A mall in Texas, a private school in Tennessee, a bank in Kentucky, a dance studio in California. These are the places where public shootings have occurred in the United States in 2023 alone, and only a fraction of the places considered safe. I am shaken by these tragedies. As the number of mass shootings in the country increases, there is growing evidence that mass shootings have far-reaching effects on mental health. A 2019 survey by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that 79% of Americans were stressed about the possibility of a mass shooting, and 33% said they would not go to a particular place because of fear of a mass shooting. I answered no.
A new study was published on May 23. study of death At the far end of this continuum, we find people with dysfunctional or near-phobic fears about mass shootings. The author of the study, psychologist Sherman Lee of Christopher Newport University in Virginia, said some key symptoms, such as hyperarousal, appetite changes, and mass murder dreams, can cause someone to need mental health support. It is said that it indicates that there is a possibility that
“We’re trying to find the line between how much worrying is excessive worrying,” says Lee. His new research examines a mass shooting anxiety scale that could help screen people for this type of dysfunctional fear.
Roxanne Cohen-Silver, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the effects of collective trauma and was not involved in the study, said people respond to mass tragedies in many ways. “There are certainly people who go through their day-to-day lives without even thinking about the mass shooting,” Silver said. Some people make dramatic changes in behavior, she said, such as avoiding certain public places or sending their children to study at home.
Rachel Rizbi, a Denver-based business intelligence developer whose oldest child is in high school, says the frequency of false alarms can exacerbate the fear. Rizvi said that during her child’s freshman year of 2022-2023, the school went into full lockdown or campus closure seven times for security reasons and issued text messages and email warnings to parents. .
“As soon as I got that email, my heart jumped out,” Rizvi said. “Because there are no details. I don’t know if that is happening at your child’s school [or] school nearby. I don’t know if the police are on the scene. As a parent, you start thinking, “Did I see my child for the last time this morning?” Even an hour doing it feels like an eternity. “
Rizvi said frequent lockdowns at her children’s schools were a factor in her family’s decision to move to a smaller school district, adding that smaller schools and increased personal attention could be dangerous. He said he hopes it will be reduced. “I know it can happen anywhere,” she says. “But from a statistical point of view, I hope that the odds are a little smaller.”
Parents were particularly affected in the APA survey. Twenty-eight percent of those with children under the age of 18 reported being frequently or continuously stressed about the mass shooting, compared to 16% of those without minor children. rice field. 62% of parents said they were worried that their child would become a victim. Black and Hispanic adults were also more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to express fear of becoming victims of themselves or someone they knew, and to report stress about mass shootings. it was high.
There is no clear figure on how many people experience enough stress to prevent them from functioning well in their daily lives. But there are hints that some people are having a very hard time. For example, in a paper published this month, JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, Researchers reported a spike in calls to the mental health crisis response line after the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting. Conversations about firearms and grief also increased accordingly.
New research from Lee suggests that certain symptoms are associated with coping deficits. His new screening questionnaire focuses on five symptoms to determine if anxiety is affecting a person’s daily life. One symptom is a change in appetite when thinking about the mass shooting, Lee said, indicating high levels of stress and fear. Another thing he has is a physical reaction, like sweating or a pounding heart, when he thinks about these events. These symptoms indicate that a person’s “fight or flight” response has begun and the body is on high alert.
Dreaming of a mass shooting and experiencing hypervigilance are two other signs that a person’s mental processes are in “anxiety mode,” Lee said. Finally, avoidance behavior such as staying at home for fear of a mass shooting is another sign. If these symptoms persist for a few days over a period of two weeks, he says, it could indicate a need for mental health support.
Fortunately, Lee says there are highly effective treatments for anxiety, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy delivered virtually. Another strategy for better response might be to limit media exposure to information about mass shootings. In a 2019 paper published in scientific progressSilver and her colleagues found that people who read or watched more news about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings felt more distressed and, as a result, were more distressed about the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. I found that I started consuming more and more media. Anxiety grows even more. The effects of this exposure appear to be cumulative.
“We don’t see people making a habit of it,” Silver said. “Instead, we see an increase in anxiety.”
