"I wouldn’t take back my injury - it’s made me who I am"

Grace Spence Green in a splendid Guardian photo...wise beyond her years 

One of the most uplifting stories for British people in the last couple of years has been about the medical student left with a spinal disability because a drug-crazed man landed on her after jumping from the third level of a shopping mall in London. She has never shown anger at what the man did to her, and she has become an advocate for the disabled while continuing her studies.

On radio and television, and in newspaper accounts like the one in the Guardian that I am drawing on here,  Grace Spence Green shows a generosity of spirit that amazes all who are used to calls in society for  revenge, for punishment, and to seeing the victim play that role to the hilt.  Instead, she is focused on starting work as a junior doctor, and eventually working in paediatrics, especially with disabled children,

Spence Green was 22,  and the immediate aftermath was hard, as when the doctors finally gave her their prognosis of life with paralysis from the breast down: 

"I remember getting out of that meeting and just crying, folded up on my lap. I went outside, because I wanted to breathe, and it was pouring down with rain.” Her family went home and she remained in hospital, dealing with this news and contemplating a future that felt extremely bleak – because this was what she thought life as a wheelchair user would be. 

At the beginning, it felt like a “huge loss. I couldn’t imagine myself having a good life in a wheelchair, because I just don’t think there are enough examples of that anywhere. The only thing that kept me going was the fact I knew I was going back to medicine [she deferred her studies by a year].  

However, the harsh reaction of others surprised her. In fact... 

She was shocked at some people’s anger towards her in online comments “for not displaying the emotion they thought I should”; they thought she ought to be consumed with anger and bitterness. “I had people saying I was in denial and that I was secretly angry and things like that. It just made me think there’s always going to be people that think my life is a tragedy, that my life is ruined, and I just have to accept that.” She laughs at the absurdity of it.

So what were her reactions? Did she feel anger and bitterness toward the young man?

“There was never any anger, no. There was sadness at the beginning and there was definitely some kind of: ‘Why me?’” There were a lot of what-ifs: what if she hadn’t taken that route through the shopping centre? “But I find it so exhausting, and I hate feeling like a victim and self-pitying, because it doesn’t feel like it gets me anywhere. Now I look at it and I feel completely disconnected to him. That’s what I also find strange – people ask: ‘Are you going to meet him?’ like for some reason we’re still associated. It’s difficult having so many other opinions put on you.”

Finally, Spence Green was able to accept that she was disabled: 

 It took about a year, she says, to get to a point approaching peace with what had happened. “I’d call it radical acceptance, because I really had to embrace being disabled,” she says. “As soon as that happened, my whole perspective changed, because as soon as I felt proud of who I was I just didn’t take people’s crap any more. I didn’t take people’s pitying or ableist comments, or feel like I needed to answer to people about who I was and what I was doing. But it took a long time to get there.”

That "radical acceptance" seems to keep any sense of loss in check:

Instead, she concentrates on what she has gained – a wealth of new experiences, friends and perspectives. “Talking about disability and advocating for disabled people has become something I’m so passionate about. Without my injury, I wouldn’t have that,” she says.

The injury has “changed everything about me … people don’t understand, but I wouldn’t take back my injury because it’s made me who I am.” She is stronger, she says. “I used to let people walk over me.”

It has given her a broader perspective on life. “I was 22 years old, with this ignorance of how other people live. I grew up very privileged, a young white woman, middle class. I understood there were barriers out there for other people, but once you’ve lived through them you can really understand what it’s like.”

If many people do still underestimate, patronise or look past her, it is equally true that her injury has allowed her to connect with people. “Because my wheelchair is so obvious, it’s like a very visible scar, I see people really open up to me. They recognise that I’ve been through something.”

In brief, the resilience and positivity Spence Green has shown meant that life has not become small for her, as was a fear at the beginning. Rather, she has had to mature quickly and she knows that she has a depth to her that she values, and which others can discern by the manner of  her interaction with others. 

With her declaration "I wouldn’t take back my injury because it’s made me who I am" we see another instance of personal growth coming out of hardship, failure or personal calamity. Spence Green provides a vivid example of how hard times of any type give us a chance to hone our spirit, of how suffering is not always something we should flee from, rather they are opportunities for us to learn, as this blog has recently explored here and here. 

Ω For a brief BBC video interview with Grace Spence Green, go here

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