Lisa Hamp, 31, Sterling, Virginia. Virginia Tech shooting, April 16, 2007.

Lisa Hamp was in the same building as the gunman on the day of the Virginia Tech shooting. She and her classmates pushed against the door of the room to keep him from entering. After the shooting, she tried to return to her normal life and push away thoughts of that day.

As I was talking to my counselor about the impact that the shooting had on me, I was discovering that talking about it was helpful, and I started reaching out to another survivor who was physically injured.

Last fall, we were talking, and we were like, Are you going to the 10-year anniversary? And I said, I havent been to one since my senior year, which was the first anniversary, but Id love to go because now Im recognizing all this power from recovery and healing. Id love to go.

She told me that Virginia Tech was going to pay for hotel rooms, and theres going to be some private events for all the survivors.

I was like, Oh my God, I would love to go. I would love to connect with even more people than I already have.

I reached out to Virginia Tech and said, hey, Im a survivor, I was in room 205. I understand Ive recently been off the grid but this is everything Ive learned. Heres my story, Id love to go to the 10-year anniversary. I think it would be a positive and therapeutic experience for me.

And they said, Im sorry, because you werent physically injured, you cant go to the private events. And we wont pay for your hotel room. But you can go to the 5K and the picnic. They started listing all these public events that literally anyone in the world could go to.

I was crushed.

So then I thought, what if I write a letter to the university and just explain how I feel excluded by them not including me, and that I dont think this is the way they should be treating the physically uninjured.

Maybe they dont understand how this is making me feel by not inviting me. Theres maybe only 20 of us in the physically uninjured category, so for a university of 20,000, adding an extra 20 people for hotel rooms and private events is like pennies.