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To all Burn Survivors
Hi my name is Grazi and I went to the first Burn Survivors retreat at Mangrove Mountain and just wanted to let all the other Burn Survivors know my thoughts and what I learnt at the retreat.
At that time it was just under two years since my burns even though I was healing well physically there was a lot of mental healing which I still had to do.
When people asked me “are you okay” it was easy to answer “yeh I’m alright” but was it true? no not really. I had no-one to talk to about burn issues, someone who had been through a burn related trauma. Then along the way I got asked if I wanted to go to a Burns Retreat, I decided I had nothing to lose so I went. When we got to the retreat we all introduced ourselves, settled in and sat down for our first talk session. These were a lot of the issues I had, my looks, was I going to be excluded socially, all those things that go with burn scarring. During one of the talks I got to understand that people will stare and that’s alright but it was up to me to accept that it was curiosity and to be honest, before my burns I would have stared. That one of the skills was to accept what happened and not to be angry about it.
There were about 10 burnsurvivors at the retreat and we all had a chance to listen to other burn survivors issues and have a chance to ask our own questions, questions only a burn survivor can relate to.
I can sit here for hours and write about the good things and skills the retreat had taught me. It’s a lot easier now to accept my burns, but I know it’s still a long way to go, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger. I am looking forward to the next retreat where I will meet other burn survivors, share our stories and to learn new skills which I can use for the rest of my life
P.S The retreat was a lot of laughs and fun too so come along and enjoy
Yours Truthfully Grazi |