Hi, you are “face to face with Shell”.
ATTENDING SOCIAL EVENTS
So, you now have your confidence going out on your own “wearing your scars”, now the next thing you face is larger gatherings, social situations…
Before I go on, have you seen the other pages in this series of “WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE”? 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)
WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE (PART 4)
WEARING SCARS WITH CONFIDENCE (PART 5)
Me in my competition days of “baton twirling” as a Majorette (approx. 1986)
Please watch the video below and read on
(there is another video nearer the end of this page):
What happens if you were shy before you became scarred? So now going out “wearing scars” could add more anxiety to you, as you have the added stress of having an altered body image, and everyone looking at you? How do you cope?
When I was younger, I was very shy in large groups. I was fine with my own family and close friends. In primary school I was shy and quiet; this led to me being called a snob! I never understood this; I mean, I grew up in a mining village, just like everyone else I went to primary school with.
At first, my scars was very noticeable; when I entered a room, I felt there was no hiding away. It can sometimes help you to come out of yourself. I felt that I had no choice, here I was, very “visible”.
This can be hard to get used to, especially if you would rather blend into the crowd. I mean, you walk into a room/social situation and everyone notices you and yeah, it is hard, where you feel that everyone at once turns around to look at you. Most people turn around to see who has arrived anyway but you just feel that they are looking more at you because of your altered body image.
I found that going anywhere with a few people helped; safety in numbers so to speak, until my confidence built up in social situations. I had great friends and family, I was very lucky.
Once I got my confidence up, I joined the Majorettes (please see my picture above). A couple of my friends were joining and I thought: ‘yeah, I would like to do that as well’. This was really putting myself out there, as there were competitions to attend. I LOVED it. The group that I joined was brilliant, again it was all girls from my village and was ran by women from my village. I really had a great time.
I’m not saying it was easy at first because along with my scars, I had put on weight with being in hospital for so long but I did it, I put myself out there.
The more competitions we attended, the more we got to know other groups and we made friends. There was another girl who would compete and she had half an arm, wow, she was really good and here was me thinking that I couldn’t do as much as everyone, just because I had a “claw hand”. I really took inspiration from this girl.
I always felt better in the company of my cousin, who was in the same explosion as me (she received 75 percent burns). She seemed to give me more confidence. If I was struggling with something, I would look to see how she handled it. There was one instance where she was handing over money to someone in a shop (bearing in mind, both her hands are worse than mine) and she had no problem (well, it looked like she didn’t anyway).
This is what my hand looks like now (2020)
So as before, it is a case of building up your confidence and going into situations where you might not feel quite as comfortable, until you feel better and better about it. Remember, to take it at your pace, one step at a time.