“Strengthening, healing and empowering ourselves after trauma involves painful, internal work. This is not a quick fix. You have to have patience with yourself and allow yourself to go through the pain, frustration, anxiety, etc. Facing these emotions head on will bring you to the place of peace you are seeking.” (Mildred Muhammad 2009)

Thursday the 24th March. One hundred and four people are in the Preston Auditorium captivated by the story and healing program presented by Mrs. Mildred Muhammad. For a full two hours, they listened and posed questions, shared stories and got wiser.

They heard the grueling story about the abuse of Mrs. Muhammad and her children. She also shared that she and her children were on an ongoing path towards healing after the terrible moment when it was revealed to her that the DC sniper was her former husband. Seventeen victims had been shot; she now knows that his crime was planned at killing her, using the disguise of a random sniper. This would enable him to gain the sole custody of their three children.

She stood straight and beautiful on the podium and put in plain words how she and her children survived the abuse and the subsequent shootings. She explained how she gradually gained strength to rise beyond the deeds of her former husband. In the first half of the meeting she also shared with the audience how she has learned to integrate her experiences into a program of cognitive learning and healing. The program is called “After Trauma.” It contains insight and advice on concrete actions to perform.

It is important to have a strategic safety plan, “To leave or to stay,” as she put it. She explained that after trauma one’s emotional self is an emotional basket case. Accepting all of your emotions without judgment and expressing them to others “the best way you know how” is necessary. She talked about picking her life up piece by piece to become a patchwork, but a whole one. And, she spoke about TIME. Journaling, she advised, is an important part of the healing process: “From head to hand, a way to get it out,” she summed it up. Her final advice was to set goals which involve some degree of unselfishness and benefits to others. Following her speech the audience posed questions. A survivor of domestic abuse told about the difficult path towards healing: “I think I have forgiven the abuser, until I hear another story.”

A powerful and touching two hours were quickly gone and Mildred then signed her book: “Scared Silent”, while the attendees conversed among themselves with coffee or tea. A fruitful afternoon thus ended. n

To know more about her program visit www.aferthetrauma.org or buy her book, Scared Silent.

Annemarie Brink Olsen