Hi my name's Katy Gee
and I'm from London.
Five years ago I went
to volunteer in Africa
in Zanzibar which is an island off
of Tanzania
and it was the month
before I was meant to start university
and it was kind of like a substitute gap year
going away doing something different for a month
and on the last weekend on the island
we were,
I was, in a completely random acid attack -
two guys from my right hand side
drove through it
and then drove straight off
and then from there I ran straight to
a bathroom tried to wash as much as possible
and within 24 hours I was
on a medevac home back to London
to Chelsea & Westminster Hospital where I was treated
for burns.
When we arrived at Chelsea Westminster
I had no idea that the story
was picked up at all because
I was asleep basically the whole journey
back. I was completely sedated on the airplane
and so when we arrived I was
very shocked to see I had friends calling
me saying you're on the news I had no idea it was happening
but to me at that point it was completely
irrelevant to me because the next
day essentially I had
12 hour surgeries to get rid of all the
burns as much as possible so
that was like the last thing I was thinking of
in that moment.
I was having blood transfusions,
skin graphs,
therapy everything you can probably think
of I was having it
and then came back home
and from there it was five days a week
in hospital - having physio,
seeing my occupational therapist,
having a face mask fitted,
pressure suits fitted,
spent two months in a scar rehab
centre in the South of France France
and it was kind of just an ongoing recovery.
Went to Nottingham University the following September
but worked from home for the first year
and a half.
My last year I was able to attend
university normally
but was still having surgery maybe about
12 times a year at this point.
And now five years later
and I still had surgery four weeks ago so
it's just ongoing
but getting there slowly.
When you're in hospital for
something that's like so serious it's strung upon
you just are so vulnerable
that anyone in a position of power like
the doctors aside
and you just listen to them.
So for me at hostpial
I was completely distracted by everything going on.
And then when you get back home
and all your friends are at university
and getting on with their own lives
and your still in hospital every day
then that's kind of when everything hits you
and it starts setting into how bad
the situation is.
So for me that's kind of when
it hit me and when
I really had to like focus
on myself and my mental health
and that kind of recovery just as
well as the physical recovery.
I think the biggest
mental health challenge
is just like being scared
of life, being hurt again.
And
with that comes like different forms of anxiety
or forms of PTSD.
And I think that's probably the hardest
part in terms of like
a mental recovery
and an emotional recovery as well.
I was offered
initially,
as you can imagine, like these news channels just
like jump on stories like this
and I said no
to absolutely everything to begin
with - it wasn't my interest I wanted
to focus on myself
and then maybe about two months ago I
made my story a little bit
more public. I just started posting about myself
and I set up my YouTube channel
and just things like that.
And last weekend I wrote an
article for a national
newspaper
and it was all about my recovery
and what I aim to do
in terms of social media
and without my knowledge I didn't have
the last read through.
They changed the title of the article to "girl
horribly disfigured" within the whole title
and then from then on
I was thinking of what I could do about
this just because A) it upset
me and B) for everyone else
reading it they probably would either
get offended
or think it was just so normal
and so normalised that this was being written
about someone with a disfigurement
and then therefore take on that
opinion as well. So
I decided to
put out my Instagram
and then made their hashtag setting the standard
where everyone had to post a picture of themselves
with any insecurity
or anything that they wouldn't normally post
on to Instagram.
And from then it kind of took off.
So on Instagram especially
which has kind of why I based it on Instagram,
we're so obsessed
with everything being perfect,
everything's curated.
Whenever we scroll down everyone looks
like faultless
and I just think that A) that's really damaging
because 99 percent of people don't fit into
what is considered perfection in
terms of how the media perceives perfection.
That's exactly why I started it's just
so important that everyone
comes to realise that that's not real life
and everyone's aware of it
but everyone still gives into this which is
just making everyone's anxiety
and insecurities worse.
I think it's really important to remember that
beauty will always be a part of society
and it's also important in other ways
to embrace beauty
and everyone's individuality
and beauty in that sense
but true beauty comes
from like within,
it's your character, your confidence,
happiness.
And I think it's really important to remember that.
So there's a great quote from the Talmud
which is "Do not stare at the container
but rather add its content"
and I think that's really important to remember.
I am Katie Gee
and you're watching J-TV.