4/16: Public Tragedy Collides With Personal Trauma

Abstract

When the massacre of 32 students plus the suicide of the shooter occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, this author watched the external events from the relative safety of her office located directly across the Drillfield from Norris Hall, where the shootings occurred. Subsequently, the author fell into a deep state of depression following the day now known as 4/16. Throughout the numbness of the day, the author scribbled poems on post-it notes, later tucked into the journals where she chronicled the depression that held her captive for almost 3 years. In this article, the author performed the journey that helped her survive the collision of public tragedy and personal trauma by connecting the autoethnographic to the public. The author narrated a scene, to tell her story, connecting life and art, writing as inquiry to understand her journey from depression to wholeness.