For anyone who has ever suffered through a painful event, from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to violent crimes to the trauma of severe depression, Marla Hanson’s story has never been more important. Her triumph over a vicious face slashing and a brutal court system, and her recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder prove that none of us need to be helpless victims. Hanson’s empowering message challenges women in particular to realize the full potential of all they can achieve.

Moving beyond a painful ordeal in one’s life is always difficult, and such an experience can have long term effects like anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress disorder. But by telling her own moving and inspirational story, Hanson gives audiences a place to start in the recovery process. She is more determined than ever to help people take charge of their own lives and take action against society’s inequalities. Speaking before audiences around the country, she has received rave reviews for her motivating message that victimization is just a state of mind and that difficult events can be lived with and overcome.

As the world remembers, Hanson was a promising young model on the verge of stardom when tragedy struck; a pair of attackers hired by her jealous landlord cruelly held and cut her face with a razor. In spite of a miraculous job of reconstructive surgery that restored her beauty, enough damage had been done that Hanson?s modeling career was effectively over. The pain, however, was just beginning.

During the several trials that followed, Hanson was forced to endure the further indignity of the defense attorney’s allegations that she had somehow asked for trouble by the way she dressed and acted. Feeding into the most demeaning and debilitating of stereotypes against women, the court proceedings were treating the attacker as the victim. It was as if Hanson was being blamed for the violence committed against her; the effect was a year and a half of proceedings that she describes as worse than the attack itself.

But Hanson would not be beaten. She saw the three men involved in the attack convicted and sentenced to prison, then set about to reform the traditional laws and beliefs that routinely make victims of the victimized. Working with victims? rights groups ranging from the National Victims? Center to the Department of Justices Victims Service Agency, Hanson has become one of the most vocal advocates for legislative change. She regularly lobbied for new laws and victims? services at the grassroots and national levels.

However, ten years after the attack, Hanson became severely depressed and suicidal. For several years, she found it difficult to face the world; closing herself off from friends and family, she often refused to leave her room for days. At a critical moment in her life, she met a Vietnam veteran who explained to her the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, which she recognized in herself. Hanson revisited her therapist, who proscribed her an anti-depression and -anxiety drug called Paxil. She improved enormously, and, for the first time in over five years, was able to return to her normal life.

Born in Independence, Missouri, Hanson attended college in Dallas, Texas, where she later worked selling real estate and insurance. A job promotion brought her to New York, where part-time modeling eventually became a full-time career.

Hanson earned a bachelors degree in film production from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She lives in New York City with her husband and child. She is currently writing about recovery for her first book.

Health, Diversity, Law, Diversity Topics,