Never find the one I want.
I know what I look like and I know that 80% of what people perceive is what they see.
So their first impression of me is not always positive
if they see me just randomly in the street.
I'm 6.3ft and a bit overweight and I've got a scarred face.
No one's gonna look at me and go, I wonder if that guy was shot while serving his country.
That's not the first impression.
In general, people don't tend to try and notice them.
They notice them and you can physically see their eyes look at you
afterwards to see how much of a raving lunatic you are.
The first time I saw the scar it was actually when they took the dressing off
and took the stitches out.
And the first thought I had was wow
that is amazing.
When my family asked about this on my arm,
I told them I was trying to get through a window and I got cut like that.
More than anything else, it was just embarrassing, I felt like I put up with so many things.
You know, I thought that he would have changed and, even though I didn't want him around,
the night that he stabbed me, he still was there and I still kind of protected him.
Instead of protecting myself.
So my last operation I had, I remember waking up and it just feeling like my
hand was on fire and it was like, in a pressure cooker.
And it was just like ...
Like, the whole thing was just radiating.
And I was like, what have they done.
It covers most, in fact, almost all of the side of my head
and then comes down over my ear where they essentially lifted everything up
to get to the tumor.
When I had hair at the time, it just looked like I'd been in a battle.
I'd been in the battle and I'd won.
My life will forever be before and after
not just emotionally, visually, sensually, my brain has completely changed.
The other parts of my brain overcompensate for the bit that's missing.
The doctors don't know how long it's been there but my one doctor so that suggested that
it could have been there for 5-10 years
because it was so big.
It was one of the largest brain tumors they've ever operated on.
Secondary school, they would keep moving me away from woodwork.
So I do like textiles and then I'd do computing and then I'd do food
and then I'd do textiles, and then I'd do food and then I'd do textiles and then I do food
and I was like, what is going on with this system?
I didn't realise at the time but they like, thought that I couldn't do woodwork
but outside of school I was like, building skate ramps, like,
I was nicking wood out of skips,
as creating stuff.
That basically like, drilled a oil well of energy, like into my beam
because it was like I've just gotta smash this woodwork ...
I feel like these scars, like, just shape me in a way that has made me like really
resilient to what other people think of me.
If every time I meet someone and I go to, like, shake their hand,
if every time I do that and that person can take away my peace
or take away my wholeness.
Then, where am I left.
I, Simon Peter Brown, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful about your
allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second, her heirs
and successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies and will observe
and obey all orders of Her Majesty and heirs and successors and the generals
and officers set over me.
So I didn't have a lot of options when I was 18.
I was just doing sort of dead end jobs, but of labouring here,
bit of this, that and the other
and I saw this as an opportunity to get a trade,
have a career, you know, live somewhere different, do something different
and see a better world.
I can't tell you why I started self-harming
because it was my life, it wasn't an event ...
I tried to hang myself when I was 11
and from that point on I continued to harm myself in various different ways
and I only stopped when I was about 36.
I wish I've never done it but I couldn't help it.
I still battle with the problems and the feelings that used to make me hurt myself.
Only now I have the ability and the perception to know that it's not actually me
that needs to suffer, I just learned it wasn't my fault anymore.
The morning of the surgery, my mother and a couple of friends and my husband were there.
My mum then got on to the bed in front of the medical team
and did a paso doble
on the bed when not into bullfighting, I just like to say that,
but it's a sign of strength, it's a dance to show how strong you are.
I had so much hair that I could have easily covered it up
but I've never wanted to cover up my scar.
And me personally, covering it up my scar
would be for me saying I'm afraid whereas I wanted to show it
and say I'm not scared of you, this is, bring it on
because I'm not scared.
He's called me a bitch, he's told me nobody will want me,
he's hit me, he's hurt me so bad like mentally, emotionally and physically ...
I do feel like I'm been scarred in many ways
which I am trying to heal from.
A butterfly goes through starting off as a caterpillar and becoming beautiful and being free ...
That's what it means for me to be free and free of that relationship.
Free of that treatment and mistreatment and every time I look at it doesn't ...
I don't think of an ugly scar or, you know, a traumatic experience, I think of it as
the aftermath, the fact that I am able to be free from it and something beautiful
can come out of something, you know, that's having a hard time.
When I first came I had a cage on my face so it was difficult anyway to go out and socialising
and then once the cage came off, I did isolate myself,
I did sort of hide in the house and it was safe, you know, I knew the environment
and it was safe.
My mates were not happy with that.
So what I used to do was a wild rugby team or friends used to come and kidnap me basically,
take me downtown, get me liquored up and then leave me at my dad's doorstep
for him to deal with me.
But actually that was a positive experience,
my friends didn't think I changed so it kind of removed my excuse
for thinking I had, you know, things were different, they were
but it wasn't a change, you know what I mean? I hadn't become a different person
I just had different challenges and I think that initially it impacted them
not letting me be isolated was a huge sort of step to moving on.
I can't wait for that hollyhock to come out.
Just remember last year? It was that huge purple flower.
No, oh no, it's more glorious, big and blousey like you.
I was reading the local paper and there was an advertisement for a job as a laboratory washer upper
and I went for an interview and unanimously they chose me
above quite a few other people.
I can't remember at the time but I was quite shocked and I started
and I began to meet some of the most fantastically diverse, interesting, clever people
and I couldn't believe that these people accepted me and liked me
and I enjoyed being with them and each day, I learned more and they learned little bits from me
and we became ... I built up friends with doctors,
people that were professors and they respected me and it made me feel amazing.
It made me feel like an individual, made me that feel like a strong, capable person.
There you go, beautiful.
I love this!
That's astounding.
The more I got to know these people, the more I realised that they had exactly the same fears,
and struggles that I thought I had as a single mother
with mental issues.
There's something about this hand that's made me really, really determined which is great.
But then, the other side of it is that if you're my partner like that resilience,
that determination can be a bit of an emotional wall.
So there was this one time where I was splitting up with my partner ...
We used to joke about my hand, like, all the time, like it was one of my favourite things
about that relationship.
When we were splitting up, she just said,
'oh, yes, it's because of your hand.'
And it was like a brilliant joke, like, it was the perfect joke and we both sort of had
like a kind of laugh and then we kind of like, all right, we should just go.
There's something about being like, this determined this, like, positive
that can make me like not connect or miss the connection
because I don't believe the person that says, 'you can't do that.'
Save the black for the eyes.
Actually, I'll do. the blockers,
the outside of the mouth and then this is the tongue.
Hey, you took the black from me!
My daughters, literally I always say they saved me.
Like, even if I couldn't do it for me, I had to do it for them.
They gave me the love that, you know, I was searching for in the wrong places.
I don't really want to date anyone.
I've tried.
The first little thing that
that person will remind me of him, it won't go any further, like, any details ...
I wouldn't even date a Scorpio just because that's what he was.
Sorry, I mean, I know you can't probably put it out there
to not offend all the other Scorpios, I'm sure they're lovely people but he was one and
I'm like, what are you, a scorpio, OK, no.
I was worried how my daughter was going to react.
When she first saw the scar without the dressing, she looked at my head
and she touched the scar
and she just sort of just gently touched it and then the next morning she said to me
where I was in bed and she again, she was touching it and she said,
mummy, I love that.
I worked my way up from lab glassware cleaner to a laboratory manager basically,
which have fascinated me because I'd got a U for my chemistry exam
exam because I drew my friend's ear, because I couldn't even answer any of the questions,
and I remember standing in a lab one day with all this amazing fume hoods
and glassware and stuff and thinking, well, look at me working
in a chemistry lab of all the people.
They are not me anymore, they're not me.
These aren't mine.
The person I am now ...
I wish they were here because I'm not that person.
You have to become more confident, otherwise, you know, you won't leave the house.
It's incredibly intimidating to not be able to see your environment.
I was never a good communicator in the sense of open speaking.
So I've had to develop that because I have to be more auditory
and now I work with Live Action UK with Help The Heroes,
and the Royal British Legion, things like that.
I've also started to play Rugby again which when you're 45 and blind
is not probably the best thing to start in life
but those are again an opportunity to do something I thought I've been taken away from me
and it's been, you know, opportunities that come along that I thought I'd never have and
and the things that, you know, I never saw myself doing
and it is, it's based around the fact that I've accepted the situation I've got,
and I think that's a term I've accepted and I've adapted.
I think scars can lead to something a lot deeper.
Like, within you, so I feel like, they can be sort of holes ...
They go deeper into yourself.
And they also tell stories, like, true stories, you can't really lie about scars.
Because they just tell stories as they are.
If I haven't done it, where would I be?
I probably ... I don't know what would have happened so they are part of me,
they're my making, that's why I'm here now.
I genuinely believe it's part of who I am.
It's contributed to making me who I am.