I and my scars: I fell in love my body now, 45 years later
Life Sylvia Mak was hiding deep scars covering her body, the consequences from childhood burns. Now, 48 years old, she talks about how he decided to stop hiding and open up to others for what it is.
Except for my face, I have no one body part that looks normal.
My burns starting from the top of the neck down to the buttocks and cover the stomach and left leg. And the rest of the body — hands and feet — I have tracks from little jabs — where I have took the skin.
I got these terrible burns third and fourth degree in three years.
My mother boiled water in pans for evening swimming. She poured hot water into the pots and put them on the floor in the bathroom. My sisters played. We were told not to go to the bathroom.
News
But I went, and my sister pushed open the door. And I fell back, right into a bowl of boiling water, received very serious burns.
The pandemonium, the screams, I was in shock and I had convulsions. Then came the ambulance.
The doctors gathered my family and told them that the night I will not survive.
I was christened and communed.
The first thing I remember, I was lying in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. I remember that I was in pain.
When I arrived at the hospital, I had to undress completely, stand on a bed and turn your back to everything, including medical students, examined her and my body. Because of this, I began to have nightmares.
I have transferred probably hundreds of operations.
In childhood many people told my mother: “Oh, how pretty, how pretty”.
But I always thought: “Why they say I’m pretty? No. Under the clothes I’m all messed up”.
I always felt ugly incident affected me not only physically but also psychologically.
Kids teased me about my “witch” and “snake skin” and behave very naughty. I was told that I’ll never have a boyfriend that I’m not getting married I have no children.
I always loved to swim. Water is a completely different world, I’ve always liked water. But I was afraid that people would see my body. I was always waiting for it to get out of the water and went to change.
We had one teacher in high school who decided that we all need to go to shower after class. We stood in line, wrapped in towels.
I begged her, “Please, I can’t go in the shower, I’m not allowed to shower” and she just pulled off me with a towel and got in the shower. Everyone was staring at me and it was awful, it seemed to me that everyone is laughing at me.
In the end, dad decided that I should enroll in a section for swimming. Don’t know whether he thought that it would help me open up and meet new people, but actually the experience was quite traumatic.