* This post is written by a guest blogger - it is not sponsored. *

My name is Elliot Barrington, and like many people living with a disability, it took time for me to mentally and physically accept my injury. I genuinely thought my life was over after a gunshot bullet caused a spinal cord injury in 2005. But once family and friends began to abandon me in my time of need, I felt as if I no longer had a purpose. I wanted to end my life, but something kept telling me to keep going. That something was the fact that I was still able to use my hands, despite losing so much. In time, this allowed me to realise that I not only wanted to survive but to live.  

I eventually started working out every day, even though the fact I could no longer do the exercises I was once accustomed too. But I knew the stronger I became, the more independence I would gain; so, I continued to push my mind and body! Sometimes I would challenge myself by dragging my body across my bed, using only my hands and arms. A movement I never used to think twice about as an able-bodied person, yet now have to break it down into tiny individual actions.