Who has changed your life?

Sean | Pōneke

After Sean (Wellington) suffered a severe brain injury, he had to reset his expectations of his capacities. But, it was the guidance of John that helped Sean understand he was not defined by his injury and the boundaries society put on people with disabilities.

So to contextualize that, I have to say that I’ve got a traumatic brain injury and that’s how I connect to the mahi that I do in the disabled community. I do advocacy work in the tertiary education sector around increasing inclusivity, accessibility, and quality of education.

So what was so impactful for me about meeting John and seeing the fantastic work that John does is that John doesn’t, I suppose, doesn’t see — but doesn’t let his wheelchair define him.

I sustained the injury on a balcony in Dunedin, and leant on the railing which was rotten, so I had a 15-metre fall from that. I was enrolled for my first year of law at the time, and I went to my first tutorial, which was just absolutely overwhelming. I couldn’t process what was being said to me, I couldn’t then hold that in my mind to repeat.

So at that point it seemed to me like university was done. I couldn’t do study and I didn’t know what the future was then going to look like.

And so the challenge that John gave me with that perspective was to see what I could do. He said that, you know, the reality is, is that there is a level whereby I have an impairment, but there’s also a level where there’s an inaccessible environment, right? And so acknowledging that I have this impairment, but I’m actually still at the table, we’re talking and I’ve achieved all of that in light of this means that I don’t have to wrestle with that identity.

And that’s sort of how I saw him wrestling with the boundary side of things that we can put on ourselves and society can put on us.