Grow Through It: War, Terrorism
Patience Murray, author of Survive Then Live, describes the terror and injury she experienced during the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, and her challenging healing journey.
It started as a girls night out when Patience, a guest on a family’s vacation, went with her friend Tiara and Tiara’s cousin Akyra to the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. After a night of dancing and making friends, and just before they ordered an Uber to leave, gunshots were fired inside the club.
The three young women scattered and Patience and Akyra made it outside. When they realized that Tiara was still inside, they decided to go and find her.
She was near the bar, paralyzed with fear.
There were more gunshots and Patience, Tiara and Akyra followed people running into the bathroom. There was a stall packed with people, but it was still open. They shoved their way in and closed the door.
The gunman came into the bathroom, started shooting, and the experience turned from confusion to terror. After his gun jammed, Patience tried to move forward and realized she was shot. She later learned that his AR-15 rifle had shattered her femur. It was so painful that she didn’t realize that she had also been shot in her other leg, but this was just a flesh wound.
Patience heard people moaning and crying and understood then that there was no way out of the bathroom. About 2-2.5 hours into the hostage situation, she heard commotion outside the walls. The gunman started pacing. Something was happening, but it wasn’t clear what. The gunman came into her stall. He was carrying a handgun and started shooting again.
The police burst into the bathroom and killed the shooter.
She was rescued and put into an ambulance. She and Tiara survived, but Akyra died as a result of her injuries.
It wasn’t easy getting through it, as when she went back to Philadelphia she found that people did not understand the gravity of the terror of what she had experienced. The online community was no better.
She stepped away from things that weren’t important to focus on getting better physically, learning how to walk again, and learning how to be around crowds and other people again.
She had very little family support at that time and felt isolated and alone.
Leaning into her spirituality, praying, being more in tune with God was the most important thing during that time.
She had to learn how to trust her decision making again because they decided to go to Pulse that night — and that was how it ended. She had to trust that this was an isolated incident and that she could go out again.
During that time, in the midst of tragedy, she was falling in love with her husband and something beautiful was blossoming. That love helped her focus on healing, focus on the positive, focus on what life could be like after tragedy.
Patience also encourages embracing the love of friends and others who are there for you and trying to support you. And not being stuck in a state of anger asking: Why did this happen to me? This shouldn’t have happened to me. Why do I have to be healing from anything at all? Moving away from the victim mentality because it is easy to get stuck there.
Her advice to anyone going through something similar is to give yourself time and unlimited grace,. And ask others to give you grace because healing is messy. You can keep repeating things until you release them.
Do things that give you joy even if you don’t want to because it will create some momentum within you to learn how to pull yourself out, especially if nobody’s around. It is going to keep you alive, keep you moving forward, keep you healing.
Pray. Whatever you believe God is, ask questions, as Patience believes they will be answered.
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