Tops worker says hardest part of recovering from Buffalo massacre is feeling 'invisible'
"It’s a heavy situation to live with," said Fragrance Harris Stanfield.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- While Fragrance Harris Stanfield said she is thankful she and her 20-year-old daughter survived the mass shooting at the Buffalo supermarket where they were both working, she feels the psychological trauma she endured has taken a back seat to the 10 Black people killed in the racially motivated attack.
This video profile is part of ABC News' continued reporting on the Buffalo mass shooting.
She said each tribute and community meeting she has attended in the six months since the shooting, those killed have been honored in moments of silence and speeches. But she said survivors like her, who witnessed people being shot and ran for their lives to escape, have mostly been forgotten in the salutes.
"The hardest part is being invisible," Harris Stanfield, the mother of seven children, told ABC News.
She said there has been little acknowledgment of people living with trauma stemming from the mass shooting.
She said she is grateful the federal charges against the suspect, 19-year-old Payton Gendron, were updated after she complained to include one charge addressing victims who were not physically injured in the shooting but have been left traumatized by what they experienced.
"It's a heavy situation to live with," Harris Stanfield said. "It's not that you wish you died. It's not that you have remorse that you lived. It's that you are living with this and you have to find a way in your mind to be OK with that. You have to be OK with the fact that you've made it out."
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