Max is a long time volunteer turned employee for mindyourmind as a Youth Outreach Assistant. He enjoys blogging, cats, and the state of Utah. Check him out on Twitter: @maxamilli

It’s been almost ten years since the September 11^th attacks happened in 2001, and the wounds still feel as fresh as they did all those years ago. Families are still reeling from losing loved ones, friends, and co-workers on that fateful day. But a decade later the memories of those people have been somewhat laid to rest, but we are still dealing with the people who survived from it.

Experiencing an event like that –even seeing it on television – can be traumatic for anyone, and that is exactly the case with Liz and Stephen Alderman. They lost their son in the events of 9/11, but they admit that losing him has not become the hardest part to deal with; it’s the trauma that exists after the attacks that become a day to day struggle. What they did though is establish the Peter C. Alderman Foundation, “with the mission of healing the emotional wounds of those victims by training indigenous health workers to provide psychiatric care in post-conflict countries around the world.”

After a traumatic event people can suffer for years with what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We hear about it a lot with soldiers who return from war and cannot cope in regular society after having lived in what is an essentially lawless environment for the past however long. It can also happen to anyone who has gone through a traumatic event, and that seems to always be lost. After an event like that, the images and experiences they see or go through will never leave them, they now have to learn to cope with what they went through. Unfortunately that’s how life is at times, but thankfully we have foundations started by the Alderman’s, as well as many resources in the community or online that can help to the same cause.

To think that ten years ago something happened to someone in the world, and the scars are still as fresh as the second it occurred is fascinating…And sometimes it takes a unifying event like September 11^th to have us acknowledge mental illnesses and stress disorders, it shouldn’t have to happen, but it is the silver lining on an extremely dark cloud.

- by Max