Grief
HealthDisabilityResilienceIdentityPersonal GrowthChange & Transition
When the Future You Expected Disappears
A spinal cord injury, a long recovery, and the question of who you are when everything changes
Rusty · United States
Rusty was a personal trainer when a spinal cord injury changed everything.
He was told there were things he might never do again.
His story is about the long, nonlinear work of recovery.
About the question of who you are when the future you expected disappears.
About the people who helped him continue.
And about the unexpected ways that loss can open a person to something they did not know they needed.
Rusty does not describe his recovery as a triumph over adversity.
He describes it as a renegotiation.
A slow, sometimes painful process of learning what his body could still do.
What his life could still hold.
And who he was becoming on the other side of what had happened to him.
“Recovery is not a triumph. It is a renegotiation.”
— Rusty
This story reflects the contributor's personal experiences, recollections, beliefs, and perspectives. Unless expressly stated otherwise, contributor accounts may not have been independently verified and do not necessarily represent the views or conclusions of Welcome to Your Becoming or Dr. Stephen Rue. Terms of Use.
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