Natasha

Natasha was 3 years old when she accidentally spilled hot gravy over herself. Her chest, shoulder, chin, arm, thighs, and stomach were burnt in the accident.

Natasha was 3 years old when she sustained burn injuries to her shoulder, chin, arm, thigh, and stomach. She was sat at the dinner table with her family and picked up a jug of hot gravy. Natasha took a sip of the gravy and jolted because it was so hot, in doing so she spilt the jug of gravy over herself.

Her family phoned for an ambulance. When the ambulance arrived she was taken to hospital where she stayed for around 4 weeks. Natasha doesn’t remember much from that time because she was so young.

Natasha needed skin grafts when she was in hospital. Skin was taken from the back of her thigh and bum and grafted over the burnt skin which had been damaged. She said the skin grafts were successful and she has always received compliments about how “smooth” her skin grafts are.

Growing up, Natasha never really thought about her scars. Only as she entered adulthood did her scars begin to “bother” her and she started to notice them more. Sometimes, seeing other people wearing dresses makes Natasha think that she couldn’t wear clothes like that, and this can make her feel self-conscious. Natasha reminds herself that “there’s nothing I can do about it” and tries to ignore any negative thoughts she has about her scars.

Natasha attended a local burns support group which she said was “great” because she was able to meet other young people with similar injuries to her. She has made lots of friends at the support group and in the future they want to get matching tattoos as a sign of their friendship. Natasha stopped attending the support group when she was 18, but intends on volunteering with them once she turns 21.

Natasha was initially worried about starting dating as a teenager.

Age at interview 19

I think, you know, being that age of 17/18, you know, you like boys and girls and stuff like that and it’s a bit like, you want to start, you know you want, it’s hard to explain. Like, I’ve never really had any sort of relationship yet ever, so it was quite scary now that I could have that opportunity. It almost felt like I couldn’t really do that properly but, I actually met my boyfriend now of nearly two years at college and, you know, he’s great with my burns, he's really, really nice with it so it’s fine but definitely going into college was the moment where I started feeling more self-conscious about it yeah, for sure.

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Natasha tries to forget that her burn is there and tells herself “there’s nothing I can do about it”.

Age at interview 19

I sort of just tell myself to ignore it. So, if for instance, I’m in the mirror and I’m getting ready and you can see a little bit of my burn on my shoulder or something like that, I just sort of tell myself “There’s nothing I can do about that, so just ignore it, pretend it’s not there.” And then, if I do that, I tend to actually just forget it’s there. And, as long as I’m not looking in a mirror it’s not there to me. So, it’s just sort of, yeah, it’s just about that and then I deal with other body image issues as well. So, it’s almost like it’s definitely the least important of all the problems that I have but it is still, it just sort of adds it on. So, if I’m having a really bad day and I’m upset about that one and that one and then that’s as well and it just, sometimes it just does get a bit much, but that’s very rarely does that happen and it’s usually when I’m in a bad mood or, you know, I’ve had a bad day or something like that. But it’s never long term, you know, and it doesn’t always come back, it’s just if I’m looking at it really, but yeah, yeah. But then, I sort of remember then, like I say, then I’ll chat to my boyfriend and then he’ll make me feel happy again, so you know, and it’s fine and then actually I tell myself “Actually, why am I getting silly about this? This is, it’s really not, it’s great, it’s just part of me.” It’s almost like I just tell myself “There’s nothing I can do about it, it’s here to stay.”

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