Conquering Trauma

by Shaun Best
(Smackover, AR USA)

I was small, age 12, when my first cognitive challenge/head injury occurred. I was hit by a vehicle in the right side of the head in 1977 in Arkansas. My head did not burst, but it did swell to the size of a basketball.

The EMT's picked me up; looking like death, they rushed me to the nearest hospital. They couldn't do anything, so another 45 minutes or hour trip to the next hospital. Once we got there, it would be almost 90 days before any signs of life came from me.

My body returned to birth status with arms & hands curled up like at birth. The accident happened on 9.25.77 and it was 12.18.77 before I started realizing my surrounding. The doctors said that it would take a week or two to come out of the deep coma, thus making it a three month coma. A miracle occurred on Christmas Eve 1977, because I walked for the first time after waking only a few days prior to Christmas.

I refused to accept the limiting labels the doctors confined me with like disabled, retarded, handicapped, etc. They told me, who was headed for the Olympics & the Air Force, to accept that my brain damaged/challenged frame would never be whole again.

I had other words for the physicans, God can do all things-Believe Achieve Receive Success-The Best BARS. I told them that I would conquer my challenges/disabilities and succeed.

When I returned to school friends were great the first few weeks, but when they realized the faults they quickly took aim at these. Laughing, name calling, it was bad & what was worse was my father & brother would throw tomatoes at my head for punishment. This was only for 5-6 months, over 5 years.

These additional cognitive challenges resulted in slurred speech, memory challenges, walking difficulty, poor balance, which caused another twenty cognitive challenges or so, due to non-accessible buildings. There are still cognitive challenges like behaviors, moods, memory, patience, etc., but I deal with them pretty good.

I'm an educator whom delights in working with our future adults/children. When you demonstrate to them that success is possible, then you've conquered any preconceived idea that we have forced limitations, i.e., disabled, retarded, handicapped, etc.

I see my recovered self (Self Matters, Dr. Phil, Ph.D.) as the optimisiticly explanatory learning style (challenged, differently-abled, etc.) vs. pessimisticly explanatory learning style (disabled, retarded, handicapped, etc.-terms in the legal disability environment) states. For more information, go to the Positive Psychology Center.

Web Pages: www.headtohead.org/?art=255 &
www.positive-personal-growth.com/challenged-conquistador-inc.html,
www.amazing-kids.org/ezine_25/interview.3.html.

Or if none of these work, then type in "Challenged Conquistadors, Inc." at yahoo or google, etc.

Shaun Best, Protector of the Natural State
Challenged Conquistadors, Inc.
1110 Pine Circle
Smackover, AR 71762
(870)725-3612