Welcome to听Tough Love. Every other week, we鈥檙e answering your questions about dating, breakups, and everything in between. Our advice giver is Blair Braverman, dogsled racer and author of听. Have a question of your own? Write to us at听toughlove@outsidemag.com.
I am a 26-year-old man, and last summer I dove off a tree stump into a river, hit the bottom, and broke my back. After surgery, three weeks of intensive care, and lots of therapy, I have some function in my legs, but it seems like I will use a wheelchair for the rest of my life. My girlfriend of two years has been by my side the whole time. We are also very lucky to be financially secure, with support from my family. All this year, I felt like my job was to concentrate听on the next step with physical therapy, and that helped me focus on the future. But my life is starting to be听routine again, and I have to figure out what that even means anymore. I have always considered my identity to be an outdoorsman. I was an Eagle Scout and majored in environmental education. But now when I go outside鈥攖here is a wheelchair-accessible trail in my town鈥擨 feel like I don鈥檛 belong there听and that people feel sorry for me instead of seeing the skills and experiences I have. How do I stop feeling trapped inside?
To answer this question, I reached out to outdoorsy disabled folks I admire, and one woman鈥檚 advice was so thoughtful and wise that I wanted to let her share it here herself. Julia Haynie is a health care administrator for a clinic听in Fairbanks, Alaska, and has used a wheelchair since her mid-thirties听due to limited mobility from a congenital, degenerative spinal condition. She grew up in Oregon but has embraced life up north for the last five years.
The one thing I鈥檒l add to Julia鈥檚 advice, below, is that it sounds like you鈥檝e always been a leader and an educator, and now those skills are more valuable than ever. The outdoor industry needs leaders in adaptive recreation, as well as role models and spokespeople who understand the outdoors and the experience of disability. You might find yourself leading nature trips for a local wheelchair meetup or consulting with a ski resort about how it can听become more accessible. Organizations like offer grants for accessibility in sports like surfing, skiing, and rock climbing, while the Kelly Brush Foundation鈥檚 provides outdoor听equipment (like mono-skis and off-road hand cycles) for people with spinal-cord injuries. It鈥檚 up to you how involved you want to be in the field of accessibility and the outdoors, but you may find a community there that recognizes both your physical challenges and your outdoor听experience.
Here鈥檚 Julia.
I want to tell you the truth that I wish someone had told me when I was lying in a hospital bed, or first awkwardly wheeling into the rehab facility:听there are going to be times that suck! I know you know this, but you鈥檙e not alone. Your body is going to hurt, you are going to feel useless, and it鈥檚 going to seem like it will never get better. If you鈥檙e like me, you might think that admitting that despair is a sign of failure. You might think that if you stay strong, if you pretend things aren鈥檛 gut-wrenchingly fucked up, you eventually will be strong enough to not feel the pain. But just as physical pain can teach you听how to care for your听body, depression, anger, frustration, anxiety, and fear are all signs that you should share those feelings. Often听the best way to get rid of emotions that weigh you down is to talk about them with another person.
When I don鈥檛 have another human nearby, I often sit down and write myself a letter, pouring out all the things that seem impossible to change. Then I do something to turn my worried brain off for 20 to 30 minutes: take a shower, watch the price of Bitcoin fluctuate on the computer, or read the latest issue of 国产吃瓜黑料.听The point is to give your mind a break. When I鈥檓 ready, I come back, read what I wrote, and sit with the thoughts that led me to feeling hopeless. Sometimes it takes a few minutes; sometimes it takes hours. Then I bring the paper outside and burn it. I鈥檓 not free from the problem, but I can make the choice to keep moving forward. On one of my darkest note-burning nights, I spent almost half an hour in minus-20-degree temperatures听watching the smoke curl up from the paper and toward the purple and green aurora dancing overhead.
Don鈥檛 wait for things to be 鈥渂ack to normal鈥 before you reach out to current friends鈥攕tart building new friendships, and connect with your community. People may be holding back because they don鈥檛 know how and if you鈥檝e changed, not because they don鈥檛 want to be around you. Invite people over for something that鈥檚 reasonable for both of you to do, even if it鈥檚 just cleaning your bathroom听and doing load of laundry, and ask them to bring dinner so you don鈥檛 have to organize the food. With good friends, sharing each other鈥檚 company means more than what you do together.
Find people who do difficult things, who are interesting and down to earth and fun, and give yourself permission to live a little vicariously through them. There are so many people doing great things鈥some who have apparent听disabilities听and some who are, or seem to the outsider, able-bodied. Reach out to your heroes and let them know that they inspire you. Ask if there鈥檚 a way you can help them. You might get to do things you never imagined were in the realm of possibility, just by taking a risk with a person or an organization you admire.
There are a lot听of people you can teach and learn from, but you may not have noticed them before. We live in a society that segregates听based on perceived abilities and skills. You may not know that the coach of the shooting team is wheelchair-bound, and you may not have noticed the woman who uses a wheelchair and works for your optometrist. Because most people using wheelchairs are quite a bit older than you, it may seem like there isn鈥檛 anyone your age, but there are. Some people have needed a chair their whole lives, others have congenital problems that snuck up on them, and still others have suffered听a catastrophic event that made a wheelchair necessary. Each person in a wheelchair has an alternative scenario听in which they didn鈥檛 survive to need that wheelchair. It helps to find gratitude for the chance to make this new life work.
Your life is never going to be the same, but it doesn鈥檛 change who you are at your core. After my injury, all my years of athletics and loving the outdoors didn鈥檛 disappear. I鈥檓 not going solo-backpacking听ever again, but that doesn鈥檛 mean I have to give up on finding things that connect to my soul in similar ways. I have similar feelings of awe when I take my dog out at night under an auroral light show, or record stories from Native elders as they talk about raising families in the Arctic. I鈥檓 not exactly glad to be disabled, but I鈥檓 not disappointed with the life that has come from it听either.