FLYING THROUGH THE ALPS — David Smith Nike Athlete

Wake up and ask yourself if this was the last day you were alive what would you do?

After what I can only describe as a very hard 18 months where I suffered more mentally than I did physically I knew I had to get away and go back to the mountains.

I feel like I am trapped in a body I don't want to be trapped in, a city that I feel so venerable in that I have broke down in tears several times and found myself lying on the floor of a station after falling over. I had lost not only my identity but also my direction. London was an obvious choice as my rehab was here but after 12 months of rehab and seeing doctors something was eventually going to break. When I found myself sitting with a physiologist in tears I knew my mind had finally broke. After years of hospitals I had now hit bottom. PTSD and weekly sessions with doctors to try and regain control. I distend myself from people and went into a depression. I was lost, hurt and confused. I could not make any rational decisions and knew if Was going to pull myself out of this it was going to take a huge shift in mind set.

Resilience is something I have but I got it from sport and now I found myself without sport and my friends, I was alone and not ashamed to say it suffering from days of depression. I was stuck in a body trying to find my identity. I made mistakes and bad choices like any human and as Tried to find dry land to stop drowning I felt I was getting washed further out to sea and couldn't swim.

This is a scary place to end up, I had no idea how I was going to get my old self back, I then realised how important environment is and that the combination of rehab, hospitals and London was not helping me heal. So I got on a plane and went to the Alps to heal.

I found myself standing on top of a mountain attached to my new mate and we were going to jump off it together and fly. I was free, no disability, just flying over the alps and I started to find myself again, a more rational mind and the person I recognised, not the person sitting on a tube crying.

As we let the wind pull us, I asked him to let it rip, to push us to the limits, on that limit was where I needed to be, outside the comfort zone and almost not in control. What a feeling....

This feeling of freedom gave me my identity back and direction in life, it gave me my purpose back, why I got out of bed everyday. To start with it was to learn to walk, then to try get my arm and leg back, but after several doctors and months of rehab there was no sign of my arm moving and my leg was struggling along with nothing working below my neck, I would struggle to get up in the morning to face another day. However this 30min of flying reminded me that as humans we must adapt and move on, live where our feet are and not let our minds hijack us with negative thoughts. We can't get today back after it is gone, so ask yourself would you rather spend it been unhappy or to go live to the best you can.

It has taken me along time after this last surgery to find that headspace, hospital was a horrid place and mentally scarred me so badly I am to scared to go back for my latest results. I can't face it. I know I will have to go but at the moment I just can't walk through those doors.......

I guess in life there is doors we choose to walk through and others we have no choice of going through, we never know what is on the other side of each door or who we might meet but I believe finding resilience in each of us helps face each door with a strong mind.