Westword article

Here's an article I got interviewed for. Print version will be out tomorrow.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Great article. It is nice to hear from many different survivors and sad to see how many are still affected. I thought this was very well written and did not notice until the end that it was written by Alan Prendergast. No surprise there.

Also if it is not too creepy, I really like your living room

Thank you for sharing!!!

Really enjoyed reading the article. Thanks for posting it.

Amanda, thanks for working with me on it!!!

It's a great article. Thank you for sharing your story [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Yumeko-chan wrote:

Here's an article I got interviewed for.  Print version will be out tomorrow.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Amazing article Amanda!!! :hugs:

This was a great article, but upsetting at the same time. Especially Amanda's comment about people expecting her to "get over it" just because it has been a certain amount of time since the event.

I've been trying to put my thoughts in order with regard to why that bothers me so much. And I think it's not just because some idiot, who could never even conceive of being witness to that kind of horror, makes a comment which basically dismisses that trauma.
I think it's the broader concept that everyone expects everyone else to respond a certain way in a certain amount of time. As Amanda mentioned, Columbine victims who were not physically injured basically got ignored after a while, as though their emotional/psychic pain wasn't as significant as that of those with bullet wounds. Why are those two groups even being compared?

Why do we have to measure who has "the right" to be traumatized and for how long they can remain so? Shouldn't it be obvious that people are different? That some people feel things more deeply, while others feel things less? Why are people expected to rush themselves through a recovery process or be told they can no longer discuss fears/ feelings related to an event just because that event occurred "X" amount of time ago?

Everybody deals with things in their own way and in their own time. Some people are better at it than others or have better access to tools that can smooth their recovery for them. Some people are unable to reach out, especially right away after the trauma, as mentioned by several of the people in the article.
It frustrates me that our empathy for people who are struggling seems to have an expiration date. It frustrates me that we have expectations of how someone should react to something and if they fail to meet those expectations we judge them for it.
<rant over>

It was nice to read of the ways in which survivors use Columbine to help them appreciate life and other people more, and how despite the lasting trauma from the attack they are managing to find happiness in their lives.

I have a friend who is a survivor and she told me that her mother did ask a couple years later why she wasn’t over it yet. It’s really surprising how people seem to think you can just get over it. It’s always going to be a part of you.

I was a teenager when it happened and didn’t even live in the area and it still effects me in a certain way. It’s like the ripple effect.