Others carry weapons and are constantly afraid of another incident. Trauma professionals who worked the incident have warned that the suffering would likely reach its peak in three to five years after the formal memorial services concluded. In summary, loss, mourning and bereavement, are a part of life. Most of us are able to struggle through the difficult emotions, accept the loss, and rebuild our lives into a new configuration. Trauma, when added to the grief experience, adds whole new dimensions to bereavement.
Traumatic loss is most often a life changing experience.
For its victims life will never be the same again. There will be no turning back. The old life will not be recaptured. Littleton, Colorado illustrates the magnitude of the problem of trauma by the shere size and scope of the devastation. Multiple fatalities, violence and mutilation, random and perhaps preventable violence, exposure of hundreds to death and horror, intentional murder commited by associates in a sudden and unanticipated manner, all of these factors meet the criteria for traumatic loss.