At 15, Brittney Thomas saw a close friend get shot to death at school.

Twenty-five years later, she was in a grocery store near her Kentucky home when her phone flashed an alert about the elementary-school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Ms. Thomas started hyperventilating. A stranger asked if she needed help. Ms. Thomas sobbed that she couldn't find the creamed corn, left her groceries behind and ran out to her car.

At 3 a.m. that night, unable to sleep, Ms. Thomas sent a text to a group chat with other survivors of mass shootings, whom she had met during a recent weeklong therapy retreat.

Most were awake too. The group decided to hold an impromptu Zoom therapy session.

. . . .

Most people exposed to such events eventually recover with mental-health support, said Sandra Graham-Bermann, director of the University of Michigan's Child Resilience and Trauma Laboratory. For school-shooting survivors, she said, that process can take decades, and the work to cope never really ends.

Read the full article at The Wall Street Journal