Parkland students take road trip to relieve anxiety from shooting
Three Parkland teens, survivors of the mass shooting at their high school, have chosen a nontraditional way of dealing with their anxiety and mental health concerns: A cross-country road trip.
The trio — and a German shepherd therapy dog in training — plan to navigate a truck pulling a camper on city and country roads, and they intend to visit the 48 continental states to help restore their mental health through new experiences and video storytelling. They began their trip on July 12, planning to film vignettes of people who are ordinary but doing extraordinary things, and air their videos on their YouTube channel.
The idea for the trip began with Alexa Zarem, an 18-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas graduate. She had been coping with the aftermath of the school shooting that left 17 people dead, and she lost her mother in January to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Zarem said she felt mentally unprepared to start college, and wanted to travel instead.
“I realized life is short and this is something I wanted to do, so why wait when tomorrow isn’t promised,” she said.
As she told her friend Ashley Baez about her road trip plan, the conversation took a turn. “I knew I need a break from school,” Baez said. “I needed this.”
Baez, 17, said she had tried to live a teenage life that included going to school, movies and hanging out with friends. But nightmares and anxiety on some days kept her in bed in her darkened bedroom, even after physically recovering from a gunshot wound to her leg during the mass shooting. While she has received some mental health counseling, Baez saw the road trip as a non-traditional way to cope.