third degree burn @ restaurant

Seeing this new thread about burn injuries inspired me to share my own story. A while back, I got a third-degree burn while eating out at a Korean restaurant. The server was new and clearly not used to handling the boiling hot pot they served. Long story short, it spilled on me, and I ended up in the ER for a few days.

The physical pain was bad, but what really stuck with me was how much it derailed my life. I had to take a gap semester to recover, which meant I couldn’t graduate on time. That hit me harder than I expected—it felt like my life was completely out of sync, and I kept blaming myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Looking back, I wish I’d spoken out more about how much this incident affected me. If anyone else has had something similar happen, how did you cope with the long-term impact?