The aftermath of the Oct. 1 Route 91 Harvest festival shootings in Las Vegas will likely have a far-reaching impact for local families. The constant news reports, replayed images and discussions may spark trauma and vicarious trauma and symptoms that can last for months and can play out in many ways, especially in adolescents.
Any life-threatening event or event that threatens physical harm can cause post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
These events may include:
• Violent crimes such as kidnapping or shootings
• Sexual abuse or violence (does not require threat of harm)
• Physical abuse
• Natural or man-made disasters, such as fires, hurricanes or floods
• Motor vehicle accidents such as automobile and plane crashes
• PTSD can also occur after witnessing violence.
These events include exposure to: community violence, domestic violence, war.
What are the signs of PTSD in children?
As in adults, PTSD in children and adolescents includes re-experiencing; avoidance and numbing; and arousal. However, researchers and clinicians are beginning to recognize that PTSD may not present itself in children the same way it does in adults. Criteria for PTSD include age-specific features for some symptoms.
Community violence is different from other types of trauma.
Community violence trauma usually happens without warning and can shock someone’s psychological and biological system. Communities that witness the kind of violence Las Vegas did during the mass shooting can feel increased fear, a sense that the world is unsafe and the notion that harm could come anytime. For children, this anticipatory fear may promote previously unseen behaviors such as isolation, anxiety, trouble concentrating, self-injury and risk taking.
Unlike other trauma, which often affect individuals or small groups, community traumas can affect entire neighborhoods or whole cities — hence the #VegasStrong slogan. Because community violence is intentional — in this case, caused by a calculating person whose motive remains a mystery — survivors can feel extreme betrayal and distrust toward other people.
What are the effects of witnessing or experiencing community violence?
Community violence can trigger PTSD, affecting people of all ages. Although some people think young children are too young to understand or remember the violence, studies have found post-traumatic symptoms and disorders among infants and toddlers.
Children and adolescents’ risk for developing PTSD increases with the severity of exposure and negative parental reactions to the exposure. Physical proximity to the community violence also contributes the trauma’s intensity.
Practical advice:
• Start by talking about practical things
• Ask others if it’s a good time to talk
• Tell others you appreciate them listening
• Let others know you need to talk or just to be with them
• Decide ahead of time what you want to discuss
• Talk about painful thoughts and feelings when you’re ready
• Tell others what you need or how they could help — one main thing that would help you right now
After a tragedy like the one on the Strip on Oct. 1, children sometimes will act out, becoming isolative, angry, short tempered and impatient. Some children may also self-injure or become violent. The week of the shooting, a Las Vegas student was arrested after threats to a high school, escalating already heightened fears for the school and the community.
Some adolescents are probably suffering silently, which may manifest in self-injury from cutting, burning and scratching. In the past year, Destinations has seen a 33 percent increase in calls from parents, grandparents, friends, school counselors and hospital emergency rooms about self-injuring children. Out of every 30 calls, 10 have self-injury and injurious behaviors as part of the presenting problems.
Reuters reported in 2015 that 1 in 12 minors are self-injuring in Nevada. And the World Health Organization estimates that 2 percent to 7 percent of the population is self-injuring. As many as 5 million to 11 million people are doing that “strange, weird, stupid thing” — cutting, scratching, burning or otherwise injuring themselves — to alleviate tension, anxiety, stress, depression or to show nonverbal aggression toward others.
Breaking this cycle requires patience, understanding, love and education, starting with greater understanding. It’s important to know self-injury is more about the person in pain than the people around him.
To help someone who self-injures, and help yourself, start by understanding all you can about the behavior. Learn by reading books in which self-injurers talk about what they do, including the excellent book Bodily Harm by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader and Cutting by Steven Levenkron.
People who love and care about a self-injurer also need to understand their own feelings and not pretend the behavior are OK if it›s not. Therapy can help address the feelings someone else’s self-injury can arouse, but it’s a tool for self-understanding, not for coercing others to change.
Acknowledge your loved one’s pain
Accepting and acknowledging that someone is in pain doesn’t make the pain go away, but may make the pain more bearable. Let the self-injurer know you understand his behavior isn’t an attempt to be willful or to complicate your life. Acknowledge that it’s caused by genuine pain they can find no other way to handle.
Be hopeful about the possibility of learning other ways to cope with pain. If the self-injurer is open to it, discuss treatment possibilities.