Columbine 15 years later: PTSD and me

I did something I know I shouldn't have done. I was warned not to do it by good friends and family who knew better.

But I really couldn't help it, and I literally could not not do it.

I watched the two episodes of Grey's Anatomy where there was a shooter on the loose in the hospital.

Now, that may sound silly to some, but I'll try to explain more.

I'm writing this in January, not actually today as the 15th anniversary creeps up on me. Every year since 2007 I've taken time on the 20th to write about my feelings of the anniversary. I try to be real and honest and uplifting and positive. I write about my memories and feelings that I don't want to forget. And this is my reality of my day to day feelings because of what happened to me.

But I'm writing this now, because my feelings are so raw and they are real for me right now in this very moment in January, not April, because the reality is, feelings and emotions come and go not only in April, but whenever they very well please.

I originally was going to post this on April 20th.

But then I realized that Easter falls on April 20th this year and I feel like I have other thoughts and feelings I'd rather express on that day.

I'm no expert but I think I suffer from some sort of PTSD. I think it's gotten worse over the years as our world has gotten scarier and more shootings have happened.

 I used to say that "Columbine" wouldn't define who I am, but in a way, it does. Not completely. I don't think my whole existence is based around what happened that day, but if I'm being honest, it does define me just a little. And that's just me being honest.

I will never know if what happened to me that day and the days and months and weeks and years later truly changed my path or my personality, or what I feel and what I believe. 

Would I be so paranoid? Would news of shootings cause me to react as much as they do now? I will never know, so I really believe that what happened to me did change me, and shape me into who I am, for better or for worse.

Would watching an episode of a fictional television show send me into an emotional tail spin had I not gone through a school shooting myself?

Why am I even asking these questions? I don't really know, but I feel like I need to believe that I am this way because of my life experiences, and that it's okay to stand up and fully embrace the fact that I suffer from PTSD.

Even 15 years later.

 A few days ago after I watched those shows, the thought came to me that if I had been in counseling all these years, would I still suffer like this? And then it hit me that it had been 15 years.

15 years. Exactly half my life. That's a huge pill to swallow. It sounds like so many years, has it really been that long?

To record my feelings about Grey's Anatomy I have to say that I should not have watched those episodes. 

My friend and sister were right, I should have skipped them. But I chose not to, I was trying to be strong and I was a little curious about it, so I chose to watch them.

I have to say that I can typically watch shows and movies with gun violence without reacting poorly. But only if it is far-fetched, or action packed or something like that.

 But when it is a show depicting something that parallels Columbine, that's when my feelings and emotions kick in and I can't control it.

With Grey's, they showed people having a normal morning, not knowing what was about to happen {like I did}people hiding in closets {like I did}, people screaming, and scrambling around, someone who died from his wounds because they couldn't get him help in time, the police not immediately rushing in to find the shooter, people not knowing what was going on. 

All those things are things that my classmates and teachers went through, and more. It felt so real. 

It brought so  many feelings to the surface.

So there I sat in our living room floor, folding laundry { the girls were in bed and AJ wasn't home, if he had been, he would not have let me watch it} painfully making myself continue on watching those two episodes. 

And to be blunt, I cried ugly, I literally sobbed into my hands the entire time, gasping for breath and basically traumatizing myself.

 I felt physically ill and my tummy hurt and I felt like I needed to throw up, I literally couldn't move and I couldn't even find it in me to stand up after it was over. So there I sat.

 My body reacted in a way that even I didn't know it could.

I couldn't sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes I replayed different scenes in my head, I thought about how much fear they must have had {yes, this being a television show}and then I remembered how it affected me.

Sometimes I think that I shouldn't feel like this anymore. I shouldn't let things like this bother me, I shouldn't be reacting this way. But what do I know? What do others know? School shootings, and the way it affects survivors has yet to be seen and known, at least in the long, long run.

So I just have to accept that this is part of who I am.  So yes, It does define me a little bit.

 But what also defines me is my faith. My values. My choices. My family.

And it's okay that being in a school shooting when I was 15, hearing gun shots, seeing gun smoke feet away from me, feeling scared, hiding in a closet, running for my life and all the crap that happened after, has defined who I am.

I might never be able to watch certain shows or movies. I will always look over my shoulder when I enter a store, or walk to my car. I will always watch people carefully and make a quick plan of action in my head when I go out in public. I will always react to terrible news of other shootings in ways I can't predict. 

It's been 15 years and the way I feel and think about it has changed, and evolved and I've taken steps forward and then ten steps backward. I can't be ashamed that this is part of me.

These were taken last fall outside Columbine when we went to my little brother's cross country end of the year awards ceremony.

My high school means more to me than it might mean to a person who never went though the things I went though.

Columbine High School is a part of me. And I'm proud of that.