“I Don’t Know How I Survived”: 23 Real People Who Endured The Hardest Things You Can Go Through In Life

6.

“I was a cheerleader, and I was at the top of a human pyramid. We were doing a stunt in a sports event. During a performance, one of my teammates below lost her balance, resulting in me falling and hitting my neck hard to the ground. The fall was quick, and I could feel a huge pain in my neck and even heard the crack of my neck breaking. All my senses became confused; I was in shock, and I don’t remember anything from there.”

“I just woke up the next day in the hospital with a nasal cannula and other medical devices. There were my parents, and I was scared. I could only notice that I couldn’t feel my body and tried to move it, but nothing. We waited a while there while the doctors made some analysis of my condition, and that’s when a doctor told my parents and me that my injuries were severe because I broke my C3 and C4 vertebrae, and I’d never be able to walk again. It was devastating to hear this news.

I wanted to have assisted suicide after I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk again, but my parents didn’t allow me that because they wanted me to live. I told my parents and my sister many times to just kill me in a quick way to end my suffering, but they loved me and wanted me alive; plus, my parents are Christians, and that’s another reason they wouldn’t let me die. Since I couldn’t do anything to even attempt suicide because of the paralysis, I decided to starve and dehydrate myself to death by refusing to eat. My mother desperately tried feeding me by force, but I’d just spit the food out. They had to give me nutrient injections by force because I wouldn’t want to eat. My parents, seeing that I was suicidal, took me to therapy, and the therapist told me it was normal to feel that way but that I could still live because I had other abilities, and after a year of therapy, I changed my mind. I still get depressed sometimes, though.”

—u/Glum_Benefit3704

You can read more testimonials from people with quadriplegia here.