Warning: Some images in this story may be graphic.

It was June 5, 1997, a month before my third birthday, and my younger sister, Sierra, and I were napping at home in Eden, North Carolina. Both my parents were outside when my older sister, Michelle, who was returning home from school, saw smoke coming out of our house. The wires in the laundry room had caught fire next to the bedroom I was sleeping in. My father had to kick down the back door to get to me. Once outside, my mom gave me CPR until the paramedics arrived. Sierra was fine, but about 80 percent of my body was severely burned. Doctors gave me only a 2 percent chance of survival.

I’ve pieced together this story mostly from what my nana and older sister told me later. I learned that I stayed in the hospital for three months, hooked up to a ventilator, and underwent the first of at least 20 surgeries. After I was released, I healed at home, and my family made me feel normal.

Then I started school. Almost immediately I got picked on for my scars. I knew I didn’t look like everyone else, but I didn’t care—my sisters and best friend, Charity, always stood up for me. It was in the eighth grade, when my friends started to date, that the bullying started to sink in. Boys didn’t seem interested in me, and I became aware of their looks of confusion and disgust. In high school, classmates would whisper behind my back as I walked by, and they’d post cruel things on Myspace, calling me Freddy Krueger or comparing me to overcooked food. Some people even told me I should kill myself. It got so bad I really thought about it.

At left: Dabbs' flip flop debut. "One of my goals for this year was to start wearing open toe shoes," she wrote on Instagram. "So today I went out and bought my first pair of flip flops." At right: Dabbs' scars following the biggest Z-plasty—a plastic surgery technique used to improve the cosmetic appearance of scars—she's ever had." Instagram / @harleydearest

How I went from suicidal to now—happily in love with my boyfriend, wearing skirts, and posting selfies for 23,000 followers on Instagram—is something I’ve been asked about a lot. I think it started on a day in August 2013; I was lying in bed, thinking of my nana’s stories about how I was always laughing as a girl. I realized I wanted to be that person again.

So that day I decided to wear a dress while shopping. This was huge for me. Usually, when I went out, I covered up in long jeans and a black coat, but this time I pulled on a blue dress I wore only around the house. Although I was scared as I walked around, for every negative comment or look that came my way, I quietly reminded myself that I was living for me, not for them.

I felt so accomplished at the end of the day. And after that breakthrough I kept pushing myself to wear skirts and shorts. I took to Instagram a little later; at first I posted only pictures of my nephew or other people, but slowly I started to include selfies. In January I put up a barefaced photo and got comments like “You are so beautiful” and “You are an inspiration.” (Kylie Jenner even shared it!) And I’ve gotten private messages from girls who were contemplating suicide but said my courage helped them. That means so much to me, because having someone to look up to would have helped me too.

I know I don’t fit society’s image of what “beautiful” is, but now I know I don’t want to. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I’d never been burned. That’s why I have a tattoo on my back of a phoenix—a symbol for burn survivors because it rises from the ashes. It includes the date of the fire and a Bible verse that reads, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

—As told to Concepcion de Leon