Toomutch

There was a bank robbery today here in Littleton just a few blocks away from Columbine High School in Jefferson County.
The thing is when there is a bank robbery or similar type event in any other part of the Denver metro area, it seems to be a quick news blip.

I could see Columbine High from my house on that terrible day. The helicopters over head for days. Waiting with a friend to find out if it was her father that was killed in the school, and he was. The crowds, the memorial where I have never before and hopefully never will again see so much sorrow and pain on so many faces. I still to this day have panic attacks when helicopters fly overhead.

The bank robbery today brought in FBI and the Jeffco swat team. Regularly scheduled telivision is being interupted to keep us all updated. FOX 31 news even had to bring up Columbine and how well the swat team has been trained ever since that day.

I guess my point is, if someone gets a fart stuck sideways here in this part of Littleton it is on the news. I guess that day will never be put to rest and we will always no matter how much time passes be only remembered for the Columbine Massacre.

Just wanted to share this, I'm not sure why.

22NGONE

If it helps to share, go for it! The Media sucks in general in my opinion, everybody pushes their own agenda, I barely watch the news anymore I feel like it harms my well being. Hope you feel better,

John

Horselover

Because it effects your emotions. Thanks for sharing. ((((TOOMUCH))))

Horselover

By the way, I turned on the news one evening to check the weather and was horrified and in tears in the first 5 minutes of it. My husband made me turn it off and go check the internet instead. I rarely ever watch news anymore and I believe it is definitely kid inappropriate most of the time. My 5 year old gets scared about enough stuff as it is.

Toomutch

I understand Horsie, the news is hard to swallow sometimes. I didn't even have the news on when I heard about the bankrobbery. The news broke into the program I was watching. Sometimes you just cant escape it.

gravity

All you can really do is pray for everyone involved. Take good care of yourself, Toomutch.

Horselover

"Sometimes you just cant escape it."

Ain't that the truth TM! I have a brother-in-law that used to do the camera work for a 6 O'Clock news show in New York (now in commercials) and he couldn't stand the way the reporters would question the families and stuff. I also got this from him - "If it bleeds, it leads." Disgusting, but true.

least

I can understand your persisting panic attacks regarding helicopters. I got the same way about planes flying over my house after 9/11.

Altho I've never experienced an event like the Columbine shootings I can still understand how it's affected you forever.

I pray you can know peace in your life. The way I see it is despite the horrifying things that happen in our world, I try to make "my little corner of the world" a peaceful place. I pray you can have peace in your 'corner'.

:praying

Toomutch

Sometimes I think that I have lived most of my life with PTSD. Believe it or not back when John Hinkley Jr. attempted to kill President Reagan I just so happened to live three houses away from the Hinkleys (our parents were friends). There were reporters knocking on all of our doors, ringing the doorbells. I remember it scaring me so badly I had to go stay at one of my friends houses in another part of Evergreen until things calmed down a bit.

IAintBeatYet

I look at this and realize what I've been putting friends and family through. Except they cant change the channel or turn it off. I was a walking, talking wreck of a story that they had to watch everyday. Everytime I spilled out of the car onto the front lawn must have been tough for them. Just like us watching something we don't like on the news. Life is tough to take sometimes. Cant just close your eyes to it. Just gotta perserve and make things better that you have the power to do so with.

Toomutch

I aint beat yet - once again your great attitude is shining through.

Toomutch

I was picking my kids up from pre-schooland kindergarden at the time this was happening - they would not even let the kids take their back packs from the school. We rushed home a back way because they had already closed Bowles ave. to allow for the emergency vehicles to get to and from the school. Mass hysteria as we watched from our home above Bowles as the bomb squad trucks etc... went by. I remember thanking God that my kids were'nt 9 and 10 years older, or they would have been there.

I guess this incident this morning brought it all back like it happend yesterday. I am trembling inside. Feeling this way makes me want to drink and I have not felt like drinking in a long time.

Toomutch

Still struggling with this whole bank robbery triggers columbine memories. I must be OCD because I cant let it go. In my usual frame of mind I could just let this go.

Will someone give me some tips on how to get beyond these memories from so long ago?
Tell me it's wrong to feel this way, tell me it's okay, I dont care just tell me something.

Lily

I will never forget Columbine that day in April of 99 but for a different reason. I was in the ER in San Diego and my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. I think that there are all kinds of tragedies that trigger us into bad memories.

I lived near the San Ysidro McDonald Massacre back in the 1980's. It weirded me out for a while.

It does help to talk about it though. Hope your night is better and that you get some peaceful sleep tonight.

blessings, Sheila

Toomutch

Thanks for responding Lilly, that means alot to me. I cant talk to my husband about it because he thinks its rediculous even though he was closer to Dave Sanders than I was. I cant talk on the phone about it because I feel like I will have to whisper.

How is your husband?

Done_With_It

I remember when you joined because I saw where you were from and my thought was I wonder if she was affected by that or there when it happened I should say.
I cannot even imagine. I watched the whole thing on the news or what they showed, I went to work that night and was so upset they sent me home, most didn't know or hadn't seen it, so they didn't get why I was so freaked out....

I do not know how you would get over something like that. There ARE all kinds of tragedies that happen, etc. but something like that just seems to be kind of different. I recently read a book very similiar to Columbine, and watched a movie similiar to it, and I cannot even imagine.

I know my therapist used to have me look at my hands a lot when I would start having a hard time to keep myself in the present or in focus, I forgot why, but it seemed to work, she would also have me have something good picked out, like my animals, or something, that I could try and focus on when things got overwhelming like that.


I think that when things that terrible happen they tend to take away our power or loss of control for that period of time, and in our heads if we let it,
we can let ourself stay victim to it for far too long.
The goal is to not stay the victim of it. What happened was a terrible thing.
But it is in the past, and you are safe now, as well as the ones who survived.
To let it continue to haunt you is to remain their victims, but you are in control now.
That is how my therapist used to try and get me out of my head and keep me in the present, or similiar stuff to that anyway. Years of her talking to me like that, finally got me out of the ptsd flashback mode.

********{TooMuch}}}}}

and..... if that fails.... you can always count animals from A-Z

Toomutch

Miss Done :ghug3

Your words helped me so much, I dont want to be a victim.

Tonight I will count animals from A-Z and types of flowers from Z-A. lol

Thanks again

Done_With_It

Yea, me too, That is how I have to think, when I start letting myself regress or go back or whatever.. I have to think if I go back to this place,
I AM letting them win again, I am being their victim AGAIN,
and I am choosing to be their victim this time.
I don't have to anymore, I am in control now, not them.

We could count cities or states too!!!!! :bounce :bounce :bounce