Trevor Sylvester

Being positive about one's own scoliosis and how it affects the life you lead is, of course, a matter of having a certain psychological attitude. It has taken me 10 years of attending psychological therapy sessions to reach where I am now. One of the ﬁrst things I realised from my therapy sessions was that I do have a choice. One can either struggle with the fact one has scoliosis (when deep down one doesn't want to have it) or you can accept that you have it and move forward, living your life as best you can given the considerations and limitations (if any) by having scoliosis. ‘For me it was an enormous moment realising I did have a choice, it was very empowering.’

From that moment on I started to deeply look into how scoliosis had affected me and instead of ﬁnding negative, destructive or unpleasant inﬂuences on my life, in fact, it had beneﬁcial ones. Below are just some of those positive attributes that I have given to having scoliosis:

Empathy – I feel this could apply to most conditions a person might have but it is certainly one I have for fellow scoliosis sufferers. I use the term ‘sufferers' because I do appreciate people (even I) can be ‘troubled’ by their condition. However, I don't see this as a negative reason to have this condition. For me it is just part of accepting the consequences of having scoliosis and then everything else ﬁts into place.

Appreciation – I personally have faced unpleasant comments regarding my scoliosis—hunchback comes to mind. When I was a child at school other children would make these comments, but this has only made me more accepting and appreciative of other people’s differences.

For me life is about getting on with people and accepting that people are ‘different'. It is also about appreciation for the fact that despite a person’s condition they should have our respect and be seen as worthy people who do have something to contribute to this world. It is my personal belief that discriminatory comments often say more about the person making them than the person they are aimed at.

Determination – The struggle going through the process of diagnosis, surgery, treatment, recovery and all the ancillary aspects to initial life with scoliosis, especially when being a child, did make me incredibly determined. I didn't want to allow anything, or anyone, to stand in the way of my recovery and success—in my terms—of achieving what I wanted to do.

Analytical – Recovery from my scoliosis operation and then the isolation it placed me in—having no friends, not being able to join in with certain activities and so on—simply gave me the opportunity to analyse my world and indeed the world at large. This personal struggle and analytical approach helped me greatly when I did return to school and in particular with my artistic endeavours. I don't feel I would have enjoyed, or achieved, as much as I have done with my art and design studies if I hadn't had scoliosis.

This scrutiny of detail, from an artistic point of view, while at the same time having the ability to see the larger picture or situation, helps in my day-to-day professional career.

Improved self-esteem – This is something I can directly attribute to my therapy sessions at dealing with the issues around my scoliosis. I completely accept my scoliosis, it makes me ‘different' and that is a good thing because it is part of me and my life. When someone says something to you like, you can't do such and such because of your scoliosis, that is a very negative (even if realistic) way of approaching a situation. I try, when this happens to me, to turn it around to something more positive, or immediately present myself with what the beneﬁts would be to me of not being able to do this such and such.

I do feel that the medical profession and in particular consultants and doctors have their part to play in the portrayal of having scoliosis as being a negative thing or not ‘normal’. How many times have I heard the expression from a consultant or doctor, “after your scoliosis operation you should be able to live a ‘normal’ life.” Arrggghhhh! This statement, to me, helps to perpetuate the notion that by having scoliosis you or your life is not ‘normal’ in the ﬁrst place, or that by having an operation somehow makes you or your life ‘normal’! This is neither constructive nor for me positive. What is it to be normal or to live a normal life anyway? For one, I am not the kind of person who wishes to do a bungee jump irrespective of having scoliosis, now does this mean that I am not ‘normal’ compared with someone who does like to do bungee jumps? No of course not, just different, but both normal.

It is all a question of approach, do you want to be the ‘victim' for the rest of your life? Do you want to be always the person who can't achieve what you want to do because of your scoliosis (or any condition)? Do you want to be in control? All these things require a positive mental approach to dealing with your own personal life with scoliosis. How each and every one of us achieves this, or even indeed if you want to, is up to you. For me it was through my therapy sessions and maybe the odd inﬂuence from my parents who were very supportive and maybe life’s other adventures, oh, and also my increasing age!

‘One of the most rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable things I have done and one which gives me an enormous sense of purpose is doing my bits and bobs for SAUK.’ If one can only take the time to look, listen and engage there is a wealth of information, knowledge and support to be had for a person with scoliosis through SAUK. From a personal point of view I would like to thank all the staff in the SAUK ofﬁce for their time and hard work and just to say I, for one, do appreciate what you do.

I would encourage members, especially children or students with scoliosis, to write their own stories, give talks at your school or college, create a play, or produce a movie about your life with scoliosis. Knowledge is power (so they say) so lets get powerful and learn more about each others’ scoliosis situations, good as well as bad, positive as well as negative, humourous as well as sad, the whole shebang.

What about laughter, jokes or amusing tales of situations in our lives that have involved our scoliosis. On one occasion, in my younger days, I was in this passionate embrace with a person, we had our arms wrapped around each other and this person then asked, “do you work out?” They had obviously touched my protruding left shoulder blade and not realised what it was. When I think of that situation today it still gives me the giggles.

Just a few thoughts and ideas for people to take, or leave, but hopefully inspire, encourage and ﬁnd ways to embrace their own life with scoliosis and to perhaps be creative in ways of passing on positive messages about a life with scoliosis.