Everyone is different, but some are more different than others.
I have scars. Significant ones; not your run of the mill bicycle fall scrapes, crawl under a fence when you're chasing your friends nicks. I have some of those childhood scars too, including one from an unfortunate fall that landed me in an operating theatre. But those are "ordinary" scars, explainable life scars.
No, the ones I mean are the ones that have marked me in deep ways.
JDM marked me. I have joint problems. I have muscle problems. I have skin problems. I have problems with my body's internal systems. Being a healthcare worker, all those things are things I feel I can cope with- in a detached, clinical way, I know what to do with them. But JDM also left me with scars on my hands, on my arms, on my legs. On my face. I don't know why those scars are different from other scars- but they are.
I don't know if it's because it took so long before they became scars. For so many years of my childhood, they were wounds. Maybe it's the wounds that marked me, rather than the scars, for the reactions they elicited in the people I met. I would look into eyes that looked at me with pity, or judgement, or revulsion. They were not pretty wounds- no, let's be honest, they were uglier than average. They were not easily covered up. They were impossible to explain. And they were all over my body.
So I guess it makes sense that although they healed, the scars they left are tainted with emotional baggage. Some of the scars have almost disappeared now, but most have not. And I still see a shadow of that old surprise, when people see them. And I suppose in some ways I still steel myself against people's reactions to them.
I was talking to a friend recently about life when you are different. Because there's different- like unique, like everyone is unique ha ha- but then there's different- different. Like, visibly different, deviating from a broad norm. She's different, too, so she understands. But almost no one I love is as different as I am, and so no one has understood the forces that were shearing me into the shape I am now. Not my friends, not my family. No one I knew growing up got how isolating being different is.
As I have gotten older, and moved bit by bit past the actual illness, I've also started to look "normal". I guess I've also gained a measure of separation of my identity from the scars I have: a hard won, inch by inch battle. I'm still fighting. I still have a moment of terror when I don't cover up when I leave the house- because I don't want to deal with the negative reactions. Because it's branded into my soul that this is bad, that this outer-facing part of me is bad. Even though I know it happened through no fault of my own, the world still made me feel like it did. And trying to change that narrative in my head is so hard.
I still sometimes buy clothes not just for how great they look on me, but also for how much they cover what I want to keep hidden. I know that this is something a lot of women face- which is actually what made me start to think of my body image issues differently. My attitude towards my scars is actually based not on what my scars are really like, but on what I think of them, and how I treated other people's reactions to them. They have been a thing of shame to me, something that has made me keep myself hidden.
I have scars. Significant ones; not your run of the mill bicycle fall scrapes, crawl under a fence when you're chasing your friends nicks. I have some of those childhood scars too, including one from an unfortunate fall that landed me in an operating theatre. But those are "ordinary" scars, explainable life scars.
No, the ones I mean are the ones that have marked me in deep ways.
JDM marked me. I have joint problems. I have muscle problems. I have skin problems. I have problems with my body's internal systems. Being a healthcare worker, all those things are things I feel I can cope with- in a detached, clinical way, I know what to do with them. But JDM also left me with scars on my hands, on my arms, on my legs. On my face. I don't know why those scars are different from other scars- but they are.
I don't know if it's because it took so long before they became scars. For so many years of my childhood, they were wounds. Maybe it's the wounds that marked me, rather than the scars, for the reactions they elicited in the people I met. I would look into eyes that looked at me with pity, or judgement, or revulsion. They were not pretty wounds- no, let's be honest, they were uglier than average. They were not easily covered up. They were impossible to explain. And they were all over my body.
So I guess it makes sense that although they healed, the scars they left are tainted with emotional baggage. Some of the scars have almost disappeared now, but most have not. And I still see a shadow of that old surprise, when people see them. And I suppose in some ways I still steel myself against people's reactions to them.
I was talking to a friend recently about life when you are different. Because there's different- like unique, like everyone is unique ha ha- but then there's different- different. Like, visibly different, deviating from a broad norm. She's different, too, so she understands. But almost no one I love is as different as I am, and so no one has understood the forces that were shearing me into the shape I am now. Not my friends, not my family. No one I knew growing up got how isolating being different is.
As I have gotten older, and moved bit by bit past the actual illness, I've also started to look "normal". I guess I've also gained a measure of separation of my identity from the scars I have: a hard won, inch by inch battle. I'm still fighting. I still have a moment of terror when I don't cover up when I leave the house- because I don't want to deal with the negative reactions. Because it's branded into my soul that this is bad, that this outer-facing part of me is bad. Even though I know it happened through no fault of my own, the world still made me feel like it did. And trying to change that narrative in my head is so hard.
I still sometimes buy clothes not just for how great they look on me, but also for how much they cover what I want to keep hidden. I know that this is something a lot of women face- which is actually what made me start to think of my body image issues differently. My attitude towards my scars is actually based not on what my scars are really like, but on what I think of them, and how I treated other people's reactions to them. They have been a thing of shame to me, something that has made me keep myself hidden.
