I was in a shooting and now I’m having panic attacks and random crying episodes. Help.
After being in a shooting we are suddenly faced with our own mortality, we always know death is an option but until we are faced with it, it is easy to push off thinking about it.
When a shooting occurs, everything changes in an instant. That's overwhelming to our nervous system. Our brain/nervous system is designed to keep us alive and safe so it takes sensory fragments from the event and stores them to keep us safe in the future. Now, a lot of people go "but it doesn't even make sense why I feel like this or why this symptom is coming up." but you're thinking with the wrong brain.
We've got our logical brain and our emotional brain and the emotional brain is the one that is a bit more like a caveman in how it understands the world. It doesn't understand time, logic, or context it just knows how it FEELS and after a critical incident it feels BAD. So it starts quickly devising a plan on how to keep you safe like creating anxiety, ruminating on thoughts, isolating yourself, etc. All of these symptoms are a solution aimed at keeping you safe and alive so it doesn't feel like that again. The hard part is that it leaves our logical brain going WTF is going on because it doesn't make logical sense.
What is our solution? We help the emotional brain and the logical brain start understanding each other. We figure out what we were thinking and feeling during the event as well as afterward and start neutralizing the symptoms. They are not good or bad, just a solution to a problem and we'd now like a different solution.
With this awareness, we begin the process of reconciling the actual event through sending signals of safety to our body through various methods like deep breathing, release of muscle tension, and memory reconsolidation. Those things help us release those sensory fragments that we have stored so they won't continue to keep popping up.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is an effective and faster method to reducing the symptoms, sensations, and images of traumatic memories.
Mel is a licensed associate therapist that specializes in first responders and is the wife of a trooper. She is passionate about bringing good, practical wellness solutions to first responders.
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I’m Erica Gaines, CEO/Founder of TacMobility and a huge advocate for officer wellness. After meeting over 100,000 police officers, I knew I had to help with The #1 Cop Killer in America: Suicide.
