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After
Trauma, Some Feel 'Nearer My God to Thee'
Disabled People
Experience Changes in Faith, Spirituality |
By Denise Mann
WebMD Medical News
One man began to pray to God while hospitalized
for an injury. He now feels closer to God. Another
has been going to church ever since his accident
as a way of thanking God for his family, friends,
girlfriend, and everything else that's good in
his life. And yet another man says he prays to wish
away his pain.
These men experienced pronounced changes in their
spiritual beliefs after
sustaining a spinal cord or brain injury, according
to a study by Canadian
researchers in the June issue of the journal Archives
of Physical Medicine
and Rehabilitation. Of 16 patients in the new study,
eleven said they had a significant loss or gain
of faith at some time in their life -- two lost
faith, seven gained faith, and two said they experienced
both a gain and a loss of faith during their lifetimes.
Of the 11 patients who said they had a change in
faith over their lifetime, seven of those changes
coincided with or followed closely after their injury.
In the new study, spirituality is defined as a relationship
with the world, with a supreme power, with others,
and with one's self.
Exactly why a person becomes more spiritual after
a traumatic injury is unclear, but the researchers
speculate that the change could be attributed to
a "honeymoon period" after the accident
in which there is an influx of community support
to help the patient transition back into the world.
Or perhaps, traumatic injury slows down people's
lives for meditation and opens them up to different
kinds of relationships with others.
"There are a number of reasons that a person
who suffers a traumatic, disabling event will turn
toward spirituality," says lead researcher
Mary Ann McColl, PhD, of the School of Rehabilitation
Therapy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario,
Canada. "The magnitude of a disabling event
defies any simple explanation, so people turn to
the mysterious or the unknown to help them make
sense of it," she tells WebMD.
"The experience of something like disability,
death, or pain raises big, abstract, and otherworldly
questions, such as 'Why did this happen?' 'Why me?'
and 'Does this change the purpose of my life?'"
McColl says. "There is a way of looking at
this that connects people to a spiritual side, and
it is more positive than grief."
The changes that the study participants experienced
fell into five basic categories -- awareness, closeness,
trust, purpose, and vulnerability. For example,
most participants said that the purpose of their
lives had changed as a result of the injury. In
terms of vulnerability, some said they now realized
they were not invincible or immortal. And some said
they had to learn to trust others to assist them
with their daily living activities.
McColl and colleagues interviewed 12 men and four
women, all of whom suffered
a spinal cord or brain injury, or both, and had
been discharged from rehab within two years with
a moderate to severe disability. According to data
from the University of Alabama National Spinal Cord
Injury Statistical Center, there are approximately
250,000 people with spinal cord injuries in the
U.S., with approximately 11,000 new injuries occurring
each year. Spinal cord injury may result in paralysis.
To understand their spiritual beliefs, participants
were asked nine questions
including "Have you experienced any changes
in who you are and who your real
self is since you acquired your disability?"
and "Has your relationship with God or a higher
power changed since your disability?"
"Under challenging circumstances, it's human
nature to tap into a divine force to call up strength,"
says Margaret A. Nosik, PhD, director of the Center
for Research on Women with Disabilities (CROWD)
and a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation
at Baylor College of Medicine, both in Houston.Nosik
says that the findings are quite different from
what would be found among people who become disabled
gradually or those who have an onset at birth.
"Sudden changes [such as those experienced
by study participants] force you to re-evaluate
your values," she says, whereas people who
are born with disabilities have been groping with
issues and challenges of their disability for their
whole life. Nosik was born with a condition called
spinal muscular atrophy. She lost the ability to
walk at age 11. Spinal muscular atrophy is a disease
of certain cells in the spinal cord.
Some participants in the new study said they viewed
their disability as a punishment, meaning God saw
something amiss and intervened to correct it.
Nosik says these feelings are similar among people
with sudden disabilities and those with gradual
onset disabilities Kym King, a 45-year-old African-American
woman from Houston, became more spiritual when she
was diagnosed with scleroderma when she was in her
20s. Scleroderma is a chronic disease of the connective
tissue marked by scarring in the skin, joints, and
internal organs.
"When I was diagnosed in my 20s, a couple
of things changed for me, including
my sense of who I was as a person, because when
you are 20, you believe you
will live forever, and my doctor said I would be
dead within two to 10 years," she tells WebMD.
"My illness made me stop and look at my life
in a way that few 20-year-olds really do,"
she says.
King asked herself what she wanted her life to
stand for and she also made
an effort to tell the people in her life how much
they meant to her. "I went in search for a
greater sense of meaning and purpose. I focused
more on spirituality and the sense of something
greater than myself, and I began to look at my disease
as an opportunity," King says. "Spirituality
is one of the things that keeps me healthy,"
she says. Now King is the director of communications
at CROWD and an instructor of physical medicine
and rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine,
where she works with women with disabilities on
a daily basis.
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