Hi, you are “face to face with Shell”.
GOING OUT WITH OTHERS
Me at home (1985)
First of all, have you seen the other videos in this series? Please click on the links below to view:
WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE (PART 1)
WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE (PART 2)
WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE (PART 3)
Please watch the video below and/or read on:
When I was finally discharged from the Burns Unit, I would always go out with someone. This would happen for quite some time. I just didn’t have the confidence to go out on my own. Also, as I have said before; if I was in crowds, say at a shopping centre, it was good to have someone to “shield me”, as my injuries were still quite sore in some places.
My confidence grew; yeah, I was being stared at and comments were being made but this was me now and I HAD to get out. I didn’t want to shut myself away from the outside world (although there were times that I wanted to).
This is where a befriender would have been awesome. I always felt better going out with someone else; it would have been great to go out with another burn survivor, who was further along their burn journey than I was. Someone who had been through it. Someone who knew how I felt. Someone who was able to reassure me.
This wasn’t the case though, way back when I was first burned there wasn’t the services that there are now. There still needs to be more but certainly the services are greater than years ago.
If you are in a similar situation to what I was, I would suggest going out as much as you can, within reason. I wouldn’t push yourself too hard, especially at first. Do what feels right for you. There may be a day where you feel you just don’t want to and that’s ok. There may be days where you feel really good and confident, and then someone will say something to you and it sets you back, and you want to come home and again, that’s ok. Just don’t give-up trying, keep going. YOU CAN DO THIS!
I do have a contact page, where you can get in touch with me (in total confidence) and I will put a link in below, I will also put in a link to another of my pages, where you will find further help: