When a mass shooting grips a nation, as it did last Wednesday at a Florida high school, many individuals follow media coverage closely for updates.

For survivors of the Columbine High School massacre, the experience is different. Every new mass shooting has the ability to bring out unbearable trauma all over again.

"I have friends that filter [the news of a mass shooting] for me," Anne Marie Hochhalter, 36, told Business Insider. "They tell me info in texts. Seeing the images is very triggering for me and especially hearing sounds."

Hochhalter was a junior in 1999, when two Columbine classmates stormed the school and took the lives of 12 students and one teacher before killing themselves. Hochhalter was shot in the back that day, paralyzing her.

"Physically, my whole life changed," Hochhalter said. "I had to relearn how to do everything. I had to cope with severe nerve pain, and then the depression with the loss of my legs. And then six months later, my mom took her own life. It wasn't because of Columbine, but it certainly didn't help her emotional state. My whole life was turned upside down."

The events at Columbine horrified viewers and changed the American psyche. Schools were no longer safe havens for children. But since the shooting in 1999, gun violence has only escalated. There have been 70 mass shootings in America since.

Nearly 20 years later, Columbine survivors say some physical and emotional scars they bear will never disappear.

Read the full article about Columbine survivors experiencing extreme anxiety 19 years after the tragedy by Abby Jackson at Business Insider.