SAFER SCHOOLS NEWS-VOL. 6

The Last Shot Fired
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
The Wound that Won’t Stop Hurting!

The woman walked confidently into the Pawn Shop and asked to see a specific handgun that was on display. The manager handed it to her and stepped away to help another customer. The sound of the gun going off startled everyone in the store. No one could imagine that she had brought bullets with her, loaded the gun and shot herself in the head. Carla Hochhalter’s daughter, Anne Marie, had been shot and left paralyzed six months earlier in the parking lot of her High School. The Columbine shooters had claimed another victim from their own graves.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a wound as surely as the gunshots themselves. The hard part is that we can’t see who was hit. Even the one affected, quite often does not realize what is wrong.  To make matters worse, it often shows up long after the incident is past. The good news is that there is hope, but it lies in understanding the problem.

The young girl will not go to bed at night. She is getting little sleep and her grades have taken a nose dive. Her parents help her struggle with the fear. She is afraid that if she sleeps, she will have that dream again. The one where she hears the shots, the screams the police cars. “I wasn’t even hit, so why does it still hurt so bad, Mom?” She is still a victim from Jonesboro, Springfield, Pearl, or one of the other schools that suffered such violence. Maybe she is your daughter or your student.

To Learn more…  FREE Knowledge Base Center (Parent’s Corner)
PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (info)