For trauma survivors, healing starts with understanding.
SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, has been exploring the link between trauma and behavioral health, a crucial tie that begins with pursuing the root cause of a person’s trauma. Recognizing and identifying these precipitating factors that lead to health and behavioral risks not only helps build awareness, but improves “overall health throughout a trauma survivor’s life.”
Read more: Special Activities Empower Mental Health Awareness Month…
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The Milwaukee County sheriff’s office is designing a program to help employees returning from foreign wars and veterans readjust to their civilian jobs and deal with postwar trauma, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 
A study commissioned by the CORE Health Foundation in Texas indicates that an estimated $6.8 billion is spent each year on traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and associated treatments in the state.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, half of those who suffer a traumatic brain injury will experience clinical depression in the year following, making them eight times more likely to become depressed than someone not injured.
Our lives change in various ways when something awful happens. Some of us lose friends. Some of us lose family. Some of us lose loved ones. Some of us are close to people who suffer a loss. And others of us have no direct connection at all to specific painful incidents or events, but may find it nonetheless almost impossible to escape the intense emotional fallout from the pain that may surround us. After traumatic events like this, the pain and fear can linger for a long time. In many cases, just as the recovery and healing process begins, the “anniversary” of an event can trigger many of those same feelings. Just as each person’s experiences with or involvement in specific painful events are unique and personal, so are our reactions. Especially as reminders of the event increase as the anniversary draws near, handling the human, emotional aftermath of this crisis might become more and more difficult. As a manager, you need to be prepared to handle the impact this may have on your workforce and your work environment. As we approach anniversaries of traumatic incidents, we will be flooded with reminders of the tragic events. Television will remind us with news coverage, video footage, tributes and movies. Newspapers and magazines will remind us with harrowing stories, haunting headlines and graphic photographs. Requests for donations will begin to arrive in the mail. There will be special religious services and ceremonies held in our communities. Memories will surround us.
