FIVE years after being shot nine times by loyalist paramilitaries, Jemma McGrath has battled back to build a successful beauty business, her achievement recognised last night with a Prince's Trust Award.
Ms McGrath, who has never before shared the details of her horrific attack in the media, continues to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and severe pain from her injuries.
Following the shooting, the 29-year-old former care worker underwent one of the longest operations ever carried out at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.
"I didn't think I was going to walk again. I was in a wheelchair for nine months. I've still got an arm and a leg completely full of metal," she said.
The road to acceptance has been a hard one for Ms McGrath.
"It has been an up and down journey. I deal with my PTSD a lot better now. I was one of those people who said 'I don't need tablets'. Even when I was filling in a form, every time I got to the part about being disabled I stopped. I don't consider myself disabled," she said.
"When I finally did accept (her injuries) it was easier to get help with it. That's why I'm able to deal with it, all the hard work in the last couple of years was while I wasn't getting help. Now that I am I feel like I'm flying."
She believes that in some senses it was the PTSD which helped her establish her business Makeupurlife.
Her success led her to win the Ulster Bank Enterprise award at The Prince’s Trust Awards - an accolade she received in Belfast's Lyric Theatre last night.
Having already completed a make-up course before the attack, she started copying YouTube tutorials from her wheelchair, applying cosmetics with one hand as she convalesced in her sister's home after being released from hospital. (Ms McGrath never returned to her Lord Street Mews home in east Belfast where the horrifying attack happened).
"I had the really negative sides of PTSD where I couldn't sleep, but I used that time to be constantly working at night time on building a brand. I would be working all night and lying on the sofa during the day," she said.
"Times were hard, I had friends coming down bringing me food because I had no money at all, but I know what I wanted to achieve and that I would achieve it.
"Years ago I was offered money to tell my story to the Sun (newspaper). I was like 'But there's nothing to tell yet. Watch and see.' I now have something to tell."
Ms McGrath beat her first year's targets within eight months of trading and has expanded her business by training in new techniques and creating her own mink false eyelashes which she sells online.
She has been nominated for an Irish Beauty Award and signed for new premises for her businesses five years to the day of the attack.
She credits Prince's Trust programme 'Enterprise', a very special counsellor called Angie, and Training for Women Network with unlocking her potential. She is now keen to do her bit for others.
"My aim really is to help younger ones not to do the same things that I did, for instance drink and drugs. It was a big thing that took over my life for a very long time," she said.
"I realise now it was coming from a broken family, having responsibility for looking after my young brothers - it made me very angry.
"I was brought up on a peace line. I was brought up to hate people because of religion and race. When you're young you look up to that sort of stuff (paramilitaries). I'm nearly 30 before I'm properly understanding what it's all about. You're really brainwashed."
No one was ever prosecuted for the attack and Ms McGrath said she had to learn to "let it go".
"For a long time it was my drive, proving people wrong, proving I could get over that. Then I sort of noticed it had been months and months passing without thinking about it," she said.
"Before that, I had been in a vicious circle trying to catch people out in their stories. The I realised I was making myself sick doing it. It's probably safer and better for me not to know."
She is now giving motivational talks to others.
"I think they can really relate to me," she said.
"We're people from Belfast all being brought up the same way."
Richard Donnan of Ulster Bank said the Enterprise award is to "recognise those who have overcome significant challenges in their path to success".
"Jemma truly deserves this award and we wish her a very bright future," he said.
