As the campus community returns for the spring semester — many for the first time since the Dec. 6 shooting — mental health expert Michelle Paul encourages people to recognize that they likely are still experiencing the psychological impact of the tragedy. At the same time, colleagues and students may be having much different responses than they are.

Paul, executive director of UNLV PRACTICE, was among the panelists for the Jan. 9 All Hands Meeting for faculty and staff. UNLV leaders on the panel shared updates on police investigations, facilities repairs, security enhancements, and other changes for the start of the spring semester. [View the full meeting recording to learn more about those updates.]

For mental health recovery, Paul noted, a first step is acknowledgment of the trauma itself. 

“On Dec. 6, our community experienced a traumatic event, and we are heartbroken,” Paul said. “That day was emotionally painful, shocking, frightening, and horrifying, unexpected, and out of our control — leaving us with a sense of helplessness, shaken trust, and disorientation. And that is trauma.”

Traumatic events, Paul explained, activate the nervous system, particularly the “region of the brain responsible for helping us survive threat.” The body may go through a fight, flight, or freeze response as it searches for ways to either fend off or avoid danger. As a result, for some time after, it is understandable to experience any range or various shades of anger, anxiety and sadness.

That range of emotions, the All Hands Meeting panel generally agreed, is normal.

“It is OK not to be OK,” added President Keith E. Whitfield toward the end of the meeting. “But what that means is that it’s also OK to be OK — and to get better, and to recover. Use every resource that this university is trying to offer you.”

Those Rebel Recovery Program resources include expanded mental health and counseling services from the Resiliency and Justice Center, Student Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS), and Employee Assistance Program. Paul noted that making an appointment with a trauma-informed mental health professional can help you better understand what you’re experiencing emotionally and physically. 

Rebel Recovery events run the gamut from group counseling sessions to art therapy workshops to more general Wellness Wednesdays activities. And more will be added throughout the semester.

Paul also described the most common stages to expect during trauma recovery. “There’s a period of time where we’re establishing safety and stability, and that’s physical and emotional safety. We can do that for ourselves as well for each other and our students. We’re also going to have opportunities for ritual, remembrance, and mourning. We’re going to spend a lot of time in social support — reconnecting, building healthy connections all over campus.”

Recovery, in the end, will require a community effort. Yet, as individuals, we will all be on different trajectories and with different needs through this shared experience.

“It’s going to take all of us working as individuals and as a team to gain (or regain), strengthen, and maintain safety, security, and trust,” emphasized Paul.

It’s a sentiment that was also shared by President Whitfield.

“I just believe that each one of you is the key. We can do all of these leadership activities, we can have programs, we can do all that. Honestly, the strength and recovery is going to need each and every one of you," said Whitfield. "Our strength as UNLV Strong is through you.”

So, will things ever return to normal as we knew it before Dec. 6, 2023?

Said Paul, “We’re going back to routine, not normalcy, but routine with flexibility. Where the trauma is no longer the organizing principle of our lives. It becomes integrated into our story, but it isn’t the story that defines us."