Be a Survivor

No, I’m not talking about the TV show. This post may come off a little insensitive so I’ll apologize ahead of time. After a traumatic incident you’re faced with two options. You can fight back and push, or you can fold like a lawn chair. You can be a survivor or a victim.

Part of me navigating this injury has been finding support groups. My faith. My family. My friends. My doctor. My psychologist. My town. Hell, even my puppy. Social media can be a great tool to find like minded groups of people but it also opens a window into some of the ugliness out there. I’ve seen some pretty shitty people in my relatively short stint in the Army so some of my expectations of people can be pretty low, but somehow someone comes along and sets a new and improved standard. Some of the most toxic people that I’ve had the displeasure of witnessing, unfortunately have been members of a spinal cord injury support page with tens of thousands of “like minded” people on Facebook. 

I throw quotations around “like minded” because that’s how we’re supposed to be. In reality, the only thing that some of us have in common is that part of our bodies don’t work. I really only use the group for facts and information, I try not to read people’s comments because frankly, a lot of these people suck. Everyone has their opinion on different things and suddenly everything becomes an argument or a pissing match. Instead of building each other up, half the time people are tearing each other down.  “Well my injury is worse and I’ve been in a wheelchair for X amount of years so you have no reason to complain about Y”. One of the recent favorites that I saw on this page was a post from a paraplegic bodybuilder who was interviewed by a news station regarding how he stays so fit and motivated. It was a seriously motivating story. One of the first comments came from someone who is a quadriplegic talking about how much community service he does and how this guy only uses his platform to benefit himself. Get bent pal. Who does this? Why is something like that someone’s first thought?  I started asking myself how these groups get like this. You see the same thing everywhere you go regarding politics. It’s just this new victim mentality.

Woe, is me... boo hoo. Someone always has it worse. Sometimes when I see someone post some snide response, I find myself saying... or typing out a quick retort. Luckily, I have the wherewithal to usually stop and think about how anti-productive it would be to even encourage someone to continue bashing someone in the comment section. Honestly, I think it’s all too easy to be a keyboard warrior these days. Someone sits behind a computer and can type out whatever they want without having to think about the consequences. Nowadays, you can type out some mean, pointless opinion without having to worry about getting punched in the teeth. Personally, if you type something out that I know you wouldn’t say face to face then I will immediately disregard your opinions all together. This might sound a little twisted and ironic coming from the kid in the wheelchair, but if I think you’re “spineless” then I’m not going to give you or your comments any value. 

Another tough aspect about the access to these groups are people that are clearly in a mental health crisis. You can’t scroll through the support page for two minutes without finding someone throwing out how depressed they are or how tough life is. There’s one person that logs on at least once a week to talk about how he wishes that he had died in his accident because this life is torture. I’m sorry man, I understand your struggles but I’m not logging on every morning to read about how bad you have it or how sad the life of someone in a wheelchair is. I’ve worked through my shit and my life as a quadriplegic is pretty kick ass. What’s hard about this is that you don’t know if these people are out here complaining because they are looking for an outlet of support or if they’re just on the page to bitch and moan. It’s tough because people will respond try and help him or recommend therapist or various hotlines that he can talk to. People just soak it up and bombard him with kind words and offer different resources and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t responded to him talking about my experiences with my therapist. His response is never anything productive. He will just go on and on about how he wishes he was dead and then log back on the next day and apologized to everyone for being so grim and that he’s decided to live another week. It’s an extremely delicate situation to be throwing out considering the severity and the exposure that some delicate people might have on this page. I can’t imagine being new to this injury, finding this Facebook page while going through the stages of grief. A page that is supposed to be about support and information is unfortunately doing a good bit of the opposite. It’s pretty ridiculous.

I’ve tried to live by the idea that the only real handicap in life is a bad attitude. I’m sure it’s easier said than done, but I generally maintain a really good attitude. Honestly, that’s probably part of the reason why I’ve recovered as much as I have and the reason that I’m able to push myself the way that I do. I cannot even begin to imagine how my life would look if on top of injury, I refused to see the good in life. If I sat around sad or mopey and dwelled on all of the bad that accompanies being paralyzed, then life would be miserable. I am so thankful for the fact that I can’t place myself in the mindset of a victim. At some point, everyone gets dealt a poor hand. What matters is how you play it. Sure, something horrible happened to me but I am not going to let some stupid, .50 cent bullet define who I am. I’m Josh Keller... a veteran, a boyfriend, a God fearing patron, a son, a brother, a fucking quadriplegic and a damn good man. Life rolls on, don’t fall behind.

God Bless!