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How did senior students at Columbine High School feel on September 11, 2001?

The shooting at Columbine and the 9/11 terrorist attacks are both great tragedies all by themselves. However, for the students at Columbine who were seniors when 9/11 happened were also the freshmen there when the shooting occurred. So for these teenagers in particular, I feel like it must have been a double dose of tragedy, as well as Deja Vu for them when the announcement of the planes hitting the World Trade Center came on September 11, 2001.

Posted - April 19, 2019
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Responses


  • 46117
    Sorry.  No can relate to this.    I mean why not equate any two tragedies that may affect someone.  I prefer to focus on things that are TRAGIC RIGHT NOW.  We do not have to look backward to find any tragedy. Thanks to the White House and the people, the so-called ADIMINSTRATION,  causing Columbine after Columbine to happen along with disasters worse than 911,  every day is a new tragedy.  Why drum up something so esoteric as that idea? This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at October 23, 2020 8:49 PM MDT
      April 20, 2019 1:09 AM MDT
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  • 7939
    Interesting premise. 

    To a certain extent, your idea is backed by research. To lay the groundwork there, trauma can be defined as any event the individual does not have the skills and resources to cope with. Trauma is the foundation of a whole host of mental health issues. It's safe to say that the shooting was "traumatic" for most of the people there. 

    But, then we have to look at the individual personalities and thought processes. Resilient kids wouldn't have been impacted to the same degree by the shooting. What's resilience? In short, it comes down to a belief that we influence our environments and have control over our world. People with the opposite beliefs, or a sense of helplessness, are more prone to depression and other issues. 

    Ergo, resilient kids, though they may have experienced trauma, will bounce back. Odds are improved when they have access to resources after. A resilient kid would be more likely to see the shooting as an isolated incident and to take steps to control the environment after. They might become advocates for change or funnel their energy into something positive. For example, I recently read the community held a food packing meeting- to send meals to starving kids in other countries. That's resilient behavior. 

    The less resilient kids with helpless mindsets would see the world as unpredictable, harsh, and uncontrollable. They would not funnel energy into something positive, but would likely turn their feelings inward. They'd avoid social contact and would not attempt to change things.

    Arguably, the vast majority of people can weather a single traumatic incident, but it really depends on how severe the trauma is and what their mindset is before the trauma. For example, two kids with the same level of resilience and similar personalities would have different outcomes depending on where they were during the shooting. A child who didn't see the carnage and wasn't friends with anyone there would, under this premise, cope better than the child who watched his teacher or friend get gunned down. But, if we flip it, and we place a non-resilient child in a "safe zone" during the shooting and a resilient child near the carnage, the non-resilient one could well have a worse outcome. 

    Welcome to the nature versus nurture debate. 

    But, now, we're throwing a second tragedy on top of the first, and statistically, experiencing a second trauma increases the likelihood of suffering adverse effects. The question is, was 9/11 "traumatic?" For most, it probably was. But, again, we have to look at the individual, the level of trauma, and the personality/ resilience levels. We can use a similar scenario. Two similar kids live through 9/11, but one had family and friends in one of the buildings and the other did not. The first is more likely to have more trouble coping. Flip it and make the kid with no ties to it be less resilient, that child may have a harder time coping.  

    Ergo, most kids from that class, given that it was a secondary trauma for most, would have viewed the events in the same light. Further proof that the world is uncontrollable and harsh. The more resilient kids and those with access to resources would not have painted the events in the same light. They would have seen them as unrelated events. 

    Neither is wrong or right. It's more a statement of the human mind. 

    Anyway, that's my take on it. 
      April 20, 2019 12:28 PM MDT
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  • 10052
    Love reading your replies to questions like this, JA. 

    Resilience is something that I'm especially intrigued by. Your brief definition above is interesting. Do you think that it's more influenced by nature or nurture? 
      April 21, 2019 8:50 AM MDT
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  • 7939
    Thank you. 

    I don't think we can separate nature and nurture. It's both. In some cases, it may lean one way or the other as to which is the predominant factor, but I think it really depends on the individual. 

    We can link resilience to a host of biological processes and changes in brain structure. For example, serotonin is linked with depression and well-being. Those with low serotonin are more-likely to engage in self-defeating thought processes and feel higher levels of helplessness. Research also suggests that people with more white matter in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain are more resilient. Scientists think these people experience the same levels of stress, but their bodies are better able to cope with it or shut off the stress response. 

    Barring damage/ dysfunction to that region of the brain, there's some degree of plasticity at any age. Meaning, people can develop their resilience more or diminish it too. 

    Ergo, most people can change their level of resilience though lifestyle changes and conditioning/ nurture. 

    But, realistically, the body and how it functions is insanely complex and we don't know how all the mechanisms work together yet. Someone with a standard level of white matter could still have a hormonal imbalance or could throw their circadian rhythm off kilter, which would result in less-resilient behaviors/ thoughts too.

    Plus, we've seen perfectly healthy people make dramatic shifts. Experiments like the Stanford Prison Experiment, where the "inmates" learned to be helpless are prime examples. You can liken this to people who stay in abusive relationships and blame themselves for the abuse or even those who choose not to vote because they think it doesn't matter. There was experiment referred to as the "Little Albert" experiment. A baby was conditioned to fear rats. By the end of the study, the poor kid was so terrified of rats, he'd burst into tears over the mere sight of them. 

    I think that's why some people struggle when they go into counseling or therapy and don't find it effective. The underlying mechanisms for the person's condition/ mental state don't always get addressed and sometimes it takes a bit of work to identify all the contributing factors to help someone develop more resilience/ eliminate dysfunction. 
      April 21, 2019 6:10 PM MDT
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  • 10052
    I agree with you about it being both. There's also the reality that most often, children are raised by their biological parents and therefore their nurturing is pretty dependent upon nature, too. This makes it more difficult to separate one from the other in determining such things. 

    I absolutely believe that one's level of resiliency can change over the course of their life. I think people get worn down by repeated negative experiences; illness, tragedies, etc. I've seen the opposite happen, too... people who once weren't particularly resilient have become more resilient when faced with repeated tragedies and traumatic events. 

    I agree, that is one reason that some people don't find therapy helpful. I think another is that many people aren't willing or able to accept things about themselves that they don't find flattering. You need to identify and accept certain realities in order to change them. 
      April 21, 2019 6:45 PM MDT
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  • 7939
    Right. Many of the studies testing these theories rely on tracking identical twins and on finding twins that were separated at birth. Not an easy thing to do. All the same, others use MRIs and stuff to compare brains of people with specific behaviors. That's pretty insightful as well and has led to a ton of new info on everything from PTSD through sociopathy. 

    I also agree with you on people not being willing to accept the unflattering truths, but aren't there ways to nudge most people closer to their light bulb moments? 
      April 23, 2019 9:22 PM MDT
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  • 10052
    I was thinking of the movie "Twins" when I replied last time. :)

    I think there are a few things that have to align right in order for therapy to be successful. Both the person going and the therapist have to both be invested (they both want to be there!), the patient and/or family of patient need to give accurate information, the therapist needs to be capable of accurately assessing the diagnosis/cause of the problem and know how to treat it, the person needs to be on appropriate medication (only if required, of course), the person has to be open to accepting those often unflattering truths.
    There might be more factors, but those are what come to mind at the moment. 

    Coincidentally, the day after we talked about resilience, I found an article in a medical office waiting area about that very thing! I'll see if I can find it online and send in a PM. It really struck me as funny that I was thinking of you again at a medical office after the Joshua Radin thing earlier this month! 
      April 24, 2019 2:54 PM MDT
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  • 1440
    the columbine shooting was very dramatic event; but to say that we're not free of potential risks like that. numerous gun attacks happened in USA.

    but the thing with 9/11 is it was really a rare sight. nobody had seen that before. 

    The worst would be of a country nuking the USA; but i dont think its possible now because of NATO.

    If any country would want to go to war with USA, they would have to be against all the countries from NATO, thus making it almost impossible to beat them.
      April 20, 2019 1:15 PM MDT
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  • 10052
    I'm sure that it brought back some of the same emotions. 
      April 21, 2019 8:53 AM MDT
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