Revenge attack at 5 - Surviving Childhood Trauma with Spencer Connelly

In this episode of ListenABLE, Angus sits down with Spencer Connelly for a conversation that is confronting, inspiring and incredibly human.Spencer shares his lived experience after surviving a traumatic fire as a child, spending months in hospital, and learning to navigate the world with visible scars and amputations. He reflects on memory, trauma, recovery, self-image, the complexity of forgiveness, and why he now sees his scars as signs of strength rather than weakness.The conversation also explores disability identity, facial difference, confidence in public, representation in film, and Spencer’s growing dream of building a career in acting. That dream has already taken shape, with Spencer landing a speaking role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and he has publicly credited the KIDS Foundation with helping build his confidence after his injuries. If this episode resonates, share it with someone who needs to hear a story of resilience, perspective and hope.Key Topics:surviving severe childhood burnstrauma and memoryhospital recovery and rehabilitationliving with facial differencedisability identityscars and self-acceptancetherapy and healingpublic perception and staringconfidence and resilienceacting, representation and FuriosaThe Story:00:00 Childhood trauma and the memory that stayed01:00 Spencer’s story and entering the disability community05:45 Living with disability and visible difference07:20 Recovery, surgeries and life after hospital11:10 Returning to school after trauma14:50 The truth about what happened17:40 Differently abled, disability and identity19:00 Staring, confidence and moving through the world20:40 Looking in the mirror after trauma23:15 Forgiveness, healing and moving forward27:20 Acting dreams and losing one career path28:20 Meeting Sean Millis and working on Furiosa35:30 Facial difference and representation in film37:50 Halloween, scars and public perception40:10 The bowl of uncomfortable44:25 Life from here and what’s next