The negative psychological effects of a physical disability are great. But even greater are the positive, powerful responses by the persons who have a physical disability or incur one after an accident or because of a genetic or biological illness. And the example of these powers are many.

The negative psychological impact of having a physical disability include a range of responses. Some move from sudden disillusionment to immediate denial. Others get ensnared in a web of self-pity and self-punishment, going back and forth between “Why me?” and “If only I had…” and “I should have been more…” attitudes of self-reproach. Still others are understandably angry, frustrated, confused, and depressed.

But while some who suffer a physical disability will give in to the pain and depression, many more take their power back, re-channel that power into the typical gifts that are paradoxically inherent in people with such challenges, and turn that power into not only self-empowerment but empowerment of others.

SUPERMAN
Christopher Reeve is our most recent candidate for relentless pursuit of the good hidden in the terrible. Known before a crippling accident left him paralyzed with spinal cord damage as the Cornell graduate who would star in time travel, space travel, and superhero travel across our movie and TV screens in his buff, gorgeous hulking but gentle way, Chris would in 1995 fall from a horse into a wheel chair that moved for him, spoke for him, and even breathed for him. But he turned absolute physical disability into art and science. He starred in a remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, for example, playing (being) a wheelchair-bound man who witnesses (outside his city apartment window) a murder across the way, a murder he manages to divulge the details of despite the risk. Reeve also directed a couple of films, but then directed a masterpiece story based on what it is to be completely paralyzed, by telling the story of a young paralysis victim. Further, Reeve entrenched himself in advocating research to help such victims, traveling the country to share the message about the need for (controversial) stem cell and spinal injury research. He did all of this in spite of being 98% paralyzed, able only to blink and speak and chew, despite the risks of rejection and dissention, despite the risks to his already challenged health. In fact, he continued to rise and empower until his body failed completely, when on October , 2004, he died from the physical disability he was not born with.

COSMIC MAN
Another man adamantly producing more than he is succumbing to his physical disability is Stephen Hawking. With such a severely advanced case of Lou Gherig’s Disease that he can only speak—and that only by use of a computer—Stephen has gone from Oxford graduate to Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and 12 + honorary seats in Physics. Despite barely being able to physically move, he has proven the imperative to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, has put detailed evidentiary proof to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, and has made real the characteristics and nature of black holes and Big Bang speculative science.

POWER WOMEN INCLUDED
Men don’t have the corner on the market of power of mind overpowering a physical disability. As far back as the 1800’s, for example, Harriet Tubman carried the weight of narcolepsy on her shoulders, risking exponentially more with such an illness when she orchestrated the Underground Railroad to free hundreds of slaves to the north by guiding them through safe passageways in the middle of the night. Harriet was as cunning, as ruthless, and as determined an abolitionist and resistance movement leader as was her sleeping disorder.

And the list of power people with physical disabilities goes on, with Marla Runyan (who runs Olympic marathons with Stargardt Disease), Tanni Grey-Thompson (who wins Paralympic medals from her wheelchair), and Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, and Ludwig Von Beethoven, who were blind, deaf, and turned deaf, respectively.

This is just the famous side. You probably know the girl next door who takes care of kids, runs about chasing them down for dinner with her prosthetic legs; the box next door who mows the lawn with one arm; the everyman and everywoman who take over with brilliance where the dullness of disability once attempted to. I think we should start a list for them, too.