My Tender Twenties

In January of 1980, five months after my 20th birthday, I fell twenty-seven feet from the top of a ladder and landed on my butt, sustaining a T-12 incomplete compression fracture - a spinal cord injury.  Consequently, I spent the first half of my 20s recovering from the shock of a severe physical injury and the subsequent need to adapt to an utterly unexpected lifestyle.

During 1980 and most of '81, I was completely occupied with recovery.  I spent nine months in a body cast and more than six months in physical therapy and psychological counseling.  The physical changes in my body were major.  I was rendered permanently paraplegic, and although I did eventually regain some movement and voluntary muscle control in my upper legs, it took months of physical and emotional effort for me to come to terms with the truth - that I really  did  need to use a wheelchair to be as active as I wished to be.  I struggled with learning to handle and drive a wheelchair and teaching other people how to fold up the chair, load it into a car, etc.  For the first few months with my wheelchair, I had a lot to learn;  I had days, weeks of overwhelming frustration and physical exhaustion.  Just figuring out how to lift myself out of bed and into the wheelchair was a major accomplishment, as was learning how to regulate bodily functions and cope with muscular spasms.

I also struggled with being seen out in the world, by other people, as a wheelchair user.  Although I dealt with some of my fears in counseling, I was not prepared for the effect other people's responses to the wheelchair would have on my own weakened self-esteem.  I had witnessed discrimination, bigotry and oppression in the past - at times not even understanding what it was I saw - but I had never felt it directed toward me; once I acquired a disability, that changed noticeably.  I became familiar with being invisible, patronized, condescended to and generally treated as if I were something less than fully human - apparently because using a wheelchair was considered a tragedy.  I found myself awash in frustration, exhaustion, confusion, fear, self-doubt and anger.

This highly emotional state was further compounded by the responses of the man I was married to at the time; he underwent his own struggle with the change in our lifestyle.  During one of our infrequent but very uncomfortable discussions about my injury, he told me, "When you broke your back, I lost the only thing I ever really loved."  After recovering from the impact of having been referred to as a "thing," my response was to assert "I'm not dead, just different."  Ultimately, the differences proved unacceptable to him, and our marriage came to an end in the mid-1980s.

Before my injury, I had been a student of theater arts; following my injury, I considered giving up my dream of a career as a professional theater artist.  During the early '80s, I did not see many people with disabilities in the entertainment industry - occasionally, a person in a wheelchair or someone speaking in sign language, on a television commercial.  I felt bereft of role models.  Yet, I couldn't think what else I would do with myself - become a veterinary technician?  A perfectly honorable profession and one that would allow me to put my love for animals to work, but I didn't feel "called" to that field, as I did to the theater.  I suppose my stubbornness got the best of me, for I recall thinking one day, "Screw it; I'll be my own role model."  Of course, I felt afraid of failing; then I realized that making an attempt - giving it my best shot, even if I failed  -  was more acceptable than not trying.

In the autumn of 1981, at the age of 21, I re-enrolled as an undergraduate, spending the next three years completing a degree in theater Arts.  I not only expanded my studies, but I also reclaimed a number of important things I had lost: self-confidence and self-acceptance, if not always self-love; my sense of humor; a certainty that I do actually know a thing or two about theatre, and affirmation of my joy in the work; a belief in my right to live as I see fit, and a resistance to the pressure of other people's expectations of me.

I also gradually began to understand the broader implications of my experience.  It occurred to me one day (after I'd completed a couple of philosophy classes) that I underwent my "existential crisis" at the tender age of 22, rather than at age 35 or 43 or 57.  While my peers seemed to be concerned primarily with questions about career options, college credits, dating, drinking, and driving, I was grappling with what seemed to be larger issues:  What it means to me to be alive - do I savor the experience, or am I basically a waste of space and oxygen?  What does it mean to be a woman?  A theater artist?  What is my relationship with my god?  Can I live like this, or do I celebrate my next birthday by rolling off the top of a building and killing myself?  (I quickly dismissed this notion, tempting as it was for a few long weeks, because I was frightened by the possibility that I might not actually die, but merely become "even more disabled".)

Returning to higher education proved a positive choice.  The requirements of study and the social environment of the university demanded that I stretch myself beyond the apathetic self-pity that threatened my mental health during the early years of recovery. By 1984 I was a graduate with a B.A., out in the job market, in search of gainful employment.  Fortunately, I was blissfully ignorant of the appalling statistics regarding the unemployment rate of people with disabilities.  I was feeling more confident in my choice to pursue my chosen career, and I still cherished a sense of hope in the possibilities I could imagine for myself.  By the time I was 25, I had adapted to my new lifestyle and was becoming increasingly politicized as I was drawn into the growing disability rights movement.  I realized there might be a place for me as a disability awareness advocate and educator.  And the opportunities to practice my craft as an actor, director and producer seemed to be increasing, albeit slowly.  I spent the better part of my mid-20s seeking artistic challenges and chances to collaborate with other artists whose work I admired and respected.

In the late 1980s I was pushing 30, growing more and more committed to making a living as a theater artist and to making some sort of positive contribution to the changing image of people with disabilities.  In this commitment, I discovered a sense of identity that continues to sustain me.  Although the trauma I survived at the age of 20 may be uncommon, it did prompt me to face the same sorts of struggles that challenge today's 20-somethings:  creating a place in the world, building an identity, finding something to do, somewhere to live, and someone to love.