It has been more than a year since the February 14, 2018 mass shooting at Parkland, Fla.’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School claimed the lives of 17 students and staff members. But the emotional fallout hasn’t ended.
To honor the memories of those lost and help raise awareness of the mental health issues that can linger after gun violence, PEOPLE spoke with six Parkland students about their experiences then and now.
Kai Koerber, 18, was on lockdown in Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ Music Hall when the shooting broke out — and his life changed forever. “We were like, ‘Yeah, right. It’s not gonna happen in the safest community in the country,'” he remembers to PEOPLE.
But it did. “I don’t think anyone really feels normal after something like this,” he admits. These days, Koerber, a senior who will be heading to the University of California at Berkeley in the fall, is trying to use the momentum from last year’s tragedy to shine a light on the mental health issues that are commonly behind the scenes of gun violence. “The person who walks into a school full of children and commits a mass act of murder, they’re not mentally well,” he says.
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His focus on more holistic interventions comes naturally to him. In fact, it’s a family thing. “I grew up in a very mindful family,” he says — one that used tools like meditation and goal-setting as strategies to cope with pain, negativity and loss. He learned to “take my negative circumstances and … use those lessons and put that in a different direction so I could keep moving forward.”
With the help of his nonprofit, he hopes others will be able to do the same.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “home” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
source: people.com
