This is the second of a two-part blog series about overcoming adversity and adjusting your dreams.

As a kid I thought you would go to the hospital and they would fix you there. You were supposed to come back out better than you came in. Ok yeah they patched up my wound, but a bigger wound was being developed and eating away at me by the minute. My shattered dreams lead to a lost soul. What am I to do now? Who am I to become, no one knows what this is like. I knew not one single person that had gone through something like this.

I spent 3 weeks in the hospital, everyday doing tests to see if vision could possibly return, while also being under critical watch for the good eye I had left being heavily monitored so that it wasn’t starting to lose vision. Luckily I never lost sight in the left eye, but I still felt utterly hopeless.

Upon leaving the hospital life as I knew it was all different now. My body was weak from being in the hospital bed for 3 weeks, and all those meds running through my system. I had no energy at all, I just wanted to lay there and wish I had woke up from a bad nightmare.

I didn’t want to be outside anymore, I had no hope of ever playing basketball again, and just felt like I was in the world alone. My family was a good support system but they didn’t know how much I was suffering inside. You see, the thing is, I never complained about it out loud. The neighborhoods that I grew up in,you did not show your pain, you hide it. You had to be tough or else you were considered weak, and the weak were always victims of jokes, and being treated poorly. I was no different.

I never wanted to leave the house, I spent the summer in the house, basically depressed. By the time school started back I had no choice but to be back outside, and that is when my world was rocked again. So many people would come up to me staring and pointing directly at my eye. It was like they couldn’t even help themselves, “what happened to your eye”, “ what’s wrong with his eye?”, “why is your eye lazy”, “who is he looking at?” It was like the movie ground hog day, reliving the same story day after day. That was my pain, it was what i carried and it was day after day, same comments, same questions, same torment. It was already bad enough I couldn’t see out of my eye, what made it worse was the constant talking about it, day after day, over and over again. I questioned God, why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? I lived in emotional hurt for years.

I put down my dream of playing basketball, I didn’t feel I ever could be good enough and felt I was at a disadvantage. As fate would have it i met some guys that to this day are my life long friends. One of them, James, was into music, and started playing me some songs he had made in his house. Back then you couldn’t record in your house, but somehow he was able to. I asked him to show me how he made his music, he showed me and I was hooked.

Who would have thought a new dream could come to me? What if i could do music? What if I made music for people that could sing and rap? Yeah, that’s what i wanted to do! I pursued it hard. I ended up going to Columbia College Chicago to study music business, and after that moved to Atlanta to pursue a new dream. It was up and down but I had some success in the industry and had life long lessons that help me to this day.

While the music I created made me feel good, I still felt empty inside. Here I was now in my 20s but still felt an emptiness, because the same question lingered in my mind daily? Why did this happen to me?

A huge defining moment in my life came when one day I got a vision from God. I had the question always why did this happen to me, and one early morning i heard God say to me, you need to make your own project? I thought i wasn’t hearing this vision correctly, but it never left, it nagged me everyday, whatever was speaking to me kept at it until I said OK, but about what? “You need to tell your story, tell your story”

I then said well how can i tell this story in a cool way, but also give hope to others that have gone through such tragic emotional things?

And on that day in 2016, the idea for the Battle Scar Kids came to life. The central theme being, how do you take your pain and turn it into power?

What I didn’t know was that my childhood talents of drawing would come back into play with this project. Music being a big part of my life also played a big part in the development of making this project look and sound cool but have a deeper meaning behind it all. I started to develop an animation, and also a lot of deep research into overcoming trauma.

What I discovered was that creative arts is a huge catalyst to overcoming trauma. I not only wanted to share my story but I wanted to help empower others. Through these characters we can help people see characters that look, talk, walk and act like themselves, but also see hope through their power.

While these characters serve as superheroes, the real life superheroes are who I want to celebrate. The real stories of people overcoming trauma, incidents and negative circumstances. Those of us who felt left out forgotten and abandoned, I want to offer hope.

The next phase of purpose was formed in the Battle Scar Kids foundation. Our work was created to positively impact young adults, teenagers, college students and families. The support behind us has been tremendous. We host battle scar kid live experience events where they get to see the battle scar kids animation, participate in fun games and activities, while learning practical ways to overcome their struggles. We also show them career opportunities connected to creative arts. I show in real time what overcoming looks like, what thriving instead of just surviving looks like. I am blessed to be able to do such work.

In terms of myself, it took me years and years to heal, and I went from not talking about being blind, and hiding my pain, to now going all over the country talking about it. My healing came, then the real vision came. That vision offers hope to others, offers a way out, a way up, a way through and a way forward. I started a journey to teach others ways to eliminate negative emotions and the stigmas related to trauma. I also felt that had I known better I still could have pursued my dream of playing basketball. This project allows me to show others that pain doesn’t have to last forever, and that your dreams are still real. If we can eliminate the emotions that paralyze you and leave you in constant fear, we can also show you how to still live a life you dream of.

The question of why did this happen to me is being answered in real time. While I still wish I could change the day of July 4, 1994, I also carry a greater responsibility. If it had to happen to someone, and that someone happened to be me, to carry out a mission of helping others, then I accept!

I leave with these thoughts, its a myth that pain has to last forever. It’s a lie that you cant ever recover and that you have to suffer for the rest of your life. You can heal, you can overcome, you can still dream and live out your dreams at a high level. I am a living witness, and I am doing it daily! The inspirational hellen Keller once said, “blindness isnt seeing, it’s having no vision.” My vision is to empower, inspire, and enlighten those who may have lost hope due to a circumstance. There still is hope, there still is a purpose, and I hope that the battle scar kids helps to bring your purpose to life!

If you would like to help support our mission, visit us at battlescarkids.com for cool fun storytelling connected to a strong purpose, or visit battlescarkidsfoundation.org. Follow us @battlescarkids and stay connected with us.

Jamar Jackson-Wilson, I am a battle scar kid!