Overcoming Adversity: My Mental Health and Fitness Journey as an Amputee
Mental health has been an issue for me since childhood. As the product of a narcissistic father, a depressed mother and being the forgotten child during a divorce while I was very young, I always felt not wanted. When my parents re-married (each other again) after I had left home for the Marine Corps those feelings became more engrained and it affected me mentally moving forward. During the next two decades I struggled with relationships, loving myself, and finding purpose in my life. My academic pursuits became hit and miss as I enrolled and dropped out in every town I lived in because I didn’t give myself enough credit and subsequently didn’t apply myself. As a timeline progression, I never actually progressed much past a damaged 18yr old because I was convinced that I was bad, unlovable, and destined to fail anything I attempted.
Before I became an amputee, I spent almost 5 years as a patient in a perpetual cycle of surgery, rehab, and back to pre-hab before another surgery, 15 in all. During those 5 years is where I surprisingly found my mental health muscle and began feeling a weird (dark humor almost) kind of pride in myself because I was proving to myself, time and time again, that I could suffer and still grind towards becoming more physically healthy every time. In 2021, when all that could have been done to salvage my leg had been done, the choice to amputate was very easy and exciting for me. By that time I knew two things: 1. That a prosthetic HAD to feel better than I currently felt, and 2. I knew how to dig deep, and work like a feign to not just “make it work”, but to master my new body.
In 2021, I upgraded my broken anatomical leg for a cyborg creation. I don’t like saying “I lost my leg” because you lose things you’d like to keep. I didn’t want to keep this janky leg anymore so I gave it back. In the days, weeks, and months of healing, physical therapy, and fittings, I was laser focused on achieving whatever “first” thing was coming next. I pushed my body hard because my mind knew I could do it. Not only did I personally feel wanted by myself, I believed in myself. A little after my first year, I was competing in Powerlifting competitions alongside able body athletes and from the encouragement and attention I received at meets I finally felt comfortable enough to accept personally that I was in some way important to others.
Becoming and being an amputee of any sort carries a lot of mental baggage and it’s not always a fun trip carrying all that stuff around. I simply wanted to invest everything within me to not give up and accept failure when it would happen, yet enjoy every little accomplishment along the way. As an amputee living in an able bodied world, I wanted to do what I could for myself and I kept hearing the encouragement of others saying how much of an “Inspiration” I was. Albeit that was never my intention, and I had a very hard time accepting that sort of praise, the praises didn’t stop or get any less awkward. I named my Personal Training company Inspirations Fitness not because I particularly like being anyone else’s inspiration but because I work with other amputees in their fitness journey and I know the mental fortitude it takes to blaze a path in life as a new amputee. As a trainer and amputee myself, I understand the important connection to fitness and mental health within our community. They say talk therapy is the best thing for mental health, and I do agree it has its place, but sometimes my talking is done in grunts during a workout.
R. Mitchell - Inspriations Fitness