Be Mindful: Mental health tips after an active shooter scare

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – On April 3, 2023, San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara had an active shooter scare. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office searched the school and determined it was safe from a hoax call of an active shooter.

Despite it being a hoax call, Suzanne Grimmesey, Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Health therapist, said this could still be a high stressful event for students, parents, and teachers.

Grimmesey sat down with News Channel Chief Videojournalist Ryder Christ to go over mindful tips following this recent scare.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION:

Ryder Christ:
Well, thank you, Suzanne, for speaking with me today.

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Absolutely.

Ryder Christ:
So we're talking about being mindful after a school shooting. Luckily, we did not have an actual school shooting at San Marcos last week. But I have a feeling some students and some parents may be feeling anxious. Do you have any mindful tips for students who may be feeling uneasy following the recent shooting scare at San Marcos, but also there's been other shootings recently in the news as well?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
There have. And they all very much compile on our minds and our bodies and our stress levels. So, yes, I do have some things. The first I would say is self-care. So our bodies respond to the impact of stress. It doesn't know if it's a fake active shooter or a real one. We respond in the same way. So being sure to eat well, to stay hydrated, to get out and move your body, to maintain a daily routine.
Going to school is actually extremely healthy for that. And sleep, which I'm happy to talk more on, but sleep is so important. Other things that kids can do is pay attention to your emotional health, even pamper yourself. So it's common to have a wide range of feelings and they may even change throughout the day. Others are feeling the same way, so it's important to be extra patient with ourself as well as with others during this time.

Ryder Christ:
You brought up sleep, tell me more about sleep.

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Yeah. So sleep. Sleep is the way that our minds our minds keep working when we're sleeping and they continue to process. But what they do is they separate out the visual memories from an event happening. And that's the way that we're able or I'm sorry, they separate out our feelings from the event that happened. That's what allows us that we can keep going back in life and we can keep doing things when bad things have happened.
And we don't feel that post-traumatic stress reaction. So when we deprive ourself from going through the full regular sleep cycles, our minds are not able to do that work, to process it through at night and to separate out the our memories of the event from the actual event itself. So sleep is really important. Many times after a high stress event, it's hard to sleep.
And so we have the tendency to binge watch Netflix or do whatever. This is a time that it's especially important to try and protect our sleep.

Ryder Christ:
And that typically looks like, you know, setting a time of when like 9:00 I'm going to go to bed whether I want to or not, just kind of sitting in bed to start that process of sleep, right?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Yeah, that's very important. So after a high stress event, we there's a tendency for several days to feel just exhausted. That's the number one thing that people report feeling as tired or exhausted. And it comes from a few different things. One is that you get in bed like you say Ryder, and you set the clock at nine to go to sleep and you fall fast asleep and then you wake up at three in the morning and your brain won't turn off.
Or the other is you're getting a bit tired, but you can't fall asleep. But there's a third thing too, and that's you go into bed at 9:00, you fall asleep, you sleep really well, you sleep through your alarm and the next morning and you still feel tired out. That's the emotional exhaustion. And so protecting your sleep. Yes. Like you said, having that routine, planning a time to go to sleep.
When you wake up in the middle of the night, try and resist the urge to get on the computer or your phone or read and just try and focus on sleep, especially right now, after a high stress event.

Ryder Christ:
Right. And you brought up routine. So my next question for you is, do you have any mindful tips for parents who may be feeling anxious about sending their kids to school following the recent event? Right. Maybe they're feeling too anxious and they're like, maybe I don't want to send my kid to school.

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Yeah. So for parents, having this sense of loss of control is more difficult than it can even be. I can't even state and it doesn't matter if it was a real event or not. So things that a parent can do. Learn about your school's precautionary or safety measures. Know what the expectations are when this type of thing happens, Focus on the positive school experiences and you can even do this with your child.
Maybe channel your concern into an action. So maybe you learn that the school is in the process of developing safety measures or there's things the school says they can use parent help with. Parents should always be mindful to care for their own mental health or such. An urge to spend all of your time caring for your children and your family.
But your mental health is extremely important. Share your feelings with other parents. Be mindful of your reactions around your kids. Kids are very observant and they watch parents reactions to help steer theirs. So just being mindful but keeping kids routines is so important. There's a tendency to be fearful of wanting to send your child back to a situation that was dangerous or could be dangerous.
But for kids going to school every day and that routine and knowing what to expect, knowing what their routine is, knowing who will be there, it gives their brain a chance to relax. And it's very important at a time after a high stress event. And lastly, I would say talk to your kids at very minimum, stay connected. Maybe shooting a text here and there, checking in, letting them know that you're available if they want to talk about.

Ryder Christ:
You brought up like being mindful of kids reactions. Is there anything, any key things that you've seen in your practice that maybe a parent should be highly aware of? Maybe like a change of routine or maybe something a kid does after a high stress event such as this that maybe I could be on the lookout for?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Hmm. That's that's a really good question. So parents can look for any major changes in their child's behavior, for example, changes in eating or sleeping habits, energy levels, mood, maybe withdrawing from being around family or friends. All these are signs that your child might be feeling distressed and can benefit from talking with a counselor and with younger kids.
It's not uncommon after a high stress event, to see regressed behaviors such as extra clinginess or intense reactions. Crying older teens may express feelings of anxiety and anger, maybe have a strong need for retribution with adults after an active shooter scare. These are all normal. There's no feelings that are wrong. So staying connected to your kids as best you can, Even, like I say, quick text for older teens will allow you to see and get a barometer of what's happening.
And if you see those major changes in behavior, that's a good time to reach out for some support.

Ryder Christ:
So I know even when I was in school, some high stress event will happen in the school, and the school would come out and say, you know, there's counselors available for you to come talk. I remember as a kid, I never went to a counselor. Is there anything that you would recommend for kids who don't want to be the only one going? Is there other avenues they could take or is seeing a counselor the best avenue to take?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
There's there's lots of avenues. Most important is to connect and talk. So that can be even talking with your friends, kids talking with their friends, re-talking about what happened, sharing your memories, sharing how you felt, maybe where you were during the active shooter event, what the room or surroundings looked like. But keep talking about it. So that's one thing.
The other is to talk at that if the need is grander than that and there are times for yourself, or if you see another teen that is struggling, talk to a safe adult, a trusted adult at the school. It doesn't have to be a professional counselor. It can be a teacher, but a trusted adult or your parents. The other thing is going to a counselor.
It can be it can be with the friend. You can be taking a friend because you see them struggling. And so together you go and you seek support. So it doesn't have to have the formality of calling up a helpline and schedule an appointment. That's fine if it does, but there's a lot of other ways to get support.

Ryder Christ:
Got it. So baseline, just talk about it. Just get just start processing it by talking through it. Now let's talk about teachers for a second. Is there any mindful tips for teachers on how to, one, handle themselves and to maybe handle their students?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Teachers are so good at just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and going on because that's what they do. And they oftentimes pour all of their energy into caring for students and others and forget to care for themselves. So for teachers, teachers are not immune to the impact of things like this.
And so to practice, self-care is so important. I'll also say for teachers, following an active shooter event, even if it's not a real one, it's a big thing. And so I would recommended that teachers acknowledge this event with your class. If you have several, if you're in the secondary and you have several classes, acknowledge it at the start of each class with your students at least once, you don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but it's going to be on people's minds.
So if you don't acknowledge it, then you're losing class time because that's where people's minds are. Doesn't have to take a lot of time. But at the start of class you can make a reference to some event that just happened and recognize that people may be feeling off and that it's okay to share because you as a teacher are also feeling off and that they may have trouble focusing in class and that's okay and that they're welcome to talk to.

And then you can tell them the resources maybe to the teacher. It may be to, if there's somewhere set up on the campus to talk or just to encourage them to speak with a trusted adult. But that's that's important. And in classes where you may see more of a collective impact and you realize that that really is going to take the chunk of the day rather than jumping right back into your your planned activities, You can let the students know that you may not have all the answers, but that you're a person that they can share their questions with and that you'll do your best to get the answers as you can.
There may be some that don't have them, and just putting that out there reinforces that classroom being a safe place and that it's a safe place to ask questions and talk about what happened.

Ryder Christ:
Awesome. Before we go, is there any resources that the county has that, you know, maybe could be supplemental to what the school is offering?

Suzanne Grimmesey:
Yeah, I mean, the county has a lot of resources for parents. I think I would recommend using our 24 seven access line to call and to share any concerns of your child. And on the other end of the line, the access line screeners will either get you connected with the county or help to get you connected in the right direction.
And that and kids I'm sorry, kids and teens can do the same thing in calling that number. In fact, if you don't want to give your name and you just need to call and kind of talk that's available and that number is 888-868-1649.