It was never planned that Lucy May Dawson would become a model.
The 20-year-old was studying criminology at the University of Leicester with the aim of pursuing a career in victim support when she collapsed in 2021 with blinding headaches that lasted for months.
When Lucy began hallucinating and acting increasingly erratic, her parents rushed her to the hospital. Doctors argued that Lucy’s symptoms were due to a mental breakdown, and in accordance with the Mental Health Act, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward for three and a half months.
“Something took over and left me with this version of me who was not only very childish, but also hallucinated and confused,” says Lucy, 30. subway From Lincoln’s house.
“If something is really traumatic, the brain can shut it off. But my brain was pretty sick and I had no idea what was going on. I had no control or ability at all. I was really, really sick.
Lucy was undergoing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) during her stay in hospital, but a seizure caused her to jump from her bed onto a heat pipe, severing her sciatic nerve.
The damage was so severe that his left leg was paralyzed below the knee.
When Lucy was finally released from the hospital, she was diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis. Autoimmune encephalitis is an acute and sometimes fatal inflammation of the brain that can cause permanent damage.
As it turned out, she didn’t need ECT or excision.
But the damage had already been done, and Lucy had to learn to live with an acquired brain injury and a prosthetic leg.
“When I was discharged from hospital, I was very ill. I could barely stay awake. I had no idea who I was or who my family was. I couldn’t talk, walk, read or write,” Lucy recalls.
In the months following her discharge from the hospital, she had to process everything she had been through while learning how to live again and abandoning her studies.
“I completely lost everything. I had no direction and had to grieve for the rest of my life. As I recovered, I discovered all the barriers that disabled people face, and I overcame them all while battling a brain injury.”
Although the hospital later apologized, Lucy was left deeply depressed by the experience and wished she had never woken up while struggling to find a job and become independent.
“I was trying to find a job, I was on Personal Independence Allowance, I was on disability benefits, and it was all dehumanizing and demoralizing,” she recalls.
At the time, the idea of earning a degree was out of the question – “I couldn’t even finish a sentence, let alone write a paper,” so Lucy got a job in the perfume department of a department store, where she was forbidden from sitting in a chair during her shift and told to put away her crutches “because it would look messy in the department.”
Lucy’s sister, Hannah, suggested writing a blog about her experience after experiencing discrimination in public places, including being reprimanded for taking priority seats on a bus and being criticized for parking in a blue badge zone.
She started her website, called Lucy in the Sky with Encephalitis, to raise awareness about the disease, which she didn’t know about when she was diagnosed, and about all the discrimination she faced as a woman with a disability.
“How many people stop you and say they will pray for you, or that you have this disorder because you sinned? How cruel,” says Lucy, who was recently diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
She also took to Instagram and posted online about all the treatments people suggested for her permanent disability, including yoga, crystals, turmeric, and exorcism.
In addition to people asking her personal health questions in public, Lucy says she also has to deal with unwanted sexual advances both in person and online.
She is frequently bombarded with vile messages online, with men fetishizing her disability and making extremely offensive comments.
Scope Award 2026
Metro is proud to be the official media partner for the 2026 Scope Awards, which will take place on April 30, 2026.
The ceremony at London’s Kier Oval will be hosted by wheelchair basketball player and broadcaster Ade Adepitan and will celebrate the work being done by people and organizations with disabilities to bring about important change.
There are 38 nominees for the nine Scope Awards, which celebrate the unsung heroes, amazing achievements and incredible honors of the disability community.
The shortlist includes celebrity role models, peer networks, community groups, customer engagement, local services, media moments, purple pioneers, social media influencers and workplace champions.
“So many people think it’s appropriate to start a conversation with, ‘Do you ever get sticks coming into your bedroom?’ Or, “Oh, you’re the perfect girl, you can’t escape,” Lucy says.
Naturally, Lucy quit dating and vowed to focus on what makes her happy. Fashion and her three cats, Penny, Terrence, and Kenneth.
Since becoming active on social media, she has amassed nearly 1 million followers on Instagram and TikTok, modeling corsets, vintage dresses, and, at her most recent count, 27 different canes in her wardrobe, and posting about living with a disability and how people react to it.
Living happily is part of her mission after being diagnosed with a rare and devastating brain disease that changed her life 10 years ago.
“I look a bit like a Barbie doll and I know that not everyone takes me seriously. The comments I receive online can be absolutely awful because of the way I look,” Lucy says.
“But it’s important for people to see someone who loves pink and cats and is proud to be disabled and still be silly. That’s important.
“Someone sent me a shot of a group chat where he said a boy was trying to sleep with me because he was concerned about his relationship with a disabled woman. It’s not just something that happens to me, it’s very common.
“Such experiences can be truly dehumanizing. Disabled people are generally portrayed as burdens and objects of pity, or the flip side of that is that we are portrayed as inspiration porn, giving warm, fuzzy feelings to non-disabled people,” she added.
“The content out there is rarely actually accurate. Disabled people are some of the most creative and funny people, because black humor can be a coping mechanism. Yet we’re all presented the same way.”
Lucy later completed her degree and now works as a model, influencer and disability advocate, and was nominated for the Social Media Influencer of the Year award at the Scope 2026 Awards, which Metro is proud to partner with.
She said the nomination was a welcome nod to representation and acknowledged that the obstacles that changed the course of her life opened doors that didn’t exist before.
The most rewarding thing for Lucy is the messages she receives from her followers who tell her that learning how to spot symptoms of encephalitis that their own doctors overlooked has literally saved their lives.
“I’m one of the luckiest and unluckiest people in the world, because who knows what my life would have been like if I hadn’t gotten sick,” she explains. “If my post can impact just one person’s life, if my words can help one person get the correct diagnosis, that’s more than I could have dreamed or hoped for.
“I was given a second chance at life when a lot of people with this disease aren’t, so it gave me a reason to go through everything I had to go through.”
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