America in 2019: Land of Assault Rifles and White Terrorists
I try not to pay attention to the news. But I don’t have a choice, nowadays.
As an anxiety-prone individual, I am not as numbed to the scenes of violence, even fictional violence, as most of the “I watch crime documentaries 24/7” crowd (AKA my parents).
It brings to mind a visceral memory: sitting at the kitchen table on my laptop, browsing Reddit and trying to get my mind off of the black hole that was my life at that moment.
My parents, self-confessed true-crime junkies, sat on the couch, fascinated as the narrator told tales of multiple rapes and murders. They ate their snacks, poised on the edge as the story unfolded before their eyes.
As an assault victim myself, it was too much.
No matter how I tried to drown it out, the narrator’s words started a whirling mechanism in my head that brought to mind my own traumatic memories.
It’s like that for pretty much every single story on the news: it sends me into a tailspin.
The Endless Cycle of Thoughts and Prayers
When the shooting happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, I was on vacation at my boyfriend’s…
