Even the gift of being able to walk again comes with its own set of challenges. I think most people would assume that when I start walking, everything is instantly happy and wonderful. But getting back on my feet is terrifying! At the beginning—when I am barely walking—I am afraid that I will no longer be capable of doing everything I could do before. Walking is challenging, painful, and exhausting and I cannot go anywhere fast initially. It is an arduous process between my hot pink crutches and various kinds of leg braces. And then, there is the issue of my personal identity. The public knew me for being in a wheelchair—they don’t know the walking Victoria. Even I don’t know the walking Victoria. Half of the time, I don’t even recognize myself. At times, I’m still thinking I need to grab my wheelchair from my car. Just the mere fact that I can stand up from the couch or reach the top cabinet is shocking. It takes a long time to get used to being “tall.” And then there are all the comments and questions—especially in light of how the IPC and the media have dragged me through the mud, accusing me of not being “disabled enough.”
What will people say or think?
Will the media try to turn things around?
These worries may sound silly, but they are real concerns and thoughts that keep me up at night. I am grateful to be back on my feet, but I am terrified of stepping out into the public eye. My newfound ability to walk isn’t something I can keep to myself, and I ultimately have to share the news with the world. That will mean being a “symbol of hope” for others who are in wheelchairs, have a disability, or have TM. Of course, I’m happy to share my hope with others, but there’s this little thing called survivor’s guilt.
How come I got my legs back when the majority of paralyzed people are not so blessed?
I am, of course, very grateful. But I am also plagued with survivor’s guilt and other emotions—which is very similar to how I felt when I came out of my vegetative state. Overcoming odds is a great blessing, but it does come with survivor’s guilt. When you are a “medical miracle,” no one hands you a manual on how to cope and handle your miracle. Guilt is kind of like a summer thunderstorm—the sun shines all day and then—boom: thunder strikes.
So many people do not “wake up”—let alone learn to function and survive somewhat normally. And so many people never regain the ability to walk, and run, and more. I faced that reality far too many times before I got “my miracle” and, with God’s help, was able to overcome it.
My job on ESPN is amazing. But being on television brings many pressures—it does for everyone in the public light. However, going from disabled to not disabled in front of an audience turned up the pressure a bit.
At the same time, my television career with ESPN is blossoming, so is my ability to stand and walk and truly seem like “nothing had ever happened.” When I was still in my wheelchair, it was a reminder to myself and those around me that something bad and serious had happened. Almost every day, some complete stranger would ask, “What’s wrong with you?”
And so a part of me wonders …
Was there something wrong with me?
Am I now “normal”?
And what, exactly, is “normal”?
• • •
My experience of learning how to walk is a lot like preparing for the Olympics. You train and train, and that’s all you think about. Eat, sleep, train, repeat. Your training actually becomes a coping method for all the stress and pressure. Then one day, they put a gold medal around your neck. Or one day, you stand and walk.
I did it.
I’m free.
Wait …
I’m free …
Finally.
It takes a long time for the reality of my freedom to sink in. I know I’m free, but I don’t know it—at least, I don’t grasp it until almost a year to the day of when I first walked in March of 2016.
It happens on a sunny day on a chairlift in the middle of the Alps in Schladming, Austria. I am in town covering the 2017 Special Olympics World Games, and in between shoots (I am covering skiing and snowboarding), I decide to hit the slopes.
It is a picturesque day, and as I admire the impeccable views on my way to the top of the mountain, I look down at the skis on my feet and up at the sunny blue skies and the mountains around me. My heart is beating and I’m smiling.
That’s when I know …
I lived.
I’m really back.
And …
Better than before.
I don’t know why it hits me on this particular day, but I know that it is a turning point in my journey. Not only am I back on my feet literally and back on the slopes (I had been a skier since the age of three), but I am back in every possible way—and even better. I am finally at peace within my soul. There has been so much pain that I fought to hide and escape from. And for a while, I even tried to escape from God. But on that day, on the chairlift, it is just me and God. I’d had many days when it was just God and me, but this time everything is okay. Now that all my other emotions have settled, I am able to finally believe that I am free. The shock has worn off, and like a caterpillar that has struggled to escape its cocoon, I am a butterfly, and—for the first time in ten years—I can finally fly.
Let’s go, Victoria.
Time to fly.
Although sometimes, it takes a little bit for your wings to start working.
16
THE PROMISE
2017
If you give me another chance and give me back my life
and everything that has been taken away from me,
I promise you that I will live boldly
and use my voice to change the world.
This is the promise I made to God.
In a desperate plea during one of my darkest nights, I cried out to God—praying that He would hear me and let me out. I wanted to live, but not in this painful vegetative state; I wanted to live life in the world and be free. I made a promise, and I knew that if God chose to restore my life to me, I would have to keep my promise to Him.
After I had that eye-to-eye connection with my mummy and began to crawl back slowly to the world, I never forgot that promise. As time went on, I began to see God answering my exact prayer. Blinking turned to noises; noises turned to one word, two words, and complete sentences. Little by little, I began to emerge back into the world. As terrifying as it was, it was also exciting. For four years, the world had gone on without me, and now I was able to participate and live—finally.
To others, the stages of my recovery seemed quick, although for me they felt like forever. To cope, I began to live life in the fast lane. Recovering, learning, getting stronger, and being independent were all full-time jobs, but I needed to “make up for lost time” and “catch up” with everyone else. And over time, that became my focus—instead of the promise I had made to God. Brief, incredible moments would pass, and I would be reminded of my promise. I always knew that one day I would have to revisit the past.
It’s time to go back …
Even at the beginning of my journey, I knew I was meant to share my story. Since I had made the promise to God, and since He chose to restore my voice and my life, I was determined to turn my mess into a message. But this has been no easy task.
When I think about the possibility of telling people what happened to me in a book, I honestly have no idea where to begin. The last decade has been a blur, and I am still trying to make sense of it all. Plus, there is the whole thing of needing confidence in order to write a book. We’re not talking about an essay or a small write-up; we’re talking a book, but not a book about sunshine and butterflies. I would have to describe intimate details about horrific ordeals that nearly killed me—things I have fought so hard to forget and things I have buried in the deepest layers of my soul never to be shared. I am terrified to revisit these events.
You can do it, Victoria.
You need to share your story.
A mutual friend introduces me to an author by the name of Dan Brown. Dan is an incredi
bly talented and accomplished writer. He encourages me to share my story, and he believes in me and my ability to write it. When someone like Dan tells you to write, you write. Dan becomes an incredible mentor and helps me navigate the crazy world of publishing.
Then it’s Joel Osteen, who, like Dan, encourages me to share my story and my testimony. I am introduced to Joel by one of his lead pastors, Craig Johnson. He had heard about my story through my pastor, Anthony Milas, and wanted Joel to hear it, too. Joel has been a key part in this journey and helped my mum and me know God better.
Every Sunday, while I was still in my vegetative state, my mum would turn the TV channel to his sermons, and his messages always provided us with the courage and faith to keep fighting. In the summer of 2016 I’m invited to take the stage with Joel at Lakewood Church and then again at the Detroit Tigers stadium at America’s Night of Hope, which is a truly life-changing and incredible experience. Afterward, Joel introduces me to his colleague Shannon. Between Shannon, Dan, and Joel, I have quite the team of supporters encouraging me to share my story.
I am excited to get started and share my story once and for all. And I want to tell it without outside influences putting their own spin on it. Raw, real, and me. No holding back and no more sugarcoating. God didn’t give me my voice and this platform to tell half the truth. What good would that do for the person out there who is suffering like I once did?
The only issue is:
It hurts more the second time around.
Now that you’ve read this book, you know that I suffered some pretty horrific things. And if you had any idea of my story before this book, you may have been surprised by what you have read. I didn’t really want to share all the bad parts. To tell the truth, I was embarrassed by the fact that I was so helpless and such a victim of abuse and neglect. I wanted to keep it to myself, but as a public figure, that’s really hard to do. I got by for several years with sugarcoating my story, but there was always a small, strong voice deep down that would say, “You need to share the truth.” I tried to ignore that voice, and I thought, No, no, I’m NEVER sharing that. Not happening.
Yet here I am.
As I begin, I am quickly reminded of how bad this journey really has been. I had worked so hard at “numbing” and “forgetting” that once I really start to dive into the details, I feel as if I am drowning. But going all in for this book means jumping right into the good, the bad, and the horrific.
Welcome aboard to the SS Almost-Quarter-Life Crisis, part two. Quickly, I am plagued with nightmares, panic attacks, crying spells, severe anxiety, and depression. I thought I’d dealt with all my feelings back in 2014; I thought I’d mourned my losses and faced what had happened. That was just part one of my almost-quarter-life crisis. That time was nothing compared to my writing experience. The year 2014 felt like a light summer shower, and writing this book feels like a massive hurricane.
You see, my body was and is strong and knew how to fight the physical trials and the abuse, but my heart and my brain and my emotions were a different story.
As I write, I am trying to stay afloat and do my job. Putting on a smile, traveling the world, and portraying this “perfect” life and career is not easy. At one of the highest points of my life I was also at one of the lowest. To the outside world I “had it all,” was jet-setting around the world and living “the life” that so many people only dream of. In fact, a lot of my success has come out of the fear of going backwards. I am a very driven person, always have been. But this drive went into warp speed after I got sick.
Don’t get me wrong: I am incredibly grateful for all that I have, but I am completely broken on the inside. And nobody knows, except for my mummy and grandma.
I even begin questioning why I survived, because living through it again is at times unbearable. There are a few moments in which I don’t think I can keep going. There is even a moment before going on air that I am curled up in the fetal position on the phone with my mummy asking her to “remind me why I have to keep going, tell me that I have to live.” Definitely not one of my proudest moments, but I have to keep it real.
• • •
Nightmares, panic attacks, crying spells, suicidal thoughts, immense pain, and crippling anxiety become daily occurrences for me as I dive into the scariest and darkest, most painful parts of my life and this journey.
PTSD and anxiety are very real and debilitating illnesses that try to break me down even when I think I am okay. At the end of the day: I was a child. A young, innocent child who had been kicked down over and over again. What should have been a treatable condition turned into a decade-long battle and a life-altering ordeal. What happened to me and what was done to me was devastating. And only those closest to me know the scars left behind from the abuse.
But I’m not bitter or angry—those are actually the two emotions I experience the least. Instead, when writing this book, I am heartbroken for that little girl who just wanted to go to field hockey camp and desperately wanted to fight and survive. Little Victoria simply wanted to be alive. She didn’t want attention, and she didn’t want to get sick. She just wanted to live the life she loved. And there are other Victorias out there. Maybe not exactly like me, but life is not easy for anyone.
I write this book and tell the truth for that little girl, me—the little girl whose innocence was violently ripped away. The little girl who had to lie alone, dying and trying to say good-bye to the ones she loved and telling herself it was “okay to let go.” No child should ever have to do that, especially not alone. I’m still heartbroken for the girl whose first words after coming out of a vegetative state were “they hurt me.” That’s the first thing I said to my family. I think of that daily … although little by little, it hurts less.
In movies, we see these warriors using huge daggers and swords to literally pierce through their enemies. Daggers and swords are meant to kill you slowly. Inch by inch creating an unbearable pain that tortures the victim. Every move you make and every breath you take, the dagger’s pain is felt even more. Only by lying still does the dagger become less painful, but when you stay still, you stop living.
Don’t stop living.
Sometimes daggers are not physical but emotional. These emotional daggers are felt just as deeply.
Ouch.
I’ve been pierced by many daggers in my journey, but I kept fighting with each piercing. I refused to pull out each dagger because I was afraid I’d bleed. I thought once I started bleeding it wouldn’t stop and I’d bleed out.
For more than a decade I have lived with the emotional daggers of this journey. Without realizing it, I got used to the pain and the slow, steady piercing. I did my best to numb the pain and to forget I’d been stabbed. Then another dagger would pierce me … but I had to keep moving forward, no matter what.
More recently, though, I’ve started to acknowledge the daggers and the pain they cause. I picture them as rusty and old and sharp. It bothers me that they became such a norm in my life. They did not belong in me, but I had gotten so used to them that I didn’t know or remember what it was like to not have them.
My daggers reveal themselves as I write. I relive years of pain and suffering. I begin to understand that I have to get them out. They have been holding me back. Just think about it for a moment: If you had a dagger—or two or ten—sticking out of your chest, it would be painful and would literally get in the way of everything.
It’s easy to understand when it is a physical thing that you can see. But the invisible daggers are the deadly ones. You don’t see how your everyday life can be affected. I began to relive a life of pain and suffering.
Bleed it out.
As each word, memory, and piece of this journey hits the paper, the daggers begin to be pulled out slowly. And I begin to bleed for the first time in well over a decade. At times the pain of these memories is unbearable. I gasp for air and try to face each and every terrifying moment in order to heal. But once again—thanks to my Grey’s Anatomy medical kn
owledge—I understand that only when I allow myself to bleed do my wounds begin to heal.
I have a promise to fulfill, and sometimes keeping our promises is not easy. God has answered my prayer and has given me a life—one even better than I could imagine. Sometimes what we want to do and what we have to do is not easy. The easy way out is pain free for the most part, and the hard way almost always involves some kind of pain.
Don’t forget the promise.
After I looked death straight in the eye, I also looked at life with a far more grateful and determined heart. Achieving all that I have at twenty-three and continuing to climb, in many ways, has been my own way of proving that I am alive. Most people see the sunshine but didn’t know the storm that took place before the sun came out. To have watched the world go on without me for so many years trapped in a hospital bed created an invisible hamster wheel that I was continually running on. Even if I was tired … I kept running.
Never stop running.
Every day we each have our struggles and battles. It’s easy to run away and hide, but they’ll eventually catch up to you. Eventually, you’ll have to sit down and watch and live and feel. It’s not fun and can be insanely painful yet also at the same time incredibly powerful. You can take back control of your inner peace and fight those memories and painful moments that have worked so hard to pull you down. You just have to have faith and the fight. I learned a lot about fighting over the years, but six months of writing taught me more about fighting than the past eleven years.
As I’ve said over this entire journey, I would never choose what happened to me—but I would never change it. Who I’ve become and where my life is going and where I’ve come from are all far beyond my wildest dreams. I would like to have not suffered so much. But then again, extraordinary challenges and pain can lead to extraordinary experiences and an extraordinary life.
Locked In: The Will to Survive and the Resolve to Live Page 15
