Christina Blache was shot through both legs with an assault rifle when James Holmes opened fire in a movie theater.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — From the witness stand, Christina Blache could finally do what she had most wanted and most feared: She looked for the first time at the man who shot her, who killed her friend, who ravaged so many lives.

Her muscles tensed. Her nerves tingled. She fought back tears.

“I’d never faced him before. I wanted to see who did it and I wanted to be able to try to look him in the eye,” Blache said. “You go through three years of healing and learning, you know, how to walk again and how to swim, how to skate, how to do everything you’ve learned from the age you were born. All over again. And to look at him ...”

Blache, an Iraq war veteran, went on to describe the sharp bursts of gunfire, the searing pain of bullets through both her legs, the sight of her friend Alex Sullivan, lifeless on the floor.

Prosecutors have called more than 144 witnesses in the first month of the death penalty trial of James Holmes, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Fifty-one of these witnesses were shooting survivors, and for many, testifying has provided a combination of catharsis and terror.

They’ve approached the stand with brave faces. They’ve chuckled at warm memories of their friends. They’ve had prolonged pauses and tearful breakdowns.

A monumental public and private effort has helped survivors cope in the nearly three years since Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a packed premiere of a Batman movie.

The Aurora Strong Resilience Center opened, offering programs and therapy to victims of trauma. And the Aurora Mental Health Center, the lead agency helping the victims, has spent more than $2 million responding to the shooting. The agency formed a community support team that has served more than 1,700 affected people, said the agency’s disaster coordinator, psychologist Kirsten Anderson. Two team members have been in the courthouse daily, coaching victims on managing their emotions on the stand and coping thereafter.

“This is an incredibly resilient group of people who have worked really hard to get their lives back,” Anderson said. “This trial sets a lot of people back and forces them to relive an awful night.”

Blache offered to be among the first to testify, eager to put it behind her.

“I was shaking because I was trying to hold composure,” she said. “I didn’t want to let him see any kind of emotion, anything he could feed off of.”

But Holmes wouldn’t meet her gaze. And as she glanced down at him between questions, she realized she wasn’t nervous about him anymore.

Prosecutors had told her to remember to breathe. But they didn’t tell her until that day that they would be showing pictures, including one of Sullivan, smiling and alive.

“I didn’t get to see him again like that, so it was a little heart-wrenching,” she said. “It hit me pretty hard.”