TRIGGER WARNING: SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
This is Memorial Day weekend, and many families plan on grilling and being outside finally after many weeks of being “safe at home.” There are plans for yard games and opening pools and having social distancing get-togethers and celebrations of the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. This weekend is an American tradition.
But trauma does not care about your traditions. Trauma does not care that this weekend is supposed to be fun and relaxing and full of open houses and graduation parties and remembering and honoring the fallen soldiers who died for our country. Trauma sits its unwelcome ass right down in the middle of the party and demands attention. Trauma is a party pooper.
Memorial Day weekend for my family and many in my community, is still a weekend where our bodies and brains remember the trauma of May 25th, 2018. That was a crazy Friday when we sent our middle schoolers to school one sunny spring morning. By 9:30 our worlds stopped because a 7th-grade boy brought firearms to school to, in his own words, “kill as many kids as possible.” My trauma was experiencing the horror of knowing that I had two children trying to survive a school shooting and I had no control.
For me, it was a crazy week. We were supposed to have signed paperwork and bought a house the day before, but due to complications from banks, it was postponed a week. Our belongings were on a moving truck. We were staying at my sister’s house. That Friday morning I had awakened and sent my 3 boys off to school with their father who would drop them off and head to work. I stayed with our young daughter and puppy, enjoying coffee and getting ready for the day. My phone rang at 9:11 am. It was from an unknown number. I usually do not answer unknown numbers but I was awaiting calls from real estate agents and folks to update me on my belongings in my moving truck. So I answered.
“Mom, there is a shooter at school and I’m running. I'm so scared.”
“That’s not funny.”
(Fourteen-year-olds are not always the best judges of what is a joke and appropriate topics or timing. I thought this was a blunder. I hoped this was a blunder.)
“Mom I’m running in a field with other kids from gym. It’s my friend’s phone. We are headed to the golf course. I don’t see my brother. I don’t know where my brother is. I'm so scared.”
I don't remember the rest of the conversation. I remember feelings and sobs and using words, but not what exactly was said.
I can only write about my own experience since my boys own their own stories and they can tell it as they see fit. What I can tell you is the last two years has been a whole experience for everyone in learning how to live with trauma from that day. One child processes the day from his perspective of running away from what untold horror a child imagines is happening behind him, and the other processes from his experience of shelter in place and barricading the classroom door and readying his 12-year-old mind to throw uncased Ipads at whoever was coming through the door to shoot him. Thanks to the bravery and quick thinking of a 7th-grade teacher who was able to subdue the shooter after being shot himself, none of those fears became reality.
Here is the thing about trauma: it never looks the same on any two people. It is unique in how it manifests, so sometimes it is challenging to identify. What made it even more
challenging was trying to understand why some students were having lingering effects from the day and some did not. These reactions can be attributed to the individual’s window of tolerance.
As a therapist I was very familiar with how trauma works and what to expect. However even with all the knowledge, I still felt like I could be losing my grip.
We were lucky to have resources available to us for trauma-focused therapy for members of the family who needed and wanted it. We learned that the body remembers, so when my son would try to run for fun he might have a sudden feeling of dread, and that was due to trauma. My sons learned that any school bells for a while may trigger anxiety since that is how they learned about the shooter in their school. Loud noises in school hallways may echo like screaming children running that dreadful day. For me, any helicopter sounds instantly would take me back to driving to find my kids as news and police helicopters descended on the scene. EMDR Trauma therapy (to learn more you can read here: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/treatments/eye-movement-reprocessing) was helpful to some of us while Emotions Focused talk style therapy was helpful to others of us. We learned to practice grounding techniques and how to find safety at the moment. But each of us learned that we had to focus on our bodies if we wanted our response to those stimuli to calm down. Reactions to sounds that were similar to the day of the shooting were our bodies’ way of protecting us. We only needed assistance in adjusting the emergency alert systems in our brains! We are able to process the experience from a trauma-informed approach, and we still practice techniques to self-soothe and de-stress.
As for anniversaries, dates of traumatic events can reactivate thoughts and feelings from the actual day, and we may experience peaks of anxious feelings and sadness.
Reliving the feelings associated with the traumatic event is just part of the healing process. Some survivors may feel emotions as the anniversary date nears include difficulty concentrating, loss of appetite, irritable outbursts, nightmares, difficulty falling or staying asleep and feelings of detachment from others.
Remember how earlier I said trauma is a party pooper. Well, it doesn't have to be the center of attention. We can learn to place trauma in the role of an obligatory invite who eventually gets relegated to the outer periphery of the party since it offers nothing valuable in that setting.
The American Psychological Association has the following suggestions for survivors around the anniversary dates of the event:
Recognize and acknowledge feelings you may experience. Understand that your feelings are part of the recovery process.
Find healthy ways to cope with your distress. Share memories and feelings with someone you trust or just spend time with friends and family. Activities that allow your mind to focus on something other than these memories are a good coping strategy for some people. Contemplative activities like reading, thinking, or just taking a walk are also good approaches. Avoid negative ways to cope such as drinking or using drugs.
Remember and celebrate the lives of your loved ones. Anniversaries of a lost loved one can be a difficult time for friends and family, but it can also be a time for remembrance and honoring them. It may be that you decide to collect donations to a favorite charity of the deceased, passing on a family name to a baby or planting a garden in memory. What you choose is up to you, as long as it allows you to honor that unique relationship in a way that feels right to you.
Use your support system. Reach out to friends and family. Don’t isolate yourself.
For my family, Non “therapy” resources that were helpful to us were mindfulness meditation and yoga. With the therapy, simple daily practices, patience, time, and support from loved ones, we were able to bounce back and continue growing as a family. We are not all completely healed yet. To this day, one of us often has memory or sensation that we process with each other. Although we do not get stuck anymore, we do remember. We can remember it from a distance now, and time and healing allow that. We can lean on each other, use our new coping skills, remember we are safe, use butterfly hugs (you can see that technique here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGJrqscvtU) with alternative tapping to remember where we are, we have the gift of space and time between us and that terrible day. Trauma is an unwelcome guest at my cook-out this weekend, but today we are able to acknowledge its presence, and send it off at the end and hope it had a crappy time this year and will seriously consider bouncing out earlier next year. In any case, we will be ready.
*Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT is a licensed mental health therapist. Alexa enjoys providing individual counseling and family counseling. She also provides play therapy for children, as well as teen and adolescent counseling via telehealth or in office.
Alexa's practice serves the Indianapolis area, including Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield. Learn more at AlexaGTherapy.com
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