If you’re reading this, there’s a chance that you have survived, witnessed, or somehow experienced a school shooting, which is a common enough occurrence in the United States that I felt compelled to write this essay. I myself have been through two school shootings: first in Parkland, Florida, when I was 12, and then at Brown University at the age of 20. As my university came together to cope with the tragedy we experienced on December 13, 2025, I noticed that sharing my prior experiences helped my peers feel understood and also made me feel better in the process.Since I was 13 years old, I’ve dedicated myself to fighting for the prevention of gun violence. Now I hope that by sharing what I have learned over the past eight years and two school shootings, perhaps even one person will feel less alone. If you are in the unfortunate position of being able to relate to what I went through, I hope these five pieces of advice bring you comfort.1. Surviving Looks Different for EveryoneWhen I speak publicly about my experiences, people tend to ask whether I really “qualify” as a survivor. This is a telling question. When I was 12, I was sitting outside at the middle school next to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School—a few hundred feet away from where a former student took the lives of 17 people. While outside, I heard gunshots coming from the building and saw first responders rushing to the scene. Almost immediately—while we were still at school under lockdown—I began to see graphic videos of the shooting shared on social media. I subsequently developed post-traumatic stress disorder, which I still suffer from to this day. Some people use the word survivor to describe people who were physically injured or in the same room as a shooter, but everyone—including survivors themselves—has wildly different understandings of what it means to “survive” a traumatic event. The reality is that gun violence, especially school shootings, have a ripple effect that can extend to entire communities. For me, being a survivor of a school shooting means having witnessed the event firsthand in my school community. Whatever this definition looks like for you, no one needs a detailed explanation.2. Trauma Returns in Odd WaysI believe that it’s really important to remember that regardless of whether you develop PTSD, you have still been through a deeply traumatic event. In the media, this trauma is often depicted as involving dramatic flashbacks or violent reactions to triggers, but real life is much more nuanced. Oftentimes, the ways that trauma shows up aren’t easy to recognize. Sure, I experience the expected hypervigilance, paranoia, and flashbacks when I hear fireworks, but my trauma has changed my life in subtler ways as well, and in ways that may feel embarrassing or “stupid.” I’ve realized that I tend to hyperfixate on shootings in the news, and will go so far as to watch old news coverage of the Parkland shooting. In restaurants, I always try to sit with my back against the wall. I prefer to fall asleep facing my door, just in case someone breaks in and I need to respond. I sometimes experience random waves of intense emotions, but I try to chalk it up to something else going on in my life (“I’m just sleep deprived”; “I’m on my period”). The most pervasive symptom I experience is a need to be prepared at all times. In any setting, my brain is going through hypothetical shootings that could occur at any moment and planning how I should react. This happens all day, every day, which means that I have unfortunately become quite accustomed to it. On the bright side, I have learned how to push these thoughts to my subconscious. But I still mention them because it’s important to be transparent about just how pervasive trauma can be in its moment-to-moment impacts. I don’t say all of this to imply that surviving a school shooting relegates you to a life of suffering, but rather to make you realize that all of these experiences and more are to be expected—and if you’re experiencing this too, you may benefit from therapy or other professional treatment. PTSD, and trauma as a whole, can feel like such a stigmatizing experience, but it is not only a normal response to such an event but also an experience shared by others. You are not alone.3. Move Beyond “Why Me?”These questions have haunted me for more than eight years: Why did this all happen to me? Why was my childhood innocence destroyed in such a violent and swift manner? How did this happen to me twice, the second time being at the place I love the most? Why did the universe decide to inflict this upon me? I know these questions do not have logical answers, yet the idea that I don’t deserve what I’ve been through is something that I—and maybe you— have found myself pondering for quite some time. Even though most people in my generation are acutely aware of the increasing prevalence of school shootings, you still never think it will happen to you until it does. Asking yourself these types of questions is justified and understandable, but it’s important to not get lost in them. There have been moments when my anger at the universe has led me down a path of nihilism and defeat, when I’ve convinced myself that karma, fate, or maybe even God is hell-bent on making me suffer. What’s helped me escape this endless cycle of frustration and hopelessness was shifting my focus toward the systemic violence plaguing our country, and questions about how I could help improve the situation for my fellow Americans. I continue to ground myself in the reality that school shootings do not have to be our normal, and they didn’t happen to me because of who I am as an individual, but rather because I grew up in America. This reality is still painful, but it allows more room for hope and optimism than “Why me?” ever will. Those who wish for the status quo rely on us giving up on reducing gun violence. It is therefore an act of resistance to maintain hope in the face of trauma.4. You Are Not AloneAlthough surviving a school shooting is still an incredibly rare experience, it has become an all too common occurrence in the lives of young Americans. Survival can feel extremely isolating. Even though Parkland and Brown both came together as communities in beautiful ways, I somehow still felt so alone. Whenever I was in public, I resented the people who seemed to be able to navigate life without the hypervigilance that has become my new normal. I would get frustrated with my parents and therapist, who clearly cared about what I was going through but never actually experienced what I did. What helped me finally kick this awful feeling was meeting survivors from different communities outside my own. These were people from Michigan, Texas, and elsewhere who all shared my grief, trauma, and anger. To this day, I am still close with many of those in our small but tight-knit community of school-shooting survivors involved in advocacy work. If activism isn’t your preferred coping mechanism, social media and support groups have connected me with many other school-shooting survivors. These are the friends I turn to in difficult moments—in the aftermath of an assassination, as when Charlie Kirk was killed, or in anticipation of the Fourth of July, when we’re all bracing for the sound of fireworks.5. Give Yourself GraceIt can be hard for people who haven’t gone through a school shooting to understand just how exhausting everyday life can become when you are constantly on alert or anxious about your own safety. The most difficult mental obstacle for me has had to do with managing my own expectations for myself. Sustained levels of hypervigilance take a physical toll that often goes unrecognized, contributing to everything from fatigue to poor academic performance and even chronic pain. This ties into the oft-cited trope of creating your “new normal,” and as much as the term used to make me cringe, it’s really true. Humans are not meant to endure the type of suffering that school shootings inflict, and it would be unfair to expect yourself to bounce right back to your previous level of functioning. Instead of viewing my recovery as something linear that will improve over time, I’ve learned that life can be far more enjoyable and fulfilling if I don’t hold myself to unrealistic standards. I have good days and bad days, days when I rarely think about the shootings and days when they are all-consuming for seemingly no reason. To learn to live with your trauma, it’s imperative that you be gentle with your mind and your body.If I’d read an article like this when I was 12, I’d like to think I could have saved myself some time trying to figure out how to move forward. However, I also want to acknowledge the absurdity that a guide to coping with a school shooting is necessary in the first place. After the Parkland shooting, I developed a growing resentment toward anyone who continued to act “normal” despite the world-shattering trauma I had just endured. How could the world keep spinning when our government barely batted an eye at a teenager murdering 17 people in less than seven minutes in a school building? How did the media and politicians move on so quickly once the manhunt for the Brown University shooter came to its violent end? I used to think of these frustrations as a trauma response, but I now see that there’s a more nuanced reason behind my anger: This country has abandoned those of us who bear the brunt of gun violence.Our politicians have never had to experience monthly lockdown drills in school, or feel the unique fear of sitting in a classroom not knowing if your next moment will be your last. I hate that it takes life-changing trauma for people to feel compelled to speak out against gun violence. No more children should have to be shot in school at the expense of irresponsibly lax firearm regulations. Solving gun violence in America warrants not only a sweeping political response, but also a cultural reset. As Americans, why must we value the Second Amendment over our children, our future? Why must gun culture be so engrained in our national identity? And why must we remain complacent to an objectively solvable epidemic of gun violence? I hope that someday soon, the advice I’ve given you can become obsolete.