Spinal Cord Injury Advice

Sitting at last year’s Chicago’s Abilities Expo, I kept coming back to something I told an attendee while I was manning Bettenhausen Mobility booth that day. A newly paralyzed young man had stopped by to find out about SCI resources. I gave him my best spiel on the Christopher Reeves foundation the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, offered my assistance and answered a couple questions.

I could tell by the look in his eyes he appreciated the info but was too overwhelmed to fully process everything. And I understood: As much as I love the expo, it’s overwhelming to so many. Imagining what must have been going through his head as someone with a new SCI, I blurted out the comment that had my mind racing later that night. “You will get mentally tougher.”

He said to me other people told him that it gets easier. There’s nothing inherently wrong or untrue about that statement. Yet I remembered how shallow those words sounded when others tried to reassure me in the wake of my injury.

“Living with a disability is like taking a master class in learning to embrace the Suck.”

I felt like I owed him a better explanation: How do you get mentally tougher? How does it get better? What is better?As I thought about what I should have said,You will get mentally tougher because you will learn to handle hard better. We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier, but you will handle hard better. … If you go around waiting for stuff to get easier in life, it’s never going to happen.

Living with a disability is like taking a master class in learning a grit mindset and learning how to handle the suck.The best advice I can offer is to embrace the opportunity: to master the art of Rising Up and embracing the suck, which I have a Doctorate degree in. Working through all of the medical issues that I’ve run into over the last few years, I can’t help but think how these same issues would’ve crushed most people.

They still suck and are draining and infuriating, but I’ve learned to handle them and get back to living.Many of the things I’ve gone through have left me with concrete lessons and tactics I’ve been able to apply again. I’ve also learned to accept that sometimes you just have to be happy with getting through something.

Regardless, each time that I make it out the other side, it builds grit and confidence in my ability to do so.What I was ineloquently trying to tell the man at the expo wasn’t so much that life gets better — hopefully it does, although no one can guarantee that — but how you handle the mental and physical pain that comes with disability.

And that’s the key: handling all the bullshit so you can enjoy all the good stuff — so you can thrive and not just survive. It won’t get easier, and sometimes it will be oppressively difficult, but as long as you don’t give up, it will get better.

Brian P Swift? J.D. Coach – Business & Personal Strategist – Speaker [email protected] brianpswift.com