Sophie Morgan explains how personal and sexual relationships have changed after being paralyzed

The occasional Loose Women panellist and TV presenter was paralyzed from the chest down at 18 after she was in a car accident and sustained a T6 spinal cord injury

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Loose Women: Sophie Morgan opens up about an incident that left her paralyzed

Loose Women star Sophie Morgan has spoken candidly about the challenges she’s faced since becoming paralyzed from the chest down following a car accident – and the impact it’s had on her sex life.

The 37-year-old panelist’s life was changed forever when, aged 18, she was involved in an accident involving her own car while driving with a group of friends between A-Level celebrations.

She suffered a series of agonizing injuries in the accident, including facial and skull damage – and she also knocked one of the vertebrae in her spine out of position, leaving her paralyzed for life.

Sophie now uses a wheelchair to get around and also has access to a pair of robotic legs – but she says losing the use of her legs was the least of her worries.

In conversation with OK!, The TV presenter said: “It’s a bit frustrating when people assume the worst thing that happened to you is you can’t walk. That’s the last thing that matters in many ways.

“It’s so many other things – personal, sexual relationships, relationships with yourself and with the world at large.

“I wanted to drill into the nuances. That meant teaching people, step by step, what it’s like to wake up with a different body.”

“The able-bodied and the disabled are very different experiences. It feels like two different lives.

“The person I became after my injury is very different from the person I was. I obviously grew up when I was a kid, but those two realities, personalities and identities definitely feel very split.”

Sophie has written about her life experience in her new memoir, Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-changing Injury.

In the memoirs she writes about her first sexual experiences after her car accident.

Describing the moment, Sophie recalled, “His hands disappeared beneath the invisible layer of my paralysis and I held my breath in hope.

“But when he maneuvered himself between my legs and asked me if I could feel it, I knew immediately my life would never be the same again.”

Earlier this year, during an appearance on Loose Women, Sophie explained why she’s celebrating the day of her crash.

She said: “I think I have two birthdays because when I had my injury I almost set that as my birthday.

“Some people with a spinal injury refer to themselves as two age groups. So when I first got hurt I was zero and now I’m 18 because I’ve been paralyzed for 18 years.

“So I celebrate the anniversary of my fall as much as I do a birthday, and I value this one very much. I celebrate every anniversary. I celebrate it every time, make it big every time, more than birthdays I think.”

A year earlier, she said: “I think people are afraid of change, they don’t want it, there’s a fear about it.

“But for me, because my change has brought so many positive results, I kind of lean in, I seek them. I want life to be different and full of variety and excitement.

“I guess I learned the hard way that the worst things that happen to you can lead to the best in life. It’s hard for people to relate, they see my disability and they think it’s ruining a life – but I found the opposite, I think it shaped my life.”

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