By Elayne Savage, PhD
I don’t cry easily. And yet, I find myself sobbing each time one of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High survivors describes their experience of the rampage. Or when I hear one of the parents describe losing their child.
During the President’s recent “Listening Session“ when student Sam Zeif described, thinking he was going to die, making calls to his parents and brothers to say goodbye. I sobbed.
When he implored, “I want to feel safe at school” I sobbed.
When I heard Meadow Pollack’s dad Andrew lament, "I'm never gonna see my kid again. Never ever will I see my kid. She's not here. She's not here. She's at King David Cemetery. That's where I go to see my kid." I sobbed.
When Nicole Hockley, the mother of 6-year-old Dylan who was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School with 19 other children and six staff members spoke, “You don't want to be me. No parent does." I sobbed.
I’m heartbroken to hear about the deaths and injuries from this latest school shooting. I’m also aware that with each mass massacre there is a stockpiling of fear: “How did this happen?” Will our children be safe?” “What do we tell the children? And our most primitive fear: “What’s going to happen to me?"
Each new fear-inducing traumatic situation can bring on a kind of PTSD - the spurts of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol that are activated by the amygdala and repeatedly result in fight, flight or freeze reactions during a new experience . . . and these often repeat over the course of our lives.
Many times we don’t even exactly know what sets it off, but there it is.
Here’s how it works: According to neuroscience the human brain has a special file to store memories that are linked to strong emotions.
The amygdala is the processing center for emotional responses. During a traumatic event it screens and files the information your five senses take in.
Think of it this way: The amygdala time-and-date-stamps certain sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and touch and stores it for safe-keeping.
When certain powerful memories are triggered by a specific cue there may be an emotional or body reaction. Often we don’t realize what prompts us to get so upset and it turns out it is some kind of stored memory,
More about how anxiety and the stress hormones affect both children and adults:
https://www.heysigmund.com/anxiety-children-metaphor-put-shoes-right-beside/
Prior to this latest mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I remember being hugely affected by three chilling massacres of students in grade school, high school and college.
One was perpetrated by an adult, the others by present or past students of each school
Cleveland Elementary School
The Cleveland Elementary Schoolyard massacre in Stockton CA occurred in 1989.
Patrick Purdy, a drifter, in spite of a long criminal history purchased an AK-47, dressed in combat gear and entered the school playground.
He killed five children and wounded 32 others before killing himself. This felt too close to home since Stockton is less than two hours away.
Columbine High School
Next I vividly remember Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 where two seniors murdered 12 students and one teacher, and injuring 21. The shooting rampage lasted just under one hour.
Columbine has become a PTSD replay for me. each new school mass murder adds another layer.
My memory of the events of Columbine are not only of the nightmare of the rampage and deaths that day, but I also have returning memories of when I went on the air long into the night and into the morning for almost five hours with a Denver radio host.
Together we tried to try to help residents make sense of the tragedy. To help them deal with the overwhelming anguish. To listen to their fears.
Callers jammed the phone lines, desperate to understand what had just happened in their community. Why did it happen? How did it happen? And many wondered: "What will become of us?"
The radio host wanted me to stay on with him for another hour or two. I just couldn't. After almost five hours I was emotionally spent. Listening to so much fear in their voices hour after hour was too much for me. I became numb.
This experience shook me to my core. And I'm still deeply affected. Each time there is another school massacre, my reaction is visceral and I go back to that place of hearing each story of panic and fear. This feeling seems to stockpile from new episode to new episode.
Through writings of the shooters and peer reporting we learned the killings are in part the result of the rejection these two students felt from classmates. Being teased, taunted and ostracized for being 'different.' They felt there were injustices done.
A friend says the two would often joke about getting revenge, saying, "It’s time to get back at the school.” A peer continues, “They were tired of those who were insulting them, harassing them. They weren’t going to take this anymore, and they wanted to stop it.”
Dylan Klebold was described as a shy, quiet loner with few friends.
He wrote about killing himself.
Eric Harris once wrote: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so
many fun things."
Because they felt so tormented by peers they made a plan: They armed themselves with a 9-mm semi-automatic handgun, a sawed off 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, a carbine rifle, and a sawed off 12-gauge pump shotgun. There were a total of 188 rounds fired. There were pipe bombs and knives too.
They “got revenge” by tormenting students and teachers for almost an hour. Then they both committed suicide.
“Don’t Fear Change. Change Fear”
Virginia Tech
Then came the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007.
Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, used a 22-caliber Walther semi-automatic pistol to kill 32 people wound 17 others, in two separate attacks two hours apart. Then killed himself.
At the time, it was the deadliest shooting carried out by a single gunman in U.S. history.
Again, I gave a difficult interview for a Bay Area TV newscast aimed at helping folks understand how this killing could have happened. You can imagine how challenging this interview became as déjà vu memories of Columbine played in my head.
The newscaster handed me two plays by Seung-Hui Cho. At the time, we knew very little about the killer or about what happened. The video tapes he had sent to NBC before the killing had not yet been released. I'm always careful not to speculate when I don't have enough facts in front of me.
I did, however have his two plays in front of me, Eight pages each. I remember gasping at the grisly themes: one play described plotting with friends to kill an abusive teacher and the other about a 13 year old boy attempting to kill his sexually abusive step-father.
All too often school violence happens when someone feels repeatedly bullied, abused and ostracized by peers. Then at some point a few decide they are "just not going to take it anymore.”
Perhaps their misery is so great they contemplate killing themselves. Perhaps with their fuzzy thinking, killing others gives them reason to kill themselves. Or to let police bullets do it for them.
More on the Virginia Tech killer and Ostracism:
It’s Not Easy Being Green - The Heartache of Being ‘Different’
Sandy Hook Elementary School
In 2012 the horror of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut unfolded. After killing his mother, Adam Lanza grabbed three semi-automatic firearms. Then the former Sandy Hook student stormed the classrooms of 6 and 7 year olds.
Teachers ushered their students into closets and bathrooms, but 20 children and six staff members. were killed.
Then Lanza killed himself. The rampage lasted 11 minutes.
Adam Lanza was described as isolated and reclusive with an obsession about mass murders. During his days as a student at Sandy Hook he was reportedly abused and beaten so often by classmates that his mother considered filing a lawsuit. Maybe this was because he was 'different' because of his autism.
He had reportedly said he planned to kill his mother and Sandy Hook children four years before he killed them.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
And most recently the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where on Valentines Day former student, Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and teachers with an AR-15 semi automatic rifle. Fourteen more were hospitalized.
The shooting lasted 6 minutes. Cruz was arrested just over an hour later. after visiting Subway and McDonalds.
We know a little about reports of Cruz being bullied, that he was described as a ‘loner’ and that he posted on Instagram that he planned to shoot up the school. I’m wondering what else we will learn about experiences of bullying or ostracism.
As I wrote earlier, I don’t cry easily but this most recent rampage feels especially gut-wrenching. I feel such a great sadness when I hear about children dying this way. And each new happening brings new sadness that builds on all these earlier experiences of heartbreak and loss. The sense of communal sadness and grieving helps some.
Often it helps me process these kinds of overwhelming happenings by researching and writing. But the writing doesn’t stop the tears. Only stopping the killings can do that . . .
These are the students who were killed in their classrooms:
Killed at Cleveland Elementary School
Killed at Columbine High School
Killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School
Killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
©Elayne Savage, PhD
Until next month . . .
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking relationship books published in 9 languages.
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