CLEVELAND, Ohio — We cover these traumatic and trigger mass shootings and then the cycle restarts, it's likely taxing for the public to digest it.
“if they’re feeling like anything that I’m feeling, they’re [the public] exhausted by this,” said Daniel Flannery with Case Western Reserve University. “This is nauseatingly exhausting to experience these things over and over and over and the conversation is still the same.”
The pain for many is increasingly unbearable when children are involved, officials in Texas revealed that Tuesday’s shooting in Texas took the life of more than a dozen students and several teachers.
“I think whole communities are impacted by this, not just individuals that are directly involved or first responders that arrived at the scene, we learned this from Connecticut and Colorado,” said Flannery.
The Washington Post reports 311,111 students have experienced gun violence in school since Columbine 23 years ago.
Though there is very little research surrounding the mental impact of mass shootings on the general public, experts say PTSD and nightmares could be a side effect.
“The fact that these incidents happen undermines our basic sense of security and safety in our community and makes it very hard for people to go about their daily business,” said Dr. Jane Timmons Mitchell.
For children who nowadays must go through active shooter training, experts say watching this happen at another school doesn’t help them either and parents should remember that.
“There are lots of reasons to feel anxious in this situation that’s the reality of it, but as hard as it is the most caring thing that parents and others can do for children is to help connect them to others that can help them,” said Mitchell.
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