Virtual Open Mic: Frank Sehi

When I was 4 1/2 years old, I was severely burned 78% of my body with cooking oil. My mother was making French fries, and somehow the pan of hot cooking ended up on top of me. I suffered, third-degree burns, and was in the hospital for three months. I nearly died, and I had to learn how to walk again. I went through three years of physical therapy, and years of continuous skin graft surgeries. I was tormented by kids in elementary school, all the way through the beginning of middle school. I was called names, such as Frankenstein, freak, the kid that had cooties. For many years, I had very low self-esteem about myself, I thought there is no chance in hell that I will ever experience love, or even know what happiness was. I actually started believing I was some kind of monster, as if I was the monster Frankenstein. I belonged to a wonderful burn foundation when I was a kid, but I never received a mental health counseling. It was not until I was in my mid-20s before I got counseling to start working through the trauma that I had experienced. That is when I began to discover myself more, and really accept my burns as part of who I am, and no longer recognized myself as a victim, but yet a survivor. Along my journey, I faced many nightmares, low self-esteem, but as I got the mental health services I needed, as I came to peace with what had happened to me, and realize that I was a survivor, I realize my journey was leading me to help others. I decided to go back to school in my late 30s after having my son, during that time the first couple years of school, I realize that I really wanted to help others who are burn survivors. Today, I have been part of a burn foundation that has been working with children and adolescents for 33 years, and now will be the lead counselor for that burn foundation starting in October. I am almost finished with my graduate’s degree as a clinical mental health counselor, with a focus in trauma. Ultimately my goal will be to open my own practice in the next couple years that will focus with working with children and adolescents, as well as their families, of those who are burned survivors. My passion and desire are to bring people together who are burn survivors from not only just here, but around the world. I want to be an inspiration to others, that we are not victims, but we are survivors. That are scars, essentially tell a story, and that truly once we heal the scars on the inside, we can accomplish anything, and we can help others who are also burn survivors.