Mar 13, 2019  When he was a high school student, Kenwood music teacher Lena McLin acted as Kelly’s surrogate mother. Kelly paints a picture of a. In this convos with QuiQui episode, Sydney, Des and I talk with y'all and give you guys advice on how to survive high school, while also speaking on our own experiences. Please leave a like.

Updated 10:55 AM EST Dec 15, 2019On April 20, 1999, I took cover along with several friends under a cafeteria table at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, while two heavily armed shooters killed 12 of my fellow students, one of my teachers and wounded over 20 others.It has taken me nearly 20 years to want to talk about it publicly.I've found that even the survivors of that day don't talk about the event itself. We don’t need to; we know what the other person is feeling and we don’t need to relive it.And with the media circus that erupted after the tragedy, many of us did not feel comfortable opening up to a journalist or interviewer.

Major news media only had part of the Columbine story: the headlines. It was so much more than that to us — it was more than death, fear and trauma. We felt like it was Columbine versus the world. Stepping back to 1999It took me nearly 20 years, but I finally began opening up to the friends I was with that day. I began working on a documentary of the shooting in 2012 and reconnected with my high school building and classmates. I was surprised by their feelings of fear, guilt, anger, and their need for predictability and stability in their lives.

We shared our instinct for always knowing where our exits were, should we need to remove ourselves from stressful situations.Read more commentary:The dark side of the American Dream is killing white menParkland victim's father: Traumatized students shouldn't have been flung into politicsI moved my kids from Florida to New Zealand, only to need to explain mass shootings anywayIn 1999, I was a 14-year-old freshman. I was concerned with getting to my classes on time, doing my homework and picking out my outfit for the day; I expected to eat lunch and go back to class. When all that changed, I had a hard time understanding what was happening.

I initially thought it was an outsider who brought a gun to our school because I couldn’t comprehend how or why anyone would want to hurt so many people. School is supposed to be a safe place; I was supposed to go to class and take a test. It all seemed so innocent. Family handoutIn the aftermath, I was very hard on myself for the feelings I was experiencing and how I thought I should be acting. I felt pressure to talk about what that day was like for me and I didn’t want to. Breach scam.

I felt anxiety because I wasn’t able to focus on homework assignments, but still had to keep my grades up. I was angry that so many of my classmates and my teacher lost their lives in an instant. I was alive, yet I was scared and anxious that everyone around me was hurting and still knew that we had to find a way to move on. Talk through the traumaI used to compare my trauma levels to my friends’ trauma levels. I assumed that because I was in the cafeteria — not the library or a classroom — or I didn’t hear any gunshots, then my trauma was not as bad as theirs. The reality is that the students who attended Columbine High School all had a shared trauma, even though we were all in different places that day.Over the years, I realized I had not really committed to understanding my own feelings, and how this event affects my day to day, even after all this time. During and after the filming of my documentary, I began attending therapy. Professional help and my friends' reactions and validation allowed me to admit to myself I was a trauma survivor and that my feelings and actions are consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Even today, the sound of gunshots is a trigger for me.

Finally admitting this and discussing it were the key to my recovery.I wanted to reach trauma survivors of all kinds, and to help them and the Columbine community find a way to move through and beyond this traumatic event. The film I made about my process is named after our school pride chant, in use before April 20, 1999, but one that has taken on much greater significance in the years since: “We Are Columbine.”We are Columbine.

We are survivors, students, teachers, professionals, mothers and fathers. We will be forever shaped by what we experienced that day, but we won't let it define us. And by finally talking about it, we found a way to heal.Laura Farber is a documentary filmmaker. In 2012, Farber launched Lioness Productions and 'We Are Columbine' is her feature documentary directorial debut.