Virginia Tech Community
Gerry Griffith
The group that we order some of our training video's from sent the following
letter today regarding the shootings at Virginia Tech. I hope that her
words validate what you have learned during your trainings and experiences
and that it supports your own journey of fitting this event into your
personal view of life and the world.
Gerry
Dear Friends:
One of Gift From Within's board members, Dr. Beverly Anderson sent this to
me to share with our members and friends. Regards, Joyce
A Note of Healing to the Virginia Tech Community
From Dr. Beverly Anderson
Metropolitan Police Department
Washington, DC
As a trauma therapist, mother of four, and cancer survivor, I send my
deepest sympathies. I believe that this event is life-changing for all
involved. As much as parents and students may want to "put it away" and
"get away from it," there will be a "new normal."....one that is yet to be
created.
Healing and recovery is not an "event" but a process and a journey. It
takes time. For students, survivors, and their families an emotional roller
coaster now prevails. The trauma is engrafted in their minds with more
vividness and clarity than most of their happiest of times. The initial
shock and horror gives way to emotional numbness followed by bouts of tears
and disbelief. We doubt all of our assumptions that we held onto prior to
the trauma. We cannot be the same person, but don't know who will be. We
pray that it is all a bad dream....one that we will wake up from....only to
find that, sadly, it is not.
Whatever innocence we had before the trauma is gone in the wake of this
horrible tragedy. Our faith in God is tested. Our world and our future is
changed as the assumptions we held dear are shattered along with our sense
of safety, security, and predictability. The world as we knew it is changed.
The sense of predictability that brought order to our lives is gone.
This act was not an accident; it wasn't an act of nature....it was of human
design born of an evil and twisted mind.
As parents, we send our children off to college to provide a marvelous
opportunity to grow and to learn in an atmosphere of safety. The most basic
role of any parent is to keep our children safe. Now, even that has been
ripped away and we will suffer yet another wound. Truly, this is insult
added to injury.
What we can and must do is respect the enormity of what has happened. We
cannot escape from it, we must honor its place in our "world view." We must
talk about it and weave its meaning into the very tapestry of our lives.
It¹s okay to cry. The tears that you cry are a respectful remembrance of
those poor souls who lost their lives to this senseless tragedy. It's okay
to be afraid. Parents cannot "fix it" or deny that it happened. We must
face it. In the words of Maya Angelou,
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but, if faced with
courage, need not be lived again.
Reach out to your support system and talk about your feelings and fears.
Healing is about talking and crying; it's about giving ourselves permission
to grieve the victims and our loss of safety. Healing is a journey that
begins with the decision by each of us that we will heal. Survival and
healing is the very essence of who we are and who we will be. Our attitudes
will create the climate for healing to take place. If we see ourselves as
"victims" we will be victims.
Emily Dickinson wrote: Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
Decide that something positive will emerge out of this nightmare.
Cultivate persistence and perseverance and trust that God will help you
through these very dark moments.
Human beings have survived horrendous moments throughout history, through
wars and massacres from the Holocaust through the Terrorist Attacks of
September 11th. To survive is to triumph over evil. Let me leave you with
the words of A. Powell Davies, a Unitarian minister:
There is a light within each of us that need never entirely go out. We can
lose the battles, but not the war. We can go on when our minds tell us that
there is no point in going on- because something deep inside tells us we can
go on. And we do.
Beverly
Gift From Within- PTSD Resources for Survivors and Health Professionals
<http://www.giftfromwithin.org/
l6 Cobb Hill Road
Camden, ME 04843 USA
207 236-8858 ph
207 236-2818 fax
Please be aware that the materials on this website are intended for
educational purposes. This is not meant to replace or act as a substitute
for the care and advice given to you by your own clinician or mental health
counselor.
Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
Franz Kafka
--
We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we
really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we
cannot. -- Eleanor Roosevelt