GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Grand Rapids counselors reminded Michigan State University students, faculty, staff and alumni, who are reeling from Monday’s shooting that killed three students and injured five more, that the first way to start dealing with the trauma is to talk.
“The first thing that people should do is talk to everyone you know,” Paul Krauss of Health for Life GR, a trauma-informed counseling center in Grand Rapids. “Talk and cry and feel your emotions and get support socially is the first step.”
Dr. Adelle Cadieux, a pediatric psychologist at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, said the effects of the shooting will change over time. Right now, feelings may be overwhelmed by shock.
“Once that shock and disbelief starts to wear off, sometimes that’s when we start seeing more of the anxiety, the depression, that feeling of very insecure and not feeling very safe,” she explained. “Some people may not show that they’re having much of an impact currently but it might just show up in another month or two.”
Krauss urged anyone whose symptoms of grief or trauma continue or who is struggling to cope to seek more organized help with a counselor or group therapy.
“If you disassociate and compartmentalize your trauma and you don’t deal with it, it often can come out in different ways,” Krauss said. “So those can be mental health symptoms, it can come out in stress, it can be anger, it can come out in actual full physical symptoms. … If we don’t express what happened to us then it lives somewhere inside of us.”
He said that someone who experiences a mass shooting may feel more worried about getting shot in a public place, even though the odds of that happening haven’t actually changed.
Eastminster Presbyterian Church in East Lansing is holding a public vigil at 7 p.m. for people to pray and process what happened. The university is holding a separate vigil to remember the victims and honor law enforcement at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Rock on North Shaw Lane.
Krauss said grieving publicly and as part of a group can be “very powerful.”
“That’s helping you get your emotions and your thoughts out in what happened and how it impacted you,” he said. “The more you get out now, the less this is going to linger with you in terms of a health issue.”
Those who were not directly affected by the shooting may still feel vicarious trauma. They should remember their feelings are normal and rely on a support structure of friends or family as they process what happened.
“A lot of people are going to be in disbelief or shocked or really having a lot of mixed emotions. So this is a great time for us to reach out to each other and really help each other through this very difficult time,” Dr. Cadieux said. “A lot of us are going through more than just grief. There’s so many other emotions that I think are triggered by what has happened.”
Younger children may have lots of questions about what happened. Cadieux said the key is to be responsive.
“What we want to do is do more of the listening. We want to find a time where we can provide them with undivided attention and ask them what they know, what type of questions or concerns they have and how they’re coping with it. … as opposed to responding the concerns we assume they might have,” Cadieux said.
Michigan State University is offering counseling through its Counseling and Psychiatric Services program, which counselors available at the Hannah Community Center. Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services is also offering free counseling to students and staff.
