Bump In The Road:
Lise Deguire on Lessons From A Burn Survivor
“Is your glass half full or half empty?
Is it filling or emptying?”
-Lise Deguire
Lessons From A Burn Survivor
Lise Deguire is an attractive woman. Her kind eyes belie what she has lived through.
When Lise was four years old, her mother used a household solvent used to start a barbecue. It exploded, engulfing the entire porch in flames. Her mother ran through the fire and jumped in the lake to cool her burns. She left Lise standing in the midst of the inferno.
Lise who was a beautiful, bubbly, child with blond curls suffered third degree burns over 65% of her body. The ensuing years would be round after round of brutal burn treatments and skin removal resulting in heavy scarring.
Lise reflects back on her relationship with her mother and notes that
“She was not emotionally equipped to be a mother. She just wasn’t. And some mothers aren’t…
One of the things I’ve learned since my book has come out is there is a lot of people who had mothers who were not very good at it.”
Lise describes her parents as “outrageously flawed, gifted, and iconoclastic parents.” And as such, they were often wrapped up in their own lives and drama.
Lise had numerous experiences that would have stopped most people. Perhaps most traumatically, her beloved brother committed suicide. That is what ultimately led her to a life dedicated to making a difference in mental health.
“I think it made me a better person. And I help a lot of people now.”
Lise Deguire On Flashback Girl
“Most of us are capable of resilience.”
“Sometimes the people in our lives are not necessarily capable of loving us the way we want to be loved.”
“One of the things I read about optimism that really struck me is that optimists and pessimists are looking at the same set of data.”
“Gratitude is the capacity to notice what we have as opposed to what we don’t have.”
“And it’s really important to get better at it (gratitude) because gratitude actually changes your biochemistry.”
“I think you have a choice. It’s about traumatic growth. Or you can stay mired where you are.”
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