This Chichester student wants to inspire burns survivors to feel beautiful

Crystal Turner Brightman has launched the project under the title: ‘Don’t let your scars define you. Define your scars.’

The 19-year-old, who is studying theatre, filled the scars on her stomach and upper arm with gold glitter and posed for a series of self-portraits.

She said: “It would mean the world to me if this poster campaign could help others define their own scars or disfigurements, helping them to feel beautiful again.”

Crystal was 15 years old when she was injured in a traumatic accident.

She had been helping a friend with his GCSE photography project when the white cotton dress she was modelling in caught the flame of a candle and set her on fire.

Crystal was rushed to Southampton General Hospital’s A&E department before getting transferred to the specialist burns unit at Salisbury District Hospital.

She had to return every other day for two weeks to get the dressings on her wounds changed, and slowly they began to heal.

But Crystal said: “I had been so focused on my physical recovery, I had forgotten to look after my mental wellbeing.”

She describes her emotions as being ‘black and white’: “I was either very happy or extremely depressed and very unhappy with my body.”

Crystal was diagnosed with PTSD but it would take her a year on a waiting list until she received support in the form of cognitive behavioural therapy.

She said this ‘really helped’, as did throwing herself into her passion: “Performing Arts for me was what got me out of bed and into school,”

Now she is determined to help others.

“At the time when the accident occurred, I felt so broken, deformed and lost, that now I want to fight to help others not feel that way,” she said.

Crystal, who hopes to launch her own theatre company after university, plans to share the posters across social media ahead of National Burns Awareness Day in October.

She said the process of creating the artworks was ‘really good’ for her self-esteem.

“I don’t really think my scars are that pretty and it was the first time I’ve seen them in that way and thought they were beautiful,” she said.

Watch her video about how the campaign was created here.