After injury, FACS student trades perfectionism for perspective

Rebecca McReynolds always knew what success looked like.

At least, she thought she did.

It was achievement, good grades, high standards.

“No one put more pressure on me than myself,” she said.

That all changed in the spring of her freshman year. McReynolds was involved in a car accident in 2022 that left her with a severe concussion and other injuries.

A painful summer followed, but McReynolds, driven by ambition, returned to classes in the fall as a student in the FACS Child Life program. Two weeks in, she realized she couldn’t do it.

The pain was too great, the stress too much.

Lying in bed, unable to move, she decided to withdraw from classes. She called her father to come pick her up and take her back home to Suwanee. She felt like a failure.

“I had built the perfect Jenga block tower, one by one, and it was super tall and somehow, very few things went wrong,” she said. “But it was just one block on top of another, so there wasn’t really a sturdy base keeping things up. So when something happened that was unexpected, the whole thing came crashing down.”

McReynolds spent the next several months navigating a complex range of emotions, physical therapy sessions and doctor’s appointments.

Gradually, she began to accept the fact that her goal-driven trajectory was unsustainable. In its place, a new outlook emerged, one built on grace, acceptance and gratitude.

For the first time in her life, the pressure let up.

“I had to reassess my values pretty deeply and what I thought defined who I was as a person and what made me valuable,” she said. “In the end, I realized the standards I was holding myself to are higher than any standard I would hold anyone I loved to.”

Later that fall, she felt healthy enough to return to her old apartment and her two roommates. It felt like a turning point, she said.

“It was great to be back near campus and to feel a little closer to the norm again,” she said.

Soon, she set up a meeting with her advisor and came up with a schedule for spring semester. Less than a year after the accident, McReynolds was back in the classroom.

She praised UGA Accessibility and Testing, formerly the Disability Resource Center, and the FACS faculty and staff in the department of human development and family science for helping her re-acclimate to campus life.

“I will always brag about the FACS professors,” she said. “Everyone is so nice and really takes the time to know you as a person more than just a student, and I definitely felt that support. That was really helpful in making me feel like, OK, I can do this.”

A rejuvenated McReynolds finished her coursework in Athens in 2025 and moved to Augusta for a nine-month, 1,000-hour internship at Wellstar Children’s Hospital of Georgia to meet her clinical requirement to becoming a Certified Child Life Specialist.

These healthcare professionals typically work in clinical settings, helping children and their families cope with illness, trauma and loss. As she researched more about the profession, McReynolds said she believed she had found her niche.

“What sparked my interest in it was the idea that these people are able to introduce elements of normalcy and comfort in a context that’s really threatening and scary and a lot of times painful and dangerous, or at least it appears that way to kids,” McReynolds said. “I thought ‘I’d love to give this a try,’ and I’m grateful for the fact that I’ve only come to love it more.”

McReynolds has spent the past year working 40 hours a week in her internship, graduating in May. She plans to pursue certification and is excited to start her career as a Child Life Specialist.

Her life, and her perspective, is a lot different than it was before the accident – and she’s grateful for it.

“More than anything,” she said, “I’ve learned a lot about myself and what it means to be successful. It doesn’t have to mean you’re constantly pushing yourself beyond your limits. Failure is a part of life, of course, but it’s just taught me to find more sustainable ways to still try hard and do the best you can on a day-to-day basis.”