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This article relates to How to Be Safe
In How To Be Safe, Tom McAllister charts a year in the life of his main character Anna and the rest of the community of Seldom Falls, in the aftermath of a mass school shooting carried out by a student. Anna, a teacher who was fired from the school, struggles to cope with many aspects of the tragedy, not least her feelings of guilt that she was not there when it happened.
The concept of survivor guilt was first identified among holocaust survivors, individuals who had lost family and friends in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. It is recognized as afflicting people who survive traumatic events – wars and conflicts, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and school shootings, but can also be experienced by others such as first responders, transplant recipients, and people who have lost a loved one.
Regardless of the source of the feelings, Psychology Today identifies three themes or types of guilt that sufferers may experience:
The Sun Sentinel reported that students of Stoneman Douglas High School who were not, for one reason or other, at school on February 14, 2018, are experiencing survivor's guilt. The article estimates that on any given day, only 94% of the school's population is in attendance due to illness or other absences. Like Anna in How To Be Safe, there were people who were not at Stoneman Douglas, but could and normally would have been. These students have to balance the disconnect of being both part and not part of the event. They may also find they have less access to support than those who were present and yet may still be suffering significant trauma.
Filed under Medicine, Science and Tech
This article relates to How to Be Safe. It first ran in the May 2, 2018 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.
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