Lone Tree
Joni and Larry King
Joni and Friends: Victim or Victor? BY JONI EARECKSON TADA
“I am the victim of a terrible diving accident,” I said in a flat and factual way to the lawyer. “It has left me completely paralyzed from the shoulders down.” Our family attorney quietly jotted copious notes as I droned on. I was numb and hurting. I didn’t flinch at all at the idea of making Maryland Beach, Inc. pay. As far as I was concerned, it was their fault the water was too shallow. I was insistent on making my accident everybody else’s fault. I wanted everyone to pay. My physical therapist owed me time off if I didn’t want to go to PT. Vocational rehab owed me a better case manager. And I really pushed the victimization thing at home: “You were the ones who brought me into this world. It’s all your fault, Mom and Dad!” Looking back, most of my anger and depression was rooted in seeing myself as a victim – as an innocent bystander drawn into a 32
December 2023
terrible tragedy. A culture of comfort encourages an entitlement frame of mind, so we feel swindled if life is anything less than a bed of roses. People feel victimized in their marriages or from abusive childhoods, violent crime, or unfair employment practices. Many have convinced themselves that someone else should either pay for the damages owed them or take responsibility for their lives. People who choose to see themselves as victims choose self-pity. Back in the late 60s, after I became paralyzed in that diving accident, I was stuck in self-pity. But you can only sit in a corner feeling sorry for yourself for so long. Sooner or later, my heart longed to be free of the suffocating effects of depression and self-focus. After a year of trying to adjust to life in a wheelchair, I began to tire of the blame game. One day in occupational therapy, I was confronted with the devastating effects of my self-centeredness.
They wheeled in a young ventilatordependent quadriplegic named Tom. He had suffered a high-level spinal injury from a motorcycle accident, leaving him paralyzed from his cervical spinal vertebrae on down (C 3-4 quad). He sat rigid and upright in a bulky, oversized wheelchair. Still new to his disability, he had not yet been fitted with a puff-and-sip device to steer his chair. I watched as an aide wheeled him in front of a small table-top easel. My occupational therapist approached Tom with a mouth stick, giving him the same speech she had given me two weeks earlier. “Since you can no longer use your arms, you will need to use this stick between your teeth to type and turn pages.” I hadn’t taken the bite--I had spat out the mouth stick and insisted, “I’m not like other disabled people. I’m going to get back use of my hands!” Most of the time in OT, I had sat in the corner and watched everyone
