. Their searches. Their messages. Their thoughts. And they are not always the caricatures people want them to be. Often, they seem entirely ordinary. You find yourself realising that this could be someone you passed on the street, or someone sitting next to you on a train. That realisation is difficult to forget.

Investigating a case is very different from reviewing pre-selected material. When you are the one doing the work from start to finish, anything can appear at any moment. It is not a carefully curated set of exhibits. It is the full unpredictability of someone’s digital life, and you have to be ready for anything.

But the truth is, you can never be fully ready. You just learn how to keep going when it arrives.

There is a quiet loneliness that comes with this work. It does not always appear straight away, but it builds over time. You spend hours, sometimes days, completely alone with someone else’s data. You listen, read, watch, and try to understand. But no one is sitting beside you while you do it. No one else sees what you see.

And once you have seen it, you cannot unsee it. But you also cannot always talk about it.

There is often no formal debrief. No follow-up conversation to ask how you are. Sometimes you finish a case and simply move on to the next. Or you return to your regular work as though nothing unusual has happened. But it has.

The weight of what you carry does not disappear when the case is closed. It simply finds somewhere quiet to sit.

I have been lucky. Throughout my career, I have had a small number of friends and colleagues who have supported me. Not everyone has that. It has made all the difference. Just having someone to check in, or to send a message that says, “That must have been tough,” can create enough space to breathe.

Where I work now, at Southampton, things are different. They do not know the full details of the things I deal with, and I hope they never have to. But they understand that what I do is difficult. They care enough to ask. And they give me the freedom to say, “This one was hard,” without needing to explain why.
That kind of environment does not solve everything, but it helps more than people realise.

This kind of work does not stay neatly inside working hours. It comes home with you. Not in the form of files or folders, but in the way it sits at the edge of your thoughts. It shows up in conversations you cannot have, in cancelled plans you cannot explain, and in silences that grow longer over time.

You find yourself backing out of social events because you are emotionally worn thin. Or you go anyway, but you feel distant, like you are standing just slightly outside the moment. People around you do not always notice, and even when they do, there is often no easy way to tell them why.

It can be hard to make new friends outside of digital forensics. People are curious, and understandably so, but that curiosity often comes with questions you cannot answer. When you explain that you are not allowed to talk about certain things, some people take it personally. They assume it is about trust, when really, it is about duty, protection, and keeping the weight of what you carry from falling onto someone else.

That distance, no matter how carefully held, makes connection harder. It becomes easier to stay in the company of people who understand the unsaid. People who speak the shorthand of the work and never ask why you went quiet mid-conversation or left a room slightly too fast.

And yet, sometimes, someone outside the field surprises you. Sometimes, someone appears who does not ask for every detail, but who listens when you speak. Someone who makes you feel as if the boundary between your worlds does not have to be so sharp. Someone who, without needing to see everything, still makes you feel seen.

Over the years, I have lost people too. Not because they were unkind, or because anything was wrong with them, but because I became consumed by the work.

Digital forensics demands so much of your attention, your focus, your emotional capacity. And for me, being neurodivergent, once I am deep in a case or a problem, it becomes incredibly hard to come up for air. I do not notice how much I am holding in until someone is already on the outside looking in.

It has never been about not caring. It has been about not knowing how to balance what I care about with what the job requires of me. And unless someone sparks something powerful enough to pull me out of that pattern, I do not always realise that space should have been made.

I think, if I am honest, it would take someone with a particular kind of spark to shift my focus from the constant pull of casework. Someone who makes me want to create space, not because I am told to, but because I truly want to. And maybe, just maybe, I have started to realise that such a person could exist.

Someone who brings both steadiness and lightness. Someone who makes it feel possible to reimagine the balance between work and life, without asking me to give up what I love.

I turn ‘old’ this year. I am proud of what I have built. I know I make a difference. I know I am good at what I do. But I also know that I have spent a long time building walls, and that some of those walls may have kept good things out as well as harm.

I want to change that. I want to let someone in. I may be old-fashioned. Prince Charming will probably have to make the first move. But I would like him to find me all the same.

Over time, you collect information in this job that most people would never expect. Some of it is harmless but strange. I know far more about washing machines than anyone outside of the appliance repair industry should. I can tell you how the sweet known as “rock” is made, and I once spent days analysing data related to air freshener refills …. And so many other things that never seem to come up in general knowledge quizzes!

Then there are the parts that are harder to talk about.

My work has given me an extensive, unintended education in adult viewing habits and human behaviour. Not just the extreme or the unlawful, but the everyday and the deeply personal. Browsing patterns, preferences, conversations that were never meant to be read by another person. This is not knowledge you stumble across. It is knowledge you acquire through deliberate, professional research. You read academic papers, consult technical manuals, speak with people who make the products or run the platforms, and learn how things work in detail. It is necessary. It is important. And it takes its own kind of toll.I live with aphantasia, which means I cannot see images in my mind when I close my eyes. For some, that might sound like a protective barrier, and in some cases, it is. But it also means my mind processes everything differently. I do not replay images in a visual sense. Instead, the things that stay with me are the words people typed, the things they said out loud, and the meanings I construct between the lines. I hear tone. I feel patterns. My brain turns fragments of evidence into stories, and those stories stay with me.
For that reason, text and audio often affect me more deeply than visual content. My imagination fills in the gaps in ways I sometimes wish it wouldn’t. And while some colleagues talk about disturbing images they cannot unsee, I carry sound, rhythm, and emotional undercurrent. It lingers just as long, just in a different form.

Informally, I have begun to notice something else too. A pattern. A number of my colleagues who are neurodivergent and who also have highly visual minds seem to be more prone to emotional overload and burnout, especially when working on sustained or graphic casework. This is not a research finding. It is an observation, based on the people I know and the experiences we have shared. But it is something we hope to explore further through future research, to understand whether this is simply anecdotal, or whether certain cognitive styles carry a greater emotional cost in this line of work.

When your day-to-day involves the worst of what people do to one another, you need something that keeps you grounded. Something that brings light back into your world when the work becomes too heavy.
For me, that has always been a mix of the quietly ridiculous and the unapologetically joyful. Dance games on retro consoles. Cheesy pop songs played too loudly. Classic British comedy that still makes me laugh even when I know the punchline by heart. And teddy bears. I have a collection that some people find odd, but I think of them as reminders of the softer parts of life. The parts that deserve protecting too.
These things are not just hobbies or quirks. They are lifelines. They keep me connected to a version of myself that the work cannot touch. They remind me that I am more than the cases I carry.

Humour is part of that survival strategy as well, though it takes a different shape inside this field. When I first trained in digital forensics, many of the teaching examples were completely absurd. Fake crimes involving rubber ducks, biscuit theft, or glitter-based sabotage. It might sound silly, but it worked. It made the learning safe. It gave people room to make mistakes and ask questions without being overwhelmed.

That approach stuck with me, and I now use the same style in my own teaching. The truth is, you need some of that absurdity. You need a way to laugh, because what we deal with is so often weighted and serious. When you are carrying difficult material, humour becomes a kind of armour. A shared language between people who have seen too much.
It can sound jarring to someone outside the field. We joke about things that are dark, because sometimes the alternative is crying. And laughter, when it is understood in context, is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign that we are still here. Still human. Still finding ways to cope.

That humour builds trust. It signals to someone else in the room that they are not alone. That they can laugh too, and still be taken seriously. As a team lead, I try to hold that balance carefully, keeping space for joy and absurdity, while making sure everyone still feels safe and supported. Because humour is not just about distraction. It is a way of making the unbearable feel survivable, even if just for a moment. It keeps teams connected when the work tries to isolate us.

When you find people who understand that kind of humour, you tend to keep them close. Because you know they will not judge you when you need to step out of a room, or stay quiet for a little too long. They are the ones who can see the cracks without asking you to explain them. And they are often the reason you come back the next day, ready to face it all again.

Digital forensics is often described as a science. In some ways, it is. There is process, structure, methodology. There are frameworks and validation models and procedures designed to minimise subjectivity. But anyone who has worked long enough in this field knows that the best investigators are not just scientists. They are part artist, part detective, and part translator. The work requires interpretation. It requires intuition. And it demands empathy.

You are not just identifying files. You are constructing meaning from them. You are figuring out what matters, what fits, and what is missing. You are learning to recognise the difference between a human mistake and deliberate deception. And often, that distinction is subtle.

At times, I have found myself genuinely impressed by the technical sophistication of something I am investigating. A method of concealment. A custom-built communication tool. An unexpected use of technology. From a technical perspective, it can be remarkable. But that realisation always comes with a second one, that the tool or technique was used to cause harm. That whatever ingenuity it required, it served a purpose that hurt someone.

Holding both thoughts at once can feel disorienting. You learn to keep them in separate parts of your mind. One part analysing, learning, appreciating the complexity. The other part staying grounded in the consequences, in the very real human impact behind the data.

That separation does not always hold. Over time, it wears thin.

This is especially true when dealing with content that is less about the technology and more about the people. Text messages that reveal manipulation. Audio files that contain fear. Chat histories that expose long-term patterns of harm. There are no warning signs when you open a file like that. No graphic filter. Just the slow realisation that what you are reading is going to stay with you, whether you want it to or not.

That is where my mind does not let me go easily. I do not replay images. I do not see things when I close my eyes. But I remember the cadence of a voice. I remember the rhythm of a message. I reconstruct things in my mind and they take on a life of their own. That creative, story-building instinct is what makes me good at what I do. It is also what makes it hard to stop thinking about it afterwards.

Sometimes, the hardest part of the job is not what you find. It is what you realise about the person who left it behind.

Digital forensics does not often break people in obvious ways. It does it slowly. Quietly. In degrees.
I have seen brilliant colleagues lose their spark. People who were once full of energy and curiosity begin to withdraw, hesitate, second-guess themselves. I have watched friends step away from the field because it simply became too much to carry. Others have stayed, but not without cost. I know that cost. I have felt it myself.

Some of the people we have lost are still here, but different. Worn down. Running on less than they should be. Others are no longer with us at all. We have lost good people permanently, and in some cases without warning. I do not say that lightly. The impact of suicide in our field is real, and it often arrives without signals loud enough to hear in time.

The truth is, by the time someone starts to visibly crack, it is often already too late. The damage has already taken root, buried under months or years of coping quietly. By then, they are holding everything together with quiet routines and sheer determination, and it does not take much for the entire structure to give way.

We rarely talk about those moments openly. Most of us learn to say, “I’m fine,” even when we are not. And when we do talk, we only ever reveal a portion of the truth. That one case that got to us. That one piece of evidence we could not quite shake. It is easier to admit to fragments than it is to say, “This is starting to change me.”

There is a strange pressure in this field to appear endlessly resilient. We talk a lot about strength and very little about recovery. When people do step away, whether for a short break or for good … it is often seen as failure rather than self-preservation. That needs to change.

I have felt that pressure myself. There have been times when I have taken on too much, said yes to too many things, and kept going long after I should have paused. The role I have now is one I love. It matters deeply to me. But even the work you love can hurt you if you are not careful.

Some of the people I have lost were the kindest, most dedicated professionals I have known. Their absence is still felt. And I cannot help but wonder if things might have been different if we had all been braver. If we had talked earlier. Louder. With less fear. Maybe they would have stayed. Maybe we would have known how to help.

That is one of the reasons I am writing this. Because someone else might be carrying the same weight right now, in silence. And they deserve to know they are not alone.

There is a strange rhythm to digital forensics that no one really warns you about. When you are not in law enforcement, the work does not come in a steady stream. It arrives in bursts. Intense periods of activity followed by long, quiet gaps. One week I might be buried in casework or preparing for court. The next, I am back at my desk, catching up on research or waiting for instructions that may or may not come.

In contrast, those working within law enforcement often refer to their world as “the sausage factory.” There is always another case coming down the line. The conveyor belt rarely slows. That constant pace brings its own challenges. But in academia, or in consultancy roles, the gaps can leave you wondering where you fit. The cases I get now are often the unusual ones. The ones that do not fit standard categories. The complex, the weird, the ones that require something different. I love that work. But it also means I live with a certain unpredictability.
And in those quieter stretches, something else can creep in.

Doubt.

When I am not actively working on a case, it is easy to start questioning my place. Am I still an investigator if I am not investigating right now? Am I falling behind? Am I still making a difference?

For those of us who also work in academia, the shift can feel even more jarring. There is still a strong perception in some circles that academic value is measured primarily through traditional research council funding, high-impact journal publications, and citation counts. These are often seen as the clearest signs of credibility, and while they matter, they do not tell the whole story.

The landscape is changing. The introduction of the Knowledge Exchange Framework and recent revisions to the Research Excellence Framework have begun to highlight the value of real-world application. Practical impact, policy influence, and community engagement now sit more visibly alongside conventional academic metrics. This is a welcome shift, particularly in applied fields like digital forensics, where the difference we make often lies in outcomes rather than output.
My own work is grounded in the development of tools, techniques, and systems that are used directly by investigators, often in fast-moving, high-pressure environments. Much of it is not suited to lengthy, theoretical papers. It is not always designed for open publication. But it is useful. It is needed. And it has helped to solve problems that mattered to real people.
I would rather publish occasionally and with purpose, focusing on making a difference on the ground, than publish for volume’s sake. I have seen how poorly constructed academic papers can damage trust with law enforcement and practitioners when they reflect a limited understanding of the field or overlook the realities of frontline work. That trust takes time to build, and it matters. It is something I try to protect.

Does that make me less of an academic? No.
Does it mean the imposter syndrome attacks from all sides? Absolutely.

Especially when you are neurodivergent, used to masking most of your life, and still learning how to advocate for a different kind of contribution … one that sits just outside the neat boxes people expect.
There have been times when I have taken on too much just to prove I still belong. But I am learning, slowly, that stepping back does not mean stepping out. That pauses do not invalidate the work. And that being different does not make you lesser. It just makes the path harder to explain to people who have never walked it.

Digital forensics, at its core, is often invisible to those outside it. That invisibility is partly by design. We work quietly, behind the scenes, and often under strict confidentiality. I do not share details. I do not describe cases. And I never will … unless I have explicit permission to do so, and even then, only carefully agreed details that are suitable for public sharing, often obfuscated to protect people, operations, and critical processes.

But the side effect of that professional silence is that very few people understand what this work actually involves. They may see the headlines or the court verdicts, but they do not see the process. They do not see the emotional weight of the work, the effort it takes to interpret and explain evidence clearly and ethically, or the hours spent immersed in someone else’s digital life, often at its most distressing.

This lack of visibility makes it harder to advocate for the support we need. It makes it harder to explain why forensic timelines sometimes take longer, why emotional recovery is not immediate, and why even highly trained professionals sometimes burn out without warning. From the outside, it can seem like we are simply analysing data. But what we are actually doing is rebuilding lives, behaviours, and moments of harm, often in painstaking detail, and often alone.

That is why it matters.

It matters for students considering this field. For organisations building support structures. For colleagues trying to understand each other. For clients, partners, and policy-makers who want to engage with digital evidence but may not fully understand what it costs to process it well.

So no, I will not share the details. But I will share this …. This work is hard. It is important. And it is not just about what we see. It is about what we carry!!!!!

Much of the public conversation around digital forensics focuses on policing. The people in uniform. The high-profile operations. The prosecution-led investigations. And while those roles are vital, they are not the whole picture.

There is an entire community of forensic professionals who work outside of law enforcement. Consultants, defence experts, civil investigators, intelligence analysts, and solo practitioners, each navigating the same digital spaces, often handling the same kinds of evidence, and carrying the same emotional toll.
But they do so with less visibility, less infrastructure, and often less support.

In my case, I do not often work for the defence, and I am not part of law enforcement. I contract as an independent expert. I work for justice. I support a wide range of clients, prosecution teams, inquiry bodies, civil investigators, and legal professionals, depending on what is needed, where the gaps are, and where I can make a difference. That flexibility is a strength, but it also means there is no single structure I fit into. And with that, comes a lack of formal support.

Defence experts work under tight deadlines and high stakes, sometimes receiving critical instructions days before a hearing. Civil investigators deal with issues ranging from safeguarding to workplace abuse, often without the formal protections of the criminal justice system. Solo practitioners balance the demands of casework, emotional labour, and running a business, with no wider team to fall back on. And those of us working across sectors, or in academia, often move between systems that are not built with us in mind.
We are not always included in national support conversations. We are rarely mentioned in public discussions about wellbeing in the justice system. But we are here. We contribute. And we are not immune to the consequences of the work.

In fact, the lack of structure around us can sometimes make the weight harder to carry.

This field needs all its voices, not just the loudest, or the most recognisable. It needs those working behind the scenes. The ones who step in at the eleventh hour. The ones who specialise in the edge cases. The ones who build tools, teach students, support investigations, or challenge assumptions. Not for praise. But because it matters.

If we want to improve support in this field, we need to make sure everyone is seen.

Over time, my role has changed. I still do the casework, the technical problem solving, and the research. But now I also lead a team. And with that comes a different kind of responsibility.

It is no longer just about managing my own wellbeing. It is about recognising the signs in others. Paying attention when someone goes quiet. Giving people permission to say that a case is affecting them without worrying it will be seen as weakness.

The people I work with are skilled, thoughtful, and often incredibly resilient. But resilience is not the absence of impact. It is how we move through the impact. And sometimes, it is how we recover after it.
One of the hardest things about leadership in this space is knowing that people do not always tell you when they are struggling. Especially if they care deeply about the work, or if they are the kind of person who naturally supports others. Often, by the time you notice the cracks, they have already been holding everything in for too long.

So I try to build space into our team culture. I slowly introduce new staff to casework and make sure they experience a range of different types. I check in not just on progress, but on people. I try to create teaching environments where students can learn the seriousness of the work without being overwhelmed by it. And I try to normalise asking for help, especially when the pressure builds quietly.

We have a custom lab space that reflects the nature of what we do. It is professional, but also human. There is space for fun, for creative teaching, and for moments of quiet when needed. There are breaks to walk, to reset, to grab an ice cream or just talk. Humour is part of our environment, not as a distraction, but as something that brings us together. We are serious about the work, but we do not lose sight of each other in the process.

Sherfox is not just a team. It is a community. And that community feels safe because we are held within a wider one. Being part of ECS matters. It gives us grounding and support and lets us be both different and deeply connected. We are not out on a limb. We are part of something.

It also makes a difference when someone in your world sees you for who you are, beyond the role. When there is someone who makes you smile, who you feel safe enough to be honest with, and who listens when you say things are getting heavy. Someone who values your wellbeing, both physical and emotional, and helps you protect others by quietly looking out for you too. That kind of connection changes things. It brings calm, perspective, and trust. And it reminds you that you do not have to carry everything alone.

There are moments in this work where the answers are not clear. Cases that get shelved. Evidence that remains incomplete. Victims whose stories never fully come to light. Sometimes, the only closure we get is knowing we did what we could, even if it wasn’t enough. But there are times when that “enough” feels too distant. And it stays with you. It echoes long after the work is done.

This field demands more than technical skill. It demands an emotional investment that no one prepares you for. We carry the stories of the people whose lives have been touched by crime, by harm, by technology’s quiet pervasiveness. And we do it without fanfare, often without gratitude, and sometimes without resolution.

I have learned to make peace with the fact that some cases will never have clear conclusions. Some things will stay unfinished. But that doesn’t make them any less important. The echoes of what we do, the impact, the ripples, the potential consequences, stay with us. They shape our decisions, our professional boundaries, and our humanity.

There are echoes, too, of the people we lose along the way. The colleagues who leave because the work became too heavy. The friends who quietly fade away because they cannot carry the weight. We may never know if we could have helped, or what might have been different. But that doesn’t mean the echoes of their absence don’t matter. We remember them in the quiet moments. In the stillness between cases. And in the way we try to be better, for those who come after.

In the end, what we do is not just about evidence … it’s about the people whose stories we piece together. It is about justice. And it’s about trying to make sure that, even if the echoes are faint, they still carry some truth.

I’m sharing this now because it feels like the right time. Because people are breaking. Because I’ve lost too many colleagues to burnout, to silence, to the weight of this work. I’ve seen too many people quietly unravel, without the support they needed. And I cannot help but wonder if things could have been different …. if we’d all spoken up sooner, if we’d all been braver about saying, “This is harder than it looks.”

It is time to start the conversation. It is time to recognise the emotional cost of this work, to acknowledge the toll it takes on our wellbeing, and to begin building a system that doesn’t just expect us to cope, but supports us in doing so.

I use my advisory roles to highlight the struggles people are facing and what they are saying on the ground. We use our voices through presentations, podcasts, and articles.

Forensic Focus, in collaboration with Paul Gullon-Scott, is working on important pieces that bring these issues to light. We are committed to being the voice for those who cannot speak up, ensuring they are heard.

But it’s critical to recognise the entire digital forensics community, not just law enforcement. While LE faces challenges and inconsistent support, solo traders and commercial organisations often have none at all. These professionals, often isolated, are just as much a part of the community. The justice system needs contributions from both sides, and many industries rely on digital forensics expertise.

I’m proud to be part of the team bringing the symposium “Beyond the Screen: Safeguarding the Minds Behind Digital Forensic Investigations” to the Forensic Psychology Conference in Glasgow this July. The work of Digital Forensic Investigators (DFIs) is crucial in detecting, investigating, and prosecuting complex crimes. Without their expertise, many offences would go unnoticed, and offenders would operate unchecked.

DFIs must be supported, not just in law enforcement but across the wider community. Whether in solo practice, commercial organisations, or academia, they face immense challenges and often lack adequate support systems. Their well-being must be prioritised to ensure their continued contribution to the justice system.