The attack in Las Vegas has left me in a heightened sense of despair. Judging by my Twitter and Facebook feeds, it's probably safe to assume an unhealthy, extreme emotional response has consumed us all, desperate to speak up on behalf of a world we wish we'd belong to. No longer is "divisiveness" an appropriate term to use when describing our current climate. Our borderline apocalyptic reactions to daily events override any rational terminology once used to define them.

We are not okay. We are not healthy. We are not getting better.

If a possible hope of this being a piece structured on the basis of emotional finger-pointing is still being clung to, I hope the following thesis statement tosses that ignorant thinking out the bullet-riddled window:

A trauma is not an experience. It is an emotional response to an experience.

What Is The Difference Between Trauma And Grief?

With both serving as intense emotional suffering, the line in which grief ends and trauma begins can be confusing and ill-defined.

In Inga Krasinta's "The Difference Between Trauma And Grief", she defines this contrast, saying:

"Grief is normal emotional response to not only loss of the person we love, but any loss – loss of health, job, relationships, loss of faith, loss of business and so on. When we lose someone or something we have held dear or have felt attached to, we grieve. That’s been like that from the time beginnings and there used to be rituals and customs in all cultures to be able to cope with the loss.

Trauma (I’m talking only about emotional trauma, not physical injuries) is quite contradictory and not clear term. Peter Levin says: ‘trauma is the most avoided, ignored, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering’. Intuitively we know when we are traumatized--when we experience something that we perceive as either life-threatening or overwhelming. As well as grief, trauma is a unique and individual experience. Something inside us feels broken, or part of us dies and we have lost wholeness and in a way--innocence of life."

In their diabolical plan to claim dominance over a soul, the destructive paths of trauma and grief lay waste to a being in different biological ways.

A common reaction to grief is that of immense sadness while a common reaction to trauma is that of colossal terror. Someone grieving generally does not attack or distort their own self-image while trauma tends to decimate one's own self-perception. The pain of grief directly correlates to the pain of the loss while the pain of trauma is related to the terror and overwhelming sense of powerlessness and fear for safety.

What Are The Symptoms of Emotional Trauma?

To reiterate, any form of mental anguish is complex and varies person to person. There is no concrete evidence in the scientific community that can confidently state the short-term nor long-term reactions to any form of emotional trauma. However, according to HealingResources.info, there are at least five different categories of which symptoms fall under- physical, emotional, cognitive, re-experiencing trauma, and emotional numbing.

Physical

• Eating disturbances (more or less than usual)
• Sleep disturbances (more or less than usual)
• Sexual dysfunction
• Low energy
• Chronic, unexplained pain

Emotional

• Depression, spontaneous crying, despair and hopelessness
• Anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Fearfulness
• Compulsive and obsessive behaviors
• Feeling out of control
• Irritability, angry and resentment
• Emotional numbness
• Withdrawal from normal routine and relationships

Cognitive

• Memory lapses, especially about the trauma
• Difficulty making decisions
• Decreased ability to concentrate
• Feeling distracted
• ADHD symptoms

Re-Experiencing Trauma

• intrusive thoughts
• flashbacks or nightmares
• sudden floods of emotions or images related to the traumatic event

Emotional Numbing

• amnesia
• avoidance of situations that resemble the initial event
• detachment
• depression
• guilt feelings
• hyper-vigilance, jumpiness, an extreme sense of being "on guard"
• overreactions, including sudden unprovoked anger
• general anxiety
• insomnia
• obsessions with death

What Are The Stages Of Trauma Recovery?

With the human brain being vastly incomprehensible, the idea of limitless mental destruction is as frustrating as it is terrifying. But with something so large and intricate, the human brain has a tremendous capacity for recovery and even growth.

In the wake of devastation, it isn't long before the optimistic thinking starts to sweep.

"We need to come together in times like these."

"Sending my prayers and good vibes with all those affected."

As wonderful and important as these phrases are, the thought process of

According to PsychologyToday, there are four major stages.

Circuit-Breaking

"If you overload an electrical system with too much energy and too much stimulation, the circuit breaker activates and shuts everything down. The human nervous system is also an electrical system, and when it is overloaded with too much stimulation and too much danger, as in trauma, it also shuts down to just basics. People describe it as feeling numb, in shock or dead inside."

Intellectually, you lose anywhere between 50 and 90 percent of brain capacity. Emotionally, you lose all, feeling absolutely nothing. Spiritually, you feel disconnected, perhaps even succumbing to spiritual crisis. The entire body and soul feels dead and hope of ever improving is a fantasy. You are in "the trauma zone" and escape seems impossible.

Return of Feelings

"Most people have not experienced so much primary trauma that they must see a professional counselor; they can work through their feelings by involving the people they are close to. They do it by telling their story--a hundred times. They need to talk talk talk, recount the gory details. That is the means by which they begin to dispel the feelings of distress attached to their memories."

The expression of feelings can take many forms. For most, it may be easiest to talk. Others may need to write, draw, or do something else entirely. However, as the victim tells their story, it is a neighbor who has an obligation to listen. A victim cannot be a survivor without support. Now is the time to stand beside them when they need it the most. The more that feelings can be encouraged, the easier recovery can be. The more you feel, the more you heal.

Constructive Action

"Taking action restores a sense of control and directly counteracts the sense of powerlessness that is the identifying mark of trauma. You do whatever you can and never assume that any gesture is too small. In a situation that is overwhelming, you don't go for the big picture. You go for what is closest to you and where you can make a difference."

Constructive action can be as simple as writing about the catastrophe or creating some work of art about it. This stage also encompasses getting back to work to reclaim a sense of structure, status and stability.

Stage Two and Stage Three go hand in hand. To move forward, you must feel and you must act. Recovery is not one without the other, but a two-part process in which both compliment each other nicely. Acting and feeling become an engine that propels you forward. Recovery is within arm's reach. To claim it is all on you.

Reintegration

"In the wake of crisis, it is possible to learn and grow at rates 100 times faster than at any other time, because there is a door of opportunity. Growth can go at warp speed in every domain of life. You can learn much that is deep and profound. You do this by interacting and by working together on the meaning of the difficult experience. Those who have the courage to become part of the trauma tribe, to experience and share their pain, or to help them overcome their pain, also have the opportunity to share their growth."

Everyone who goes through this process ends up stronger, smarter, deeper and more connected. The change is obvious to both the survivor and peers. Growing through trauma is like having a broken bone. Through proper healing, it is stronger in the spot where it fractured than it was before injury.

Traumatic experiences are broken bones of the soul. If you engage in the process of recovery, you will come out stronger. If you don't, the bones remain porous, with permanent holes inside, ultimately weaker and more fragile than ever before.

In this stage of recovery, you reintegrate your self and your values in a new way. You incorporate meaning in your life. You integrate deeper and more authentic ways of communicating. You are a survivor and nobody can take that away from you.

It's easy to mock the romanticization of culture that previous generations grew up with. "Everything was so much better in the 90s" is a phrase I often hear whenever someone in my age group starts feeling home sick. With the 90's ending in a booming economy, an iconic wave of pop-culture, and an overall peaceful nation, it isn't difficult to look at the decade with at least a bit of fondness.

I blame September 11th, 2001 in ultimately killing the Utopian dream the 90s left us with forever. The federal budget surplus and dramatic reductions in violent crime were replaced with a stock market crash and a trauma we as a nation have not yet recovered from. The mindset 9/11 left us with has since been the knee-jerk reaction to any problem no matter its traumatic level. The "who is to blame? Who can we go after? Someone must pay for this" fury has since become conflict resolution proving one deeply unsettling truth:

The terrorists succeeded.

I salute the optimists out there trying desperately to restore order and peace to a world so deprived of anything even slightly resembling stability, but regardless of any amount of positivity, the negativity will not stop until it confronts the trauma it's spawned from. To reach that goal is a quest I have no direct path to pave nor any clear direction to start from as I, like you, am a human being riddled with the fear and frustration of living to see yet another news report body count. I am hurt. You are, too.

I have no answers. No tips. No salvation. I just want to better understand how I'm feeling- to construct action if you will. I hope you find peace and I pray it's found in a healthy reconstruction. I grew up thinking the world I was brought into was one of immense pride and strong hope. It seems the fiery passion of its people has turned dark, limiting the previous world's wonder into obscurity.

I want to retreat back to that world and for the first time in a long time, I feel strong enough to confront this new world with the lessons I learned from the old one. Take a deep breath and let the healing begin.