Hi, you are “face to face with Shell”.
Have you seen the other parts in this series: If not, please click on the links below:
Please watch this video and/or read on:
I was quite far into my burn survivor journey, when this next situation arose.
I was dropping Chris off at his house (we weren’t married at the time). Just as Chris was about to get out of the car, the engine started to “smoke”, as I thought. I jumped out of the car and before Chris could stop me, I started to run up the street. I was scared that the car was on fire. I can remember thinking; “I have to get away from here”.
Chris, who is always the calm one, popped open the bonnet (hood) and had a look. It wasn’t smoke, it was steam. Chris called me back and we had a laugh. Wasn’t that much of laugh because that was the start of the end for my car…boo.
So even although a lot of time had passed since I was burned, I was still scared. It had kicked in; my fight or flight response. It was still there, I would still take “flight”.
It’s not until something like this happens that you find out how you will respond. Afterwards, when I thought about it, I was a little surprised that I acted the way I did; the fear hadn’t gone away, it was still there.
To be honest, I don’t think that it will ever go away. Depending on the situation, who I am with, how I am feeling on that day; I suppose all of this will depend on how I react. Therefore, please don’t be too hard on yourself, if you find yourself in similar situations and you react in a similar way, it is natural.
Stay strong and we’ll chat soon.