'Over the past 10 years, I have struggled with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. I'm afraid of loud noises, and I startle when I hear a door slam, or a hydro flask fall ... This is my life as a gun violence survivor.'
Good Morning America
I still struggle as a teenager to understand why I survived. Nobody expects something this tragic to happen to them, and when it does it makes you feel guilty. But I'm here to tell you NOT to do that. Those years of emotions and hidden feelings have to come out eventually, and when they do it's exhausting and overwhelming. You're allowed to have emotions. It's human, and going through something traumatic almost requires you to have emotions.
After losing someone, everything is either a blur or you'll be able to remember things extremely vividly. In my case, I still remember sitting on the floor in the choir room closet, still in lockdown at my school. I remember being told that Jackie had passed, everything was a blur after that. Not all families will agree on some things, and that's OK. Some relationships don't last, and some people may drift apart, but that's one of the unfortunate effects trauma has on us.
You can see the best and the worst of people. You'll never be the same, but you'll learn to live with this. Quite honestly, I'm not there yet, but with all the support from people that love you, you'll get there eventually. Over the years, I have found, there are good days and bad days. However, with the proper therapy and finding a good support network, I am able to exist in my "new normal". I hope that this letter offers insight and comfort in this time of unknown turmoil and hardship, among many other things.
While you navigate the aftermath of what has happened, you will encounter times where you wish you had advice or someone who could shed light on something that you are struggling with. I remember those times all too well and hope that these things I learned can assist you in your healing journey. The first thing that I wish someone had told me was that everyone grieves differently and there is no correct way to work through your healing journey.
I'm writing to you because I understand what you're going through and how you're feeling. At my school I had to jump out of a window and run for my life. I sat with friends as we wondered what would happen to us, and if we would make it out alive. I was you, and I'm here for you. It helps to connect with other survivors though. Being able to connect with other people that didn't look at me with sympathy, and judgment. People who were me months ago or years ago. People like us. It is the best feeling to have a conversation with someone you just met for hours, because they understand. Everything.
When this happened, I was just about to turn 11. I was devastated and destroyed, but I was also in a state of denial for a long time, especially because I was so young. My cousins became my best friends, taking me shopping and to the movies, and my aunt moved in with us for a long time. Mark and Jackie Barden hug their daughter Natalie before she goes to school, May 23, 2013, in Newtown, Conn.The shooting and growing up in a sort of spotlight gave me a lot of anxiety as well, which I still have to this day.
Natalie Barden's 7-year-old brother Daniel was killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.People often ask me about what it was like to go through something like that. Though I understand the question, I feel like I didn't go through it, but am still going through it every day.
Even though my injury is permanent I was somehow able to come to terms with it immediately because I learned that one of the girls who died was also shot in the same place I was but she bled internally. I realized that I was getting a second chance at life and the fact that I was paralyzed was nothing compared to what could have happened. I could have died that day.
I realized that even when bad things happen in this world there are still good things out there. Also, watching my twin sister be a teenager and live her life made me focus on recovering from my injury and getting back to life, not letting that day control me. I have little to offer you but a checklist of sorts. Lists help my brain process things. I hope it helps yours too.
I hope you're upset. I hope you're angry. I hope you know your voice and actions matter. I'm not just going to tell you to vote harder -- It's clearly not working. I escaped physically uninjured, but that only increased my feelings of guilt -- guilt for not only surviving but also for struggling as much as I did. I told myself all kinds of things to minimize my trauma -- I didn't lose a loved one, I hadn't been shot, I wasn't in the library where many of the murders took place.
As a senior, we never went back, we never had to, so this would be my first time back in the school aside from getting my school supplies just weeks after the shooting. I was anxious and terrified, certain I was making a mistake going back into that building.My classmates and I honored and mourned for the 13 when Frank read the names at 11:21 a.m., something he does annually.
They know my story, though I started out telling them my history purely because I wanted them to take the drills seriously. However, in me being vulnerable and open with them, I opened the lines of communication and became the trusted adult for many of them. In fact, they gave me feedback while I was drafting this letter.
One of the many lessons I've learned in the years following the shooting at Columbine High School, and during my recovery, is that trauma is not a competition. My experience is my own, different from others, and it is valid. Another is that I will never be the same person I was before April 20, 1999, and that's okay.
Mandy Jenkins, left, and her twin sister Missy Jenkins Smith are survivors of the 1997 shooting at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky.The doctor in the emergency room would find the bullet inside her shirt. We would soon find out that Missy was paralyzed from the chest down, or a T4 level. The shooting still impacts me today by watching my sister at age 40 struggle to get around as her arms and shoulders have endured injuries and she has arthritis that causes her constant pain. We had no idea that this was in her future. She has already gone through so much and to see her struggle like this just seems cruel and unfair.There will come a day where you will fear that people will forget what happened to you.
My name is Isabelle Laymance. I am 19 years old and I survived the Santa Fe High School shooting in May 2018. Days after my school shooting, I started therapy to help cope with the anxiety, trauma, depression, guilt, and PTSD. My family started counseling as well, shortly after I did. Since I was going through so much on my end, I never really noticed that my family was also affected from the event. My mother was better at hiding her emotions than my father. He actually showed signs of trauma as well.
Mourners pray around a memorial in front of Santa Fe High School on May 21, 2018 in Santa Fe, Texas. In May 18, 2018, 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis entered the school with a shotgun and a pistol and opened fire, killing 10 people.From one survivor to another, going through a traumatic event, especially one like this, will be one of the biggest challenges in your life.
Brandon Abzug is a survivor of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.I would like to share with you a short story. Over the years it has become a favorite of mine. You are at a crossroads in your life, where your childhood and innocence are now intersecting with the more difficult and serious realities of life. Your naivete may dissipate, but I urge that you never lose an unwavering optimism that the world can and will be improved.
In the days and weeks after Columbine, I was 14 years old sleeping in between my parents with my shoes on. I felt like I always needed to be ready for the "what if'' scenarios because I never thought something like this could ever happen to me. My form of guilt came from the inability to hug my mom and dad. It wasn't that I felt like they "didn't get" it or they "didn't understand". It was because there were other parents out there that would never hug their children again. I felt guilty for receiving love and comfort and I wish that someone would have told me, it is OK to hug your loved ones. Hold each other tight because love and comfort are going to be a huge part of your recovery process.
A resource I found was peer support. Because of what I have been through, I searched for others like me and found The Rebels Project. Nicole Melchionno, pictured as a child, is a survivor of the Dec. 14, 2012, deadly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School din Newtown, Conn.Over the years, as I think about what happened over and over, I learn to grasp a better understanding of it and how to move on while growing around this scarring event that has changed my identity. I no longer let it define me.
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