#mandalybay

For being so depressing you guys. But I need to say this. Almost three weeks ago, on October 1st, my community's world shook. I woke up in the morning to my parents talking wildly in the living room. My mom livid and nearly shouting, not knowing her daughter was awake.

I felt dread. And let me tell you. Let me tell you good and well, I still feel it.

As soon as the words 'mass shooting' slipped out of my mom's mouth, I fell into the cliché five stages of grief.

The first came as denial. I slipped on my school bus and pulled out my phone and researched. The word 425 slapped me in my face and I felt hopeless. I stupidly clicked on the confirmed dead list.

I lost it when I saw one of the photos. A photo of a woman that we had passed by a day before her life ended. I looked in the eyes of someone living life to their fullest. And they were gone. Not breathing.

I had my first, definitely not last, panic attack that day. I was in class. Cursing out everything that could have stopped this. My friends were crying with me, for me, I don't know. But I didn't stop crying until an hour later. I still haven't stopped today.

I had my second panic attack in the back of the car, when my family drove by the Mandalay Bay. We drove by the same entrance were I a saw the woman.

I wasn't in the shooting, but I feel it.

The feeling never left. Never leaves. And I have to hand it to all the people trying to stay positive. But I can't.

Anger, depression, bargaining. It all came in one fluid motion in my dreams one night. Flashing images of rising numbers, friends saying "brother in hospital" and mother saying 'friend dead'. Sounding of fading music, rising screams and gunshots.

It still hangs here. Even as I balance in the edge of acceptance, it still drags me back. It's a cold mud, always drenching my clothes, pooling in my shoes.

I feel it stab me throughout the day, and when I get home I collapse. Positivity wore away as I fought limply. Throwing pride as my only stone and using friends as my only support.

Acceptance is so so far away for me. Maybe not anyone else, but or me. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe it's better that I never forget.

I have views that changed, and views that have been cemented further. I have scars and fresh wounds that help me fight to get better. And acceptance would be to forget. It would be to stop fighting, to stop viewing the world in its truth.

It is grey, gore ridden, and despairing.

But we must not forget that we are vulnerable. We used our strength to hide ourselves, and we have been found.

We are Vegas Strong. But we are also traumatized. And forgetting that is what made us weak enough in the first place.

I love you all. And please, please, please,