Recently I was reviewing my son's composition assignment to write an autobiography about something that affected him in his life.  Most children thankfully write about the bike that they got for Christmas or a new video game - my son wrote a piece on a Code Red. A Code Red is a schools' and parents' worst nightmare as it represents that there is a perpetrator on campus with a gun. I struggled to read the words as I knew that I had missed the fact that this event affected my son at such a deep level. I was focused on the fact that nothing happened and he was safe and didn't stop to think that just the calling out on the loudspeaker of a Code Red was enough to affect him for years.  The event occurred two years ago when he was ten years old. Now twelve is the first time that he actually can speak and write about it. In the two years that have passed, he has said nothing - he lived with his silent trauma. He has since learned every gun model, rifle, automatic gun that there is and can tell you exactly how many rounds each gun model has. 

At first I thought that he learned all the models from all the military strategy games he played. He is quite the strategist on war games but after reading his article and discussing with him, I understood that this silent trauma pushed him to know and understand every weapon. It was how he processed the event and regained control. His understanding of weapons gives him that sense of slight control of the situation. The Code Red event has changed my son forever. It has shaped his opinion of guns, his thoughts around depression, fear and all of the emotions that take over you during a traumatic event and more importantly after as finally the aftershocks do more damage then the actual even. He knew that a good hug from mom and dad wasn't going to take away all the emotions going through him. It's these silent traumas that we all hold inside of us - from early on. It's when you know your parents didn't get it, didn't understand you, couldn't help, and can't make it better. We carry these silent traumas forward into adulthood and they affect the trajectory of our life's course. When we get older and respond to things in a certain way - it's hard to pin point the exact time or event that formulated how we would react in a given situation when those same emotions that manifested from the event arise. For my son having knowledge gave him control. His opinion is already formulated at 12. At twelve he already knows what the hell  a bump stock attachment is (I had to look it up). At twelve his opinion is very strong on why it should not be available in the market. And he knows this from one singular event in his elementary school. Forever changed.

This article is not about gun control but as a mother it infuriates me that he had to experience all these emotions at such a young and fragile age when a child doesn't have the capacity or tools to process the emotions. This article is meant to highlight the silent traumas that we all carry and to reflect on them how they have affected our life's course. 

It is our silent traumas that mold and shape us through our life experience. We are not a leaf in a river floating without direction or purpose. We are here to have a life experience and to embrace all that is delivered to us. 

Embracing the emotions that they manifested, recognizing and acknowledging the events release some of their power over us and allow us to take back control. If and only if over our life's course we have developed the skill set to process the emotions. Have we developed that emotional flexibility or did we revert, rescind and close. 

My son actually said he felt better after he wrote the piece and we discussed it as writing, along with discussing events that affected us allow us to gain perspective - distance - air to breathe. It allows you to share bottled up emotions and let them bubble up to the surface. If you can do that within a cocoon of protection there is a cathartic effect that occurs that results ultimately in renewal and restoration.

After his writing and our discussion we made pottery but then decided that a good binge session on a mindless comedy on Netflix would have better results and so our medicine for both of us was comedy and popcorn. 

Autobiography by Stelios

I remember the day that changed me for a long time, the day we had a code red. A code red is a school’s worst nightmare. It’s when an unidentified person (usually armed) walks on to campus. When a code red happens, we have to barricade the door, close all the lights and hide. It’s really scary.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was in third grade and it was P.E. and we were out on the field playing and everything was normal until the P.E. teacher got a call on his walkie talkie.  He started to yell “THIS A CODE RED, IT’S NOT A DRILL, IT’S NOT A DRILL!” That’s when all the girls started to scream and everybody started to run, the P.E. teacher tried his best to herd us into a safe room. I was running when it suddenly hit me, we were out in the open so we were perfect targets, and it didn’t help that the girls were louder than a pack of hyenas. I naturally started to jump around and doge and weave if someone was shooting at me (Thank God no one was). And then I was like “screw it” and I started to sprint towards the door. Once we were inside everything started to deteriorate.
Inside the room it was a mess. Kids were crying, praying, looking into space and like me hyper ventilating. After a long time, we all fell silent. We didn’t hear anything from the front office or anybody else. In the disturbing silence, my mind started to think of all the possible situations, how to escape, what’s going on, what happened to all my friends, what has the crazy psychopath done, are we the last ones alive, when will this end etc… My mind went in too deep and I started to worry about all the possible situations, everything was unraveling. When I looked at everybody else they were all trying to cope with the fear. The kid next to me, Jared was biting his shirt franticly, Preston with tears in his eyes was telling me what a good friend that I have been, the new kid (who I didn’t know his name) kept repeatedly asking the teacher when it will end. It was all too much for me so I just let it out. My small tears turned from puddles to raging rivers when all of a sudden we heard the principal’s voice coming through the walkie talkie and rivers ran dry, “We don’t know what’s going on…  Just sit tight!” Minutes later someone said “I don’t think that there is anybody out there” and someone else shouted, “No, I think it’s a bear!” Everybody was making up some crazy story like aliens and groups of thugs, that wasn’t really helping. And then finally the principal announced that it was all clear. When she said that, it felt better than jumping into a pool on a hot day but we were all too scared to get up as if we thought the threat was still there ready to pull the trigger. All it took was a brave kid to open the door and go outside.
When we got up, we all just walked back to home room. We didn’t talk. We didn’t goof around. We just walked until we got to our classroom. The first one to break the silence was our teacher, who told us that we were “too loud” and that she “could hear us from here.” I was like “wow we just had a traumatic experience and you’re telling us to be quiet…”. On the bus ride home, it was quieter than usual… only the screams of kindergarteners, who were too young to understand what had happened. When I got home, my parents had received an email from the school about the school’s code red. Even though nothing happened, my parents still acted and looked like their world had ended. 
I went back to school the next day and everybody was spreading rumors of what had happened like, the guy planted bombs, the shooter had thought the school was closed, and how one person had seen the shooter. When we went in the classroom we got the truth. What happened was a teenager from the high school that was next to us was talking to his friend about how he had hid some guns in his locker and was going to shoot everybody. Thankfully a teacher over heard the teen and apprehended him.
I lived in a suburb where everything is supposed to be perfect and safe. On the day that we had a code red, we got a taste of what the real world is like. I am thankful that it was fake and no one got hurt and that it never happened. Even though it was fake it still scarred me for a long time and I hope that it never happens again.