Burn Injuries

It was very, very frightening. Very upsetting because you see like, and I’d bought like a you know, a new pushchair and people see a new pushchair don’t they, a nice bright pink and they want to have a look and then people look and go, “Oh! Oh…” and no-one really knows what to say so it’s very frightening because you don’t want people to look but, at the same time, you don’t want her to be hidden away either because she’s fought so hard to be here that she doesn’t deserve people’s gasps or, you know, horrible comments. I used to not dress her, I used to leave her just in bandages and one of the nurses – the one I’ve spoken about quite a bit – she used to buy Elizabeth clothes and she used to say “C’mon, we’ll dress her today” and I used to say, “No, what’s the point?” She was very, very heavily bandaged. And “What’s the point?” and she’d say, “Because it gives people something to comment on.” So, even if it was just lay the dress across the top of her in the pram it would give somebody, rather than go “Oh! Oh …” they would say, “Oh, that’s a pretty dress.” So, she kind of, obviously very subtly would give me little tactics along the way or, pretty hat, or whatever, and I still do that to this day. Yeah, I make sure she’s dressed a certain way to give people an opportunity to say something nice or to sort of pull themselves back in a little bit when they want to, you know, make a face or whatever, make a comment.

So, I feel like people think 'Oh because that person looks different and because I can see them, that means that I can then ask that person a question about their scars', but I think what people don’t understand is you are asking someone about a very intense trauma that they may or may not be comfortable talking about and, you know, people can ask me all day because I was three years old and it was an accident but, you know, it could have been from an intense fire where someone’s family member was injured or a car crash or anything of that nature. So, I think it is a shame that people do feel a little bit more entitled, and I hope that people will learn to maybe think twice before asking a question, even if you don’t have a bad intention and you genuinely are curious, maybe just think twice about what you could potentially be… what can of worms you could be opening by asking that question.

I think that the scar made me feel that, obviously, my appearance had been affected and I was going to be looked at differently, in terms of my appearance. Apart from that, how I dressed, I don’t think I’ve changed in how I, no I haven’t, I haven’t changed in how I dress and level of smartness or anything like that. Yeah, it was just really having that awareness that people would look at me differently while I had the scar.

Am I going to have this scar for the rest of my life? Is it something that’s always going to be with me? I suppose worrying about people looking at me and judging me – I always hate to be judged and felt sorry for. Are people going to look at me and feel sorry for me and that? Yeah, that would have been my concern at the time.

So, I was telling him that and he said it was amazing and that, but it’s like, whenever I tell any of the young people, I show them my scars straightaway because it’s like, that’s a deterrent that, do you know what I mean? Because ‘Look, this is what can happen.’ And it’s like… But I don’t feel that I need to show people that are never going to be involved in that kind of thing. So, it’s… Because then, I just feel like ‘Well what am I? Am I just like a dancing elephant?’, kind of thing. I will show people if I think it’s going to benefit them but I’m not one that, d’you know, ‘Here you are, do you want to have a look at my scars?’, do you know what I mean?

I never had a single comment that was like, you know, "That was a stupid thing to do", which it was. And I don’t know whether that’s because people realised that I was… I was passing that judgement on myself anyway, but that was not, that was not part of what people were like with me. And again, I think the other thing is just that… the realisation that it wasn’t as big a thing as it was in my head. You know, it was an injury that happened that, fortunately enough, was not bad enough that it, you know, it was lifelong or anything like that. And these things happen, kids do silly things, you know, parents aren’t 100% all the time. And I think that same message came from everywhere – that unified message from, you know, friends I didn’t know that well, to health visitors, to nurses in the hospital, to my own parents – I think the general understanding that people aren’t judging you for this, you know. People know you try your best and try to look after your kids as best you can, but you can only do so much. And that, I think that being that consistent message from lots of people was really helpful.

Yeah, I think that was something that, when I was quite younger, I kind of got into my head because, you know, I used to say to people ‘Everyone’s staring’ and be convinced that ‘Look, everyone’s staring.’ And then I just kind of got to a point where people will always stare because there’s always … it hasn’t changed, it’s always going to look the same. So, you’ve always got to walk past a new person who hasn’t seen that and will have that automatic same reaction. I guess, again, the psychology helps with this because it is just an automatic reaction to something different. People will take a double look at it. And then I think about how I react when I see something different, and that might be someone wearing an odd outfit or a weird hairstyle or, you know, something that’s a bit, you know, not even that trivial really and we all do it, we all think ‘What are they doing?’ So, I can understand that’s … it is just something different and people are looking. A good quote is ‘Be curious, not judgmental’ because I think it’s ok to look and it’s ok to, as I say, double take but if someone was to then approach me with a nasty comment ‘What’s that on your leg?’ or ‘Err, what happened to you?’ then that would be crossing that line and that there’s no need for that response.

I’d say, “Are you looking at my burn?” or I’d just be very direct and, in which case, they either say “Yes” or probably turn away with embarrassment. Another good one if no-one wants to say anything is to just smile because they know that you’ve clocked them and, again, then I think that’s another, they feel the self-embarrassment that you have seen them staring at you. But I don’t, I haven’t really been taught to have a go at anyone for looking. If they were being nasty, I guess I’d use a different tactic but, again, I haven’t really experienced that much either.

So, there’s dealing with those comments, that can be really hard, and I think what I found was, I mean, people will rarely say something really rude to your face, luckily. If they do, I mainly just ignore it. If they ask something like “What’s up with your face?” if they ask me in a rude way, I’ll just be like “Oh, I don’t really feel …” I would honestly just say to them “Oh, I don’t really feel comfortable talking with you about that.” And I think, when I was younger, I felt like I needed to explain it all the time but, actually, you don’t have to tell someone. If you don’t want to you can very comfortably just say “Oh, unfortunately, I don’t really feel like I want to speak about that right now.” And you have a right to do that. Just because your scars are obvious to everyone else doesn’t mean they have unlimited rights to knowing everything about your story, and I think that’s what makes scars harder, is because you wear your trauma externally and a lot of people don’t have to do that. But it is still a trauma and people don’t have a right to know. And I think also, at the same time, I also realised when I was older that some people are just curious, and they don’t understand. So, I think also realising that not everyone has malicious intent, some people just generally want to know. So, sometimes, if someone asks me nicely, I would just be like “Yeah, this is what happened, it’s not a big deal” and that way I’m just helping to educate them, so they know in future. So, I think, for me, I adjust my approach depending on the person. But I think, yeah, that’s basically how I dealt with difficult people.

It’s’ … it’s … somebody gave me some very good advice very early on, on how I will react is how Elizabeth will react. So, if I want to have a child who’s going to be angry all the time and aggressive and … you know … I don’t know, maybe nervous, anxious, whatever … whatever it is, I have the power to shape, I suppose, to a certain point of what sort of person she was going to be. And I didn’t want her to be that angry person, I didn’t want her to be, you know … hateful or anything like that. You just … I wanted her just to be able to get on with life as best she can. So, I made a very conscious – we all did – very conscious decision from very early on to… to not be … even though you feel it inside, to not be aggressive, to not be, you know … confrontational with people, to shout things, to reply, even though that’s how you feel sometimes, you want to say, ‘What are you looking at?’ You have to kind of keep it inside because that’s how I want her … she can’t go through life being aggressive or hateful or … so, we’ve made a very conscious decision – it’s really, really difficult, I’m not going to say it’s easy. Some days are easier than others um … you know, and it’s really hard, you’re teaching people … I feel like Elizabeth’s teaching people how to behave sometimes.

So, in some ways we’ve all got really good coping mechanisms but as Elizabeth changes and gets older, how she responds is different, so that becomes like, it evolves with her and that evolves how I, obviously, feel. But ultimately, children learn from us. So, you’ve got to contain it sometimes. Or teach. And I always say to people “Elizabeth’s not immune from looking at people either” because this is her norm, how she looks is her norm, so she doesn’t see why people look at her. So, if she looks at somebody who looks different, I have to do the same thing anyone else would have to do, the opposite way around about Elizabeth. I have to explain, “No, that person has really bad eczema” or “Oh, that person has got no hair, maybe because they’re having treatment” or “they’ve got alopecia.” So, she’s not immune from asking questions but it’s how we deal with it as adults is how they learn that it’s ok to be different.

So, I’ve always got to be prepared for at least one person to say something because a lot of people go through that motto that it’s rude to stare, but it’s not always the case, because I do find myself staring at other people, whether they’re good-looking or they’ve got a difference, or I love their outfit. And when people stared at me, I never really thought it was always negative I just thought “Jeez! My outfit must be wicked today!” or “They really like my lipstick” or yeah, my makeup. I never initially thought all the time that they were staring at my burns, especially when I wore my best outfits or felt really good with the way I looked, or I’d done something different with my eyeliner. I always thought it was that.