Grrrrrrr, blahhhh, humph.

Today is a low day. The sun barely rose in the sky, leaving the day dingy and me feeling very blah. All the wine has been mulled, all the pies have been scoffed, everyone has gone home and I've hit the lull. All the uplifting and inspirational things I have spouted suddenly seem flat and lack-lustre.

I have been looking forward to the end of December, waiting to say goodbye to what has been the best and worst year I've ever experienced. Now it is nearly here, I look at myself in the mirror and despair. Things have improved to a degree but I've got such a long way to go. I've been trying to be positive, continuously thinking, 'it will improve, it will improve.' Now I am thinking, 'when will it improve, when???'

It seems like forever ago but it's only been 5 months.

My next personal deadline is my holiday in August. I'm going to Turkey and it's going to be extremely hot which will bring several challenges with it. By then it will have been a year since the accident and I'm hoping my injuries will be much less noticeable. I want to be able to wear Summer clothes without being self-conscious and I don't want to be uncomfortable in the heat. I considered not going but there are six people going and I didn't want to be the one to miss out. I need to get on with my life.

I still have the rash on my arm and it only seems to be getting worse. I finally have an appointment with a consultant on January 17th, it's only taken 4 months for the NHS to decide it needs treating! I've also made an appointment privately with a Physiotherapy to start Acupuncture and whatever else they recommend.

Being zipped into a compression vest night and day is getting tiresome. I only have 2, so my entire life seems to be spent around washing them and trying to make sure they are clean enough to wear.

When I look back to how awful things were in the first few weeks, I realise how far I've come but when I look in the mirror, I realise how far I still have to go.

It’s Chrrrrriiiiisssttttmmmassss!!!!

This morning I opened the curtains to a stream of sunshine. The skies were clear, crisp blue and the road behind the house glistened with a fine sheen of ice.

The fields had been sprayed with a shimmer of white and the bare arms of the white birch tree outside my window looked as though they had been dusted with icing powder. December has crept up on me slowly and tapped me on the shoulder with his chilly fingers. It seems like a blink ago that I was lying in the recovery position, the July sun beating down on me, knowing that something terrible and life-changing had just happened.

Christmas will mean more to me this year. We all know it should be about the people, not the presents. We know it should be about spending time with those we love, putting feuds behind us and showing goodwill to all men. Yet somehow it slides into too much to eat, much too much to drink and before you know it, you’ve given someone a snippy answer and someone’s snapped back.

This year, I’m going to be one of those annoying people who say, ‘remember what’s important.’ Believe me, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Look in the mirror and be proud of yourself, be kind to yourself and love what you’ve got. Then look around you, at your friends and family and remind yourself how lucky you are.

As you know I’ve just read Katie Piper’s book ‘Beautiful,’ and her alternative Christmas message, aired a few years back on Channel 4, says it all. I’ve borrowed her powerful words to post here.

‘My life before was very self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and it took a tragedy for me to reassess my life and how I felt and what I thought was important. Don’t wait until you lose somebody. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Appreciate the beautiful things and the beautiful people that you have in your life now…My Christmas message would be to tell people that I used to hide away and be ashamed of how I looked, frightened of people’s reactions. If people are doing that or feel that way now, I would urge them not to, because they don’t have to feel like that. You can become accepted, you can regain the confidence. And for the people that need to do the accepting, who maybe freak out when they see somebody who’s different, you absolutely don’t have to.'

Even when you think things can never move forward and you feel so low, there’s always a way out. I never thought that I’d be sitting here saying this. Never.’

So Merry Christmas everybody; enjoy, appreciate and savour.

Something for the Christmas list; ‘Beautiful’ by Katie Piper.

I’ve always been a fast reader. I devour books, whipping through pages so quickly that people think I can’t possibly be taking it all in. The more I enjoy a book, the faster I go, until the words become an independent chatter in my head and I’m lost in the story. As an English teacher this is an important skill; I can get the gist of things quickly and I can speed-read my way through a text to teach the next day. The downside is that good books never last more than a day or so! As a child, my Dad once watched me zoom through The Diary of Adrian Mole in 3 hours and couldn’t believe I’d actually read it. He set up a quiz and watched me I disbelief as I answered every question correctly, sometimes quoting directly from the book.

So when I picked up Katie Piper’s ‘Beautiful,’ I knew it wasn’t going to take me long. I was hooked and spent the next 4 hours churning through the pages, only stopping occasionally to wipe the tears from my eyes and swallow the lump in my throat. We all know Katie Piper and we all know she has a harrowing story. Yet to read it first hand and empathise with her emotional journey is very different. She’d chosen her words carefully to explain exactly how she felt and didn’t shy away from the more personal details. It was a riveting although difficult read.

Katie’s attitude is one that I think people who are experiencing any difficulties in their lives should strive to adopt. Her mantra, ‘you’re a survivor, not a victim,’ is a potent one. Those who see themselves as victims of circumstance feel powerless to help themselves and in the case of emotionally and physically gruelling circumstances, you have to help yourself as much as possible. Taking some control and being a ‘survivor’ is often hard to achieve but very satisfying once done.

Katie’s Uncle says to her, ‘you haven’t just survived, you’re thriving too.’ It’s no good just existing day to day. As an individual you have the right to lead a full, flourishing life bursting with the things you enjoy and surrounded by people who love you. Much of this is to do with your own actions, being brave enough to try new things and take opportunities and not always worrying what others think of you.



If you have had an accident, particularly a burns accident, this is a very reassuring read. The medical team keep saying to Katie, ‘it won’t always be like this, or look like this’ and her recent press photos prove they were right - she excludes confidence and fabulousness. As someone in the early stages of recovery and skin changes, it’s positive for me to see the results of time and patience. Katie also found she disliked things like hairdryers, cooking, candles, hot drinks and so on. This is something I’ve found difficult (especially around Christmas time: chestnuts roasting on an open fire; mulled wine; fairy lights and all that!) but am pleased to know that it’s something burn survivors do, a process they go through. It doesn’t matter how you were burned, fear of being burned by something else, even if completely unlikely or illogical, is common.

Overall, I’d recommend Katie’s book to anyone, as a reminder of what’s important in life and how fragile our construct of our sense of self can be if it is based on a superficial form of beauty. Katie is beautiful, her friends and family are beautiful and her medical team are beautiful. There is a wide world of beauty out there and it doesn’t all look the same.

‘Burnt and fabulous, that was me.’



Life is like an hourglass......

Eventually everything hits the bottom, and all you have to do is wait it out until someone comes along and turn it around again.

Katie Piper, looking fabulous

Recovering from an accident takes a combination of time and mental and physical power. Unless you have had an accident, you can't appreciate the level of effort that goes into becoming yourself again. Although a large part of this is physical, it also takes time to feel mentally well and 'yourself.' Any one who has experienced a trauma, for example a break-up or a death in the family may look back on that time of stress and wonder how they got through it and managed to function day to day. These periods of time may seem blurry or particularly vivid. You remember how you felt, what happened around you, almost as if it's a programme you are watching on TV, or if you are watching it happening to someone else.

Once you have battled your way through and taken the steps towards recovery, you start to reflect. For me, once I begun to reflect, this was when I realised I was starting to feel like myself again. I was beginning to enjoy going out and socialising instead of it feeling like a battle, something I 'should' do. I felt less self-aware and this helped me feel more confident again.


Someone who should be incredibly proud of themselves is Katie Piper. Her photo was taken at the Jersey Boys west end show recently and she looks fabulous. Not only does she look fabulous, she looks confident in the way she stands and the way she smiles. Katie has had a difficult battle during her long recovery and hopefully she is on her way back to feeling like herself again.

Once upon a time Sleeping Ugly was a problem but thanks to the magical powers of Valerian root they all slept happily ever after.

An average adult needs between 7-9 hours sleep a night to function cheerfully in the day. An average burn patient needs more than this and here's the annoying part...they rarely are able to get it.

In the first few months after my injury I slept most of the day. This was mostly because of the tremendous power of painkillers Oxycodone, Tramadol and the like. I'd get up, have breakfast, spend a few hours laying on the sofa and then have an afternoon nap. Get up for dinner, some TV, then go to bed. As I was so drowsy from the medication, it was fairly easy to sleep, despite my massive Chubb's Peterson cast. The problem came when I stopped taking the Oxycodone painkiller.

Oxycodone is a habit-forming and a hazardous drug if not used properly. When I came out of my first month of injury haze (the brain fog that envelopes you shrouds all else) and realised the power of this drug I couldn't wait to come off it. I knew that experiencing hideous withdrawal symptoms was a possibility as when having my skin grafts done the hospital had forgotten to prescribe me any of my routine medication. Not only did I have the most painful operation known to mankind, I also went cold turkey.

If you're coming off something like this you should speak to your Doctor about how to do it as you need proper information on the least stressful way to do it. Me, I'm all about finding out for yourself. I took the dosage down every week until I was on pretty much nothing and then I stopped.

Oh dear.

The side effects were rough. Ever seen Leonardo Di Caprio in 'The Basketball Diaries?' O.k, it wasn't quite as bad as that but I felt terrible for about a week and half. The biggest problem of all was becoming an insomniac. I didn't sleep for more than a few hours at a time for an entire week. As I was used to spending my time sleeping, this came as quite a shock. I was literally 'out of it.' I didn't know what was going on, what day it was, my muscles felt heavy, I felt panicky and had a fast heartbeat.

Then there were the nightmares. I'd had a couple previously, I think everyone does after a trauma. Your mind is trying to make sense of the non-sense that's just taken place and as such you get some interesting albeit frightening narratives happening in your head. I was told by a counsellor that the more intelligent and creative among us endure the worst nightmares/flashbacks/ and post-trauma symptoms. A very veiled compliment if ever I heard one!

If you're in this situation, you will just have to wait it out. Sleep as much as possible, when you wake up perhaps read for a bit. When you are really tired, don't fight it. Even if you have company they will have to leave early so you can rest, as you are likely to have another wide-eyed night when you are trying to sleep. It's important to keep trying because our bodies heal during sleep and as burn survivors, we need every extra minute of healing we can get!


I'm a bit further along in the healing process now and although it was only a few months ago, that horrible time seems quite distant. I still need lots of sleep though. At the moment I'm averaging between 9 and 10 hours a night and I could probably have an afternoon nap if I made time for it. I'm finding that I do wake up a lot and I often have very disturbed sleep.

Recently I made a discovery of epic proportions, Valerian root tea. Thank you Tesco! Valerian has sedative properties and because of the way it works, suppressing the nervous system, it can also help with nervous tension, excitability, stress, intestinal colic and sleeping disorders such as disturbed sleep.

As with any drug, even the herbal kind, you shouldn't overdo it because you can upset the positive 'side-effects' and end up with adverse effects. If you are going to take it as a nutritional supplement then check the strength and how to take it. It can also interfere with some other drugs and shouldn't be taken when pregnant. As with any sedative, you must NOT drink alcohol with it. (Check these things here, and here people but remember the positive effects as these list of side-effects are quite off-putting.)

Every night this week I've drunk one cup of Valerian tea about 20 minutes before bed and I have slept through my 9-10 hours solidly. I am happier drinking the tea because it's fairly weak in strength and I'm unlikely to get 'dependency problems,' it's herbal tea from Tesco's. I bought the Dr Stuart's tea because they have higher concentrates of active ingredients in them. Therefore they are a bit more expensive but you get what you pay for.

They also do a Tranquility tea and a Chamomile tea.

Last but not least, I thought I'd better mention that it's an acquired taste, somewhere between Chamomile and hamster cage. Overall though, it's mellow green liquid holds promises of deep, undisturbed sleep. Worth it.

Something to ponder.

Your Changed Self.

In grief we learn to identify our losses and define our changed selves. The physical and emotional healing that follows can be a long, involved journey. As you acknowledge your burn injury and give yourself permission to experience the thoughts and feelings that coincide, you begin to assign new meaning to your life. The roles, behaviors, relationships, needs, goals, and expectations you once held will inevitably change. With each new role you assume, each changed relationship you nurture, and each new behavior you adopt, you are reinforcing
your changed self.



From living with a burn injury

More interesting reading The Change Blog

I've nearly reached 1000 page hits, keep on hitting those pages people!

Thank you everyone who's visited the site, even if you got here by some mysterious twist of fate (i.e. you clicked a wrong link.) I will be buying a 'serious' domain name soon and am currently researching riveting topics such as 'driving traffic to your blog.' The most hits I received in a day was 187 which I was pretty proud of but since then it's plateaued a little.

I will continue to write, please continue to read and don't hesitate to leave comments or questions. I'd be happy to answer them.

Esther Sabetpour, an inspiration.

It was Esther who commented on one of my recent posts and gave me the boost to go swimming at my trip to a spa. I felt confident before I got to the pool but once there I felt very different. I become acutely aware of my body, it's scars, it's redness and of the people around me. It was terrifying!

Esther commented that she had been to San Tropez and thought f**k it. She added her website on the comment and I had a look. It was then I realised just what an inspiration she is. Esther had an accident that left her lower body covered in severe burns. She has used photography to document her recovery and show another version of beauty. The scars are patchwork in nature and look like fabric in some places, an interesting and striking texture. She has an attractive figure and her scars don't detract from that, in fact they make her quite awesome to look at. (I mean 'awesome' from the literary sense, 'inspiring awe' rather than the Americanism.)

Esther said that she was "shocked by the severity of the scarring. The pain had been more than I could ever have imagined, but now it began to sink in how much my injuries had changed the way I looked as well – although I realised how lucky I was that my face and arms were pretty much unscathed." She has set out now to do something powerful with her experience and documented her recovery through photography. This includes an exhibition looking at self image and the way women see their bodies, more often focusing on their 'shortcomings rather than the beauty.'

We need more people speaking out like Esther. There are thousands of people living with differences but our culture doesn't encourage people to expose them. Our culture's high expectation of perfection and 'sameness' means those with differences can be made to feel ostracized.

Scars are the memory of experience on a person, an experience that could potentially make them a better person or live a more meaningful and appreciative life. They are (literally!) a patchwork of their hard work, a picture of their efforts to survive and to enjoy life to it's fullest.

The Guardian interview with Esther 'A study in Scarlet' click here

For Esther's photography click here

For her wedding photography click here

Early New Year Resolution

As months go on the scales are getting scarier. I have chomped my way through Chinese take-aways, truffled on chocolates and hoovered up food without a thought. When you're not feeling well you fancy sweet or stodgy foods. Then later on, you find you're just too tired to shop for lots of fresh ingredients and cook from scratch. Add a lot of rest (ok, a lack of movement) and the wobble begins to creep up behind you.

One day you wake up and...hold on! Your jeans are tight...have they just been washed? No! It's just that you're becoming more voluptuous. Let's be clear about this, a little weight gain is attractive; a bit softer around the edges is sexy. But if it continues to increase it becomes a drain on your health and your self-esteem.

I've been watching Channel 4's 'The Food Hospital' and I am amazed at the range of disorders that can be affected by diet. So far everyone who has been on it, whatever they have wrong with their health has improved to some degree by altering their diet. This got me thinking that as a burn survivor and furthermore as a burn survivor with a stubborn rash, I should probably be eating a bit more thoughtfully. Filling my soon-to-be-jiggling self with refined and fatty foods is a bit careless; I'm meant to be taking care of my ailing body!

So from yesterday I began the great diet improvement plan.

It basically involves eating lots and lots of fruit and vegetables. Instead of snacking on mince pies and biscuits (sigh) I am going to be chewing on dried fruit and nuts. I'll be roasting lots of sweet potatoes instead of chips and spreading avocados instead of butter. I really enjoy colourful food, I've just fallen out of good habits.

As we all know, it's Christmas! (Yay!) Of course I will be eating plenty of naughty festive morsels but I am hoping that upping my vitamin levels and eating cleaner, more nutritious food for a couple of weeks might give me an energy boost. I would be thrilled if my rash got vanquished by vitamin power...but I'm not too confident about that one as it has smugly survived a variety of treatments.

Better put the oven on...sweet potato wedges, sweetcorn on the cob and steak for me followed by yoghurt and raspberries tonight....yum!

De nile; a river in Egypt.

Every-time I bump into someone I haven't seen for a while I'm told how wonderful I'm doing and how 'well' I look, considering. Obviously I am very pleased about this. I don't really want people telling me I look rubbish or like I've had an accident. I did that bit over Summer and I would like to put it in a little box in my mind, never to be opened again.

There are several types of denial and I think that I might be suffering from minimisation; admitting the fact but denying it's seriousness. When I discuss the event with people I can hear myself downplaying the horror of what has happened. It can lead to cognitive distortion, one part of this would be downplaying a trauma in order to avoid worry for yourself or others. Surely though, this can be a positive thing? Who wants to listen to someone's sob story again and again? And feeling too sorry for yourself can inhibit action and moving on.

I have adopted a 'get on with it and don't dwell on it' attitude and this has meant I can carry on with my life as normally as possible. I have wondered if I might be missing the stages I should be going through but perhaps I will avoid all that drama.

Mostly I am severely irritated by this stupid accident. It was really ridiculous and shouldn't have happened. (Perhaps this is my anger stage...) I love my life, I'm young, I have a job I love and friends and family around me. I have a busy and exciting social life and a fantastic boyfriend. I have worked really hard to get all these things and just as they line up...this happened! It's in the way of the life I want to live. I just want to forget it. Deny it! Minimise it! And continue to live life as before.

This is very difficult though. I've become a different person and this often surfaces in my mind. I don't think most people would notice but I notice it myself. I can't be as spontaneous as I was before, for example I can't go out partying all night, I get too tired. I can't be as carefree because I am reminded of what has happened and I have to look after myself more now.

Ideally, I will never feel long term misery over this incident. Minimising what has happened doesn't minimise the reality of it; the events and aftermath will be forever engraved in my memory and I make light of them in order to get on with my life. If I didn't, perhaps I would struggle to cope. I think that this is a useful defence mechanism for me and as long as I don't overlook any strong feelings I have otherwise, I can't see why I shouldn't keep up this attitude. Long live denial!

It's good to talk...or write.

I know that counselling works. I've seen the statistics and I'm under no illusions that talking through things helps. Still, I can't get on with counselling so I've been referred to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

I don't know how many of you reading have had counselling, probably more than I think! Perhaps it has suited some of you. Unfortunately I find it irritating and unhelpful. It gets on my nerves, revisiting the same old issues, ones that can't be changed. I've had an accident, there are scars on my arm now, it's not the same. I have no choice is this matter, so questioning me is not going to help me.

Counsellor: So how are you feeling about things?

Me: A bit rubbish.

Counseller: And why do you think that might be?

Me: Um, because I got set on fire?

I can never think of anything to ask the counsellor, so it became pretty much a one way conversation. And it was depressing. Let's spend the next hour discussing the worst moment of my life. (I almost added 'so far' here but resisted. This better be the worst!)

I'm hoping that CBT will be a bit more 'hands on' and look at solving issues rather than discussing them.

I was reading in my Psychologies magazine this month about 'how writing can help you heal.' Apparently James Pennebaker, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas did an experiment in the 1980s, getting his students to write down their feelings about an emotional upheaval for 15 to 20 minutes a day for 4 days. The students reported feeling better in a number of ways. Pennebaker went on to research this approach and found an improvement in a wide range of ailments from depression to asthma. He also found his subjects' immune systems were boosted and they visited their Doctors less often.

He believes that our minds are designed to try to understand and process things. Therefore writing down our thoughts and experiences helps to sift through them. Expressing them can help us make sense of trauma and cope more effectively.

Of course, that fits perfectly in with my blog. This has definitely helped me out more than traditional counselling!

Make up update, new products, new tips

Since my accident I have been using Dermablend by Vichy to cover up the red marks and (minor but still there) scars on my face. 3 months after that fateful day I went to a Red Cross make-up lesson and was prescribed some make-up on the NHS. I was dubious about this. Prescription make-up on the NHS would be the poor cousin of expensive, fully priced, advertised cosmetics...right? WRONG!

The prescription make-up is Fabulous with a capital F.

DERMA COLOR CAMOUFLAGE CREME AND FIXING POWDER


DERMA COLOR CREME - HOW TO USE

Derma color creme doesn't look easy to use. It is a solid block of colour set inside a pot. I can promise that once you have the knack, you will have flawless skin.

1. You need to apply this creme with a sponge. I have been using a little piece of natural sponge as advised by Red Cross. Before using, damp the sponge under running water and then squeeze it in a towel. This will stop it being too wet, otherwise it won't work as well. (Learnt from experience.)

2. Dig your fingernail in the pot of creme (away from you so it doesn't go under your nail and just sits on top of it!) and get a little out. Take a small amount at a time. Wipe/dab it on the back of your hand, the opposite hand that you will use to apply it.

Amazingly, as soon as the creme hits the back of your hand and gets warm, it turns fluid!

3. Press your sponge on the creme on the back of your hand. Then press and roll the sponge on your face, starting from the nose outwards. You can also dab the sponge firmly on your face in harder to cover areas.

4. Make sure you blend at the sides of your face!

5. Wipe the sponge down each side of your nose.

I usually need to take a little 'dig' out of the pot for each cheek, one for my chin and one for my forehead.

6. After this, you should have a natural colour building up on your face. You shouldn't need much else! However, I do cover and blend the redder areas by using the Dermablend by Vichy Concealer stick that I bought from Boots. (See earlier post.)

DERMA COLOR FIXING POWDER-HOW TO USE

The fixing powder is interesting. I would like to know who created this impossible-to-use pot. Unfortunately it goes everywhere, a waste of product and a waste of money for the NHS! It really is a terrible design compared to the Vichy pot. There are many, many bronzers and loose powders out there, all in perfectly usable pots. So why the Derma color people decided upon this one in their camouflage board room, I have no idea. If I come up with a solution to limit it's scattering tendencies, I'll let you know!

1. You can use a powder puff but I don't have one so I've been using cotton wool pads.

2. Load up the pads with the powder and simply dab it all over your face, paying extra attention to the areas that have the most coverage on. Then you can go back and press the powder gently into your face. Don't be rough, you don't want to dislodge the make-up.

3. LEAVE FOR AT LEAST 10 MINUTES! Don't rush this process!

4. AFTER AT LEAST 10 MINUTES! Use a large brush to dust the powder off, very lightly. You will find that most of it has been absorbed.

5. Delicately add on your normal blusher and the rest of your make-up.

This company say that the make-up has NEVER caused an allergic reaction in anyone. I do think that this make-up seems to cause me less irritation than the Vichy one. It has also caused me less little 'blisters' or 'spots' under my chin but this could be because my skin is healed more now.

They also claim that the make-up is waterproof. While I can't vouch for this exactly, I have been swimming in it. I was slightly splashed in the face and it didn't budge one bit.

It also says in the instructions that you won't need to re-apply it at any time. Although it lasts a long time, you might want to re-powder during the day as it can go a bit shiny. The company do a pre-make-up cleanser for oily skin should you be having trouble with the longevity of the make-up. I think you would need to ask your doctor or Red Cross consultant if you wanted to use this.

They also make skin 'plastic' for very uneven skin. Although I don't need to use this myself, I think it would be another amazing product.

To get the make-up off I have been using Clinque Cleansing Balm and then a face wash but the Red Cross consultants used Aqueous cream....much cheaper!

You definitely need patience with this make-up but it is worth it.

PTSD - not all wounds are visible

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was something I studied in Psychology at College, not something I thought I would ever suffer from. Yet recently I was diagnosed with mild symptoms of the disorder and have been referred to a type of therapy known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This is to minimise the chance of developing anxieties or phobias linked to the accident and 'trauma' suffered.

We know more about PTSD nowadays because lots of soldiers coming back from war will suffer from it due to the terrible experiences they have had. It is important to treat people after trauma in a timely fashion to stop the disorder eating them up and taking away their ability to live a fulfilled life. It can also lead to other problems such as alcohol dependency, depression and an inability to cope.

Although I've been told some of the symptoms I am experiencing are part of the disorder, I feel that most people who have suffered a trauma would display these feelings or behaviours. PTSD can be diagnosed if these symptoms are still prevalent after 6 weeks but I do feel that some of these may persist for months or longer. I think having a significant accident may make you always feel differently towards certain things.

An example would be strong, uncomfortable feelings related to situations related to the event. I am probably always going to be nervous around BBQs, bonfires and other sources of open flame or fire. I'm not sure these 'strong, uncomfortable feelings' will go away after 6 weeks. I'm not sure they will go away at all!

I am quite 'hyper-vigilant' but am hoping this will lessen over time. Apparently this is something that CBT will help with. Bright, electrical lights startle me, like gas flames or fireworks. When the fish-tank light came on the other night, I jumped out my seat! I also see accidents everywhere but I think this will lessen too. It's early days still.

I have also had palpitations a few times and can suddenly feel my heart pound in my chest. I constantly check for fire exits, refuse to get into lifts or move the oven gloves away from the hanging on the oven door!

I'm really pleased that I am being referred to CBT as although I think I'm doing really well in my recovery I'd hate to miss something and it escalate into an irrational fear. It's better to act early. As resilient as I am, I still need support to make sure I recover from this ordeal as well as I can.

The person who has had the accident needs to take action themselves but others can also help them by acting appropriately. If you know someone who has had an accident or trauma, follow this advice from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. There is nothing worse than people telling you how lucky you are! Believe me!

Do…….
*watch out for any changes in behaviour – poor performance at work, lateness, taking sick leave, minor accidents
*watch for anger, irritability, depression, lack of interest, lack of concentration
*take time to allow a trauma survivor to tell their story
*ask general questions
*let them talk, don’t interrupt the flow or come back with your own experiences.

Don’t …….
*tell a survivor you know how they feel – you don’t
*tell a survivor they’re lucky to be alive – it doesn't feel like that to them
*minimise their experience – “it’s not that bad, surely …”
*suggest that they just need to "pull themselves together".

Further information can be found on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website.