Steve Joordens

And when we experience that, we really need to reconnect.

That social connection is so important to our mental well-being, for our feelings of safety and trust.

And it's a very natural reaction to do that.

they will be forever united around this tragedy, a little more united than they were before.

And that's a really thin silver lining, but it is certainly something that will become part of this community now forever.

I mean, again, for those students that were really in the middle of it, it's a hard road because that emotional reaction we talked about, that pairing of a stimulus with emotional reaction,

Very deep, primitive response here.

And that's where we have so much trouble treating PTSD.

It's the brain trying to help you stay alive.

And so it doesn't want to kind of give up on that.

So you can have a lot of therapy.

Sometimes it's a question of reliving the event with something like beta blockers.

So they prevent you from having the emotional response.

So you can kind of relive the event without that emotionality.

But it's always a long, slow process.

And it's really, you know, it's not a question of ever getting over the trauma.

It's a question of kind of learning to live with it always in your mind.

And yeah, we'd love there was a quick little solution.

Oh, they'll just do this and everything will be fine.

They'll never be fine.