A Magazine Interview

Awhile ago, I posted something in a Burn Survivor Group on Facebook and it caught the attention of a writer in the UK who writes about all different kinds of women's issues for three different magazines.  One day I open up my Facebook and I have a private message from her.  She explained who she was, what she did, and how she read my post and found me.  She explained that she wrote feature stories on women's issues/true stories and wanted to do a feature story on my story.  I was completely taken aback.  I was slightly shocked because a lot of Burn Survivors post in that group and somehow I stood out to her.  So I wrote her back and told her I wanted to do it and would be very honored.  We messaged back and forth for awhile and today we finally had an official interview over Skype.

As time got closer to our interview time, I started to get pretty nervous.  I had never done anything like this before and I was scared I wouldn't know how to say what I wanted to say, use the right words for what I wanted to say, ramble on and go off on a tangent and forget what the original question was, or say something that didn't really make sense.  I also knew I was going to get emotional and cry because I always do when I revisit those memories and I didn't want to be a sobbing mess.  Finally it was time.

The UK writer's name is Alison and when I first saw her on the Skype screen my first thought was how beautiful she was.  Then we started talking and she was incredibly nice.  After some short small talk, we began the interview with what my life was like before the accident.  And then we did an overview of what happened with accident.  And as expected, I got emotional and tears started to fall.  I tried to control it but the memories associated with the accident, what I went through initially, and what it has taken from me and how it has changed my life are just too powerful.  But I'm used to it.  I mean I'm used to crying.  So I pushed through it and we continued talking.  After the overview of the accident, we talked about the coma, when I first woke up, my hallucinations, how my brother was the first person of my family that I saw when I woke up, when I first saw myself in the mirror, how long I was in the hospital, the initial surgeries.

Then she asked me what this has taught me about myself that I might not have known before and what it has taught me about life, what's most important in life.  I had a hard time thinking of what this accident has taught me about myself cause I'm just not good at talking about myself.  But as for what it has taught me about what is most important in life, I basically said that it's one of those things that you always hear it happening to other people, it never happens to you.  But this time it did happen to me and it made me realize that the things that I thought were important weren't, and the things that I didn't give as much importance to were the things that should be given importance and priority.  I told her family and friends are so important in life and it's so important to be a real, caring and kind human being who deeply loves their family and friends because you never know when it can all change in a split second and sometimes that split second changes your life forever and sometimes that split second can take your life from you.  So it's important to tell your family and friends that you love them as often as you can because at any time, they can be taken from you or you from them and you don't want the last words you ever said to them or they said to you to be, "I hate you," because you got in a fight.  Always resolve a fight or disagreement.

She also wanted to talk about my best friend's wedding because it was a huge step, probably the biggest step I've taken so far in my recovery.  We talked about that for awhile until we started talking about how it has changed my dreams, my life.  I told her it has been very hard to go from being very independent to now living a very dependent life and being almost 30 years old and finding myself living with my parents.  As for my dream, I told her that was probably the second most devastating thing the accident took.  Acting was all I ever wanted to do since I knew what it was, which was like the 2nd grade and now it may never come to pass.  We talked shortly about my friends, those who have always been there and who continue to support me through everything and some who just can't seem to handle what's happened to me or what's going on with everything in my life and just can't seem to be there for me.  As well as how many people came out of the wood works when I finally came out with what happened and were so supportive and continue to be and the friends I never thought I'd be friends with who have become my dearest friends, my family.

We also talked a bit about feelings of anger and my frustrations and touched lightly on how this has tested my faith.  I also talked about how much guilt I have.  And of course she asked how many surgeries I'd had so far and an overview of what the surgeries have been for.  And then she went over how this was going to go.  Basically whoever it is that decides if they want to take a story, they basically decide within reading about 200 words so she will write a short summary of my story and then send it out to her fifteen magazine contacts and see if anyone is interested.  If someone is, she said she will probably want to talk to me again and then she'll write it up, include some pictures of before the burn and some of the surgeries, send it over to me to look at and make sure it's all correct and then it's off to get published!  I really hope it catches someone's interest.  I never thought I'd get an opportunity like this.  This is a chance for me to tell my story and that's very important to me.