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On Embracing Scars
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KalamataInterrobang
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have hundreds of scars from my own battle with self injury. I am not ashamed of these scars because it was a journey that I needed to take and experience.

My other scars, however, are from bmx racing, and they are pretty badass. :)
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kendokamel
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a number of scars, but the largest runs down the length of my back, from when I had titanium rods fused to my spine.

I don't usually show much skin, anyway, but from time to time I have thought about taking some spirit gum and gluing a zipper pull to the top of it, the next time I'm wearing a top with a low-cut back.
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Ms.Moneypenny
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I am so proud of my scar on my right elbow that I can't wait until someone I've just met asks me about it. When I was 5 my mom and I were wading out to a sandbar at a beach on Cape Cod when something bit me on the arm. Funny part of it was my mom hears me screaming and says "Don't worry honey you just stepped on a shell" thinking I'm being my classic hysterical 5 year old self. Then she looked down and saw all the blood. We thought it was a shark, the local paper claimed it was a bluefish (they swim in schools dudes, and are super scary. I totally would've been dead if it was a bluefish)

Because it was on my elbow and was huge, stitches probably wouldn't have worked too well, so my dad had to change my bandages. He recently told me it was the most disgusting thing he's ever had to do. So now I have this big gash across my elbow and teeth marks going up my arm. I look so tough.

But the best part? After we got back from the hospital I got Peaches and Cream Barbie. The best Barbie ever. It was totally worth it.
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Wit is periodically disensouled
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I can't say I love any of my scars, but I haven't gone about trying to remove any of them except one - a scar across my wrist which was the result of a chicken-finger cooking accident. As I was removing the fingers from the oven, a roommate bumped into the sideways oven door and it shut on my arm. It was a deep burn which killed nerves (bonus! no pain! but oh the itching later!) and left a dramatic long red scar that eventually faded to pink. People would stare at it and ask me about it and it never seemed they believed me about the chicken fingers, so about six months later I finally just used scar removal cream on it. Oddly, it's still there in my brain, even though it's impossible to see anymore.
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laureltreedaphne
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a giant, ugly scar that runs from my sternum down to my pubis, that is the result of doctors thinking I had cancer when I was 21. (I didn't.) It's a horrible memory, and it still looks pretty bad, and I have done EVERYTHING I can to get rid of it. Cortisone injects to chill the swelling, I wore Mederma patches for like six months after the surgery, and I'm considering laser surgery. Having to see it there every day is just a reminder of one of the worst times in my life.

And you wouldn't believe the stuff people say to me! Once I was in Gristedes, and reached up to get a jar of pasta sauce that was up on a high shelf. This gorgeous woman said "Pull your shirt down, honey. No one wants to see your botched tummy tuck." And if I'm ever brave enough to wear a bikini on the beach, the stares I get from little kids are enough to send me into retreat.
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labeled
07/22/09

@laureltreedaphne: My god. Can you imagine going through your life choosing to be so wretched a human being as that woman?

eta: Or were her scars maybe of the emotional, not physical? There's something about the casual cruelty of that remark that is haunting. I am so sorry you came across her.
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Edited by labeled at 07/22/09 10:16 AM labeled was starred labeled was unstarred

labeled
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
It sounds sappy, but my c-section(s) scar, and stretchmarks are badass. For the longest time I wanted to actually get the stretchmarks on my stomach outline-tattooed, because they look like I've been mauled by a lazy tiger, and they are just... cool. And I earned them. I earned them hard. Ditto the c-section scar. I not only brought these kickass kids into the world, I fucking fought for it.

I have another one on my face, kind of a little crescent-moon dimple, just under the outside of my right eye, that I got when I was 3 and in my babysitter's car. It was an old beast of a 50's era Chevy, and the air-conditioning vents were stainless/aluminum and space-age-pointy. (Awesome design in theory, notsohot in practice.) Anyway, that was pre-seatbelt/car-seat days, and she stopped short and 3yo labeled went flying into the ac vent. So I had three stitches, which left me with a cute little half-inch long scar which crinkles when I smile, acting as the old "beauty marks" must've to bring attention to my eyes.

There are others, and I never really realized how much I own them all.
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Flackette Goes Retro
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a faint 2" scar right across my forehead. It was actually put there by a plastic surgeon, who removed a dark, nickel-sized birthmark when I was 12 (doctors advised that it be removed before it had a chance to become pre-cancerous later in life, and the truth is that as my vanity was just developing at age 12 I probably wouldn't have wanted to have a permanent bindi on my forehead anyway). I used to be self-conscious about it, but the truth is it isn't really glaring (it used to be kind of pink but has faded a great deal now), and it's not like my life goals include a modeling contract. That scar, along with the big one on my leg from a horse-riding accident, always provide some interesting conversation points. Most people assume that I got the forehead one from some horrific fall in my youth. So, in sum: scars - they make us interesting, and tell the story of our lives on our bodies.
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Flackette Goes Retro
07/22/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: The only scar I hate, btw, is the one on my finger I got when I burned myself on the oven while baking cookies for the guy who turned out to be the most lying, cheating, misogynistic bastard on earth.
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VirginiaDentata
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
Also, since I love scar stories: my high school boyfriend was gorgeous, with brown hair and green eyes and had this long light scar straight down his left cheekbone. It was a perfect straight line. When asked about it, he would always shrug casually, then sort of squint off into the distance, and mumble something about knife-fights and bars and Mississippi. Until his sister overheard and guffawed, spilling the truth: it was from a pillow fight with his sisters, when one of them grabbed a zippered pillow off the couch. Hee.
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Flackette Goes Retro
07/22/09

@VirginiaDentata: My boyfriend always claims that he got the scar above his lip in a knife fight in a pirate bar. The truth is that a blind, diabetic, elderly dachshund bit him when he was four.
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HectorNobchop
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a lot of the everyday scars, i.e. the nick from a razor, the cuts and scraps from being clumsy, rushing while ironing and placing a hand to close to a sleeve or pant leg, but my noticeable one's, the scars that get the questions and stares, are on my leg. I was pinned between 2 cars, when a drunk driver hit the parked truck behind me as I was walking in front of it and behind my car, to go home. I broke my pelvis, tibia, and femur in my left leg, had a massive head trauma, and was in a coma for 2 weeks. When it first happened (1997) I hated my scars, the fact they weren't my choice and were just there one day made me angry, but now I can't imagine my leg without them.

It wasn't until I started graduate school for photography (in 2004) that I finally started dealing with what happened to me in my artwork. During this time, I started exploring what my scars meant to me...3/4 years later, my project evolved and my thesis included photographs of my scars, photographs of people choosing their scars through body modification (scarification and suspension) and photos and video from the Thaipusam Festival in Malaysia. My work from my show, "Written Bodies," can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elenadubas/sets/72157603459233721/

There are days when I don't want the reminder of what happened, but now there are many more days when I remember that they make me who I am.
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VirginiaDentata
07/22/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a large scar on my leg which looks like a big dent. It is from being attacked by an otter when I was a child. I used to be embarrassed about it, but now it's just a really funny story. I wish I could go back in time to my self-conscious pre-teen self and convince ShyMe that it's actually kind of cool, and definitely different. I mean, who gets mauled by an otter?! Not just anyone, that's who.
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Dictator for Life
07/21/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I just got a really bad sunburn all over my body. Normally I'm ghostly pale, but this sunburn made my stretchmarks swell up. I had no idea I had so many stretchmarks! My paleness usually camoflauges them. I don't know if they're supposed to swell up when they're sunburnt, though. I wonder if I should be worried....
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shorty63136
07/22/09

@Dictator for Life: I would get some cocoa butter and drink lots of water. This happened to my aunt once.
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WaltzingMatilda
07/21/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I actually loved my ginormous scar on my leg that I got before senior year in high school (a very embarassing story, really) thanks to my dad. I was crying and hyperventilating (and bleeding everywhere) and my dad, God love him, lightened the mood by saying: "well, there go your Miss America chances." Enter laughter. Every time I look at it, I think of the crown that got away.
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Artemis47
07/22/09

@WaltzingMatilda(theOriginal): My dad has broken his collarbone(s) 3 times (thanks, bike riding!) and consequently they're very lumpy. He always says it's rough to know he can never look good in a strapless evening gown again.
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PartyOfOne
07/21/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
I have a scar running the length of my left thigh, another in my groin from a lymph node dissection, four across my stomach from when they moved my ovaries to to avoid radiation (they now live in the my rib cage...somewhere), three across my back and right side from where the took a spot out of my lung, and two from the medical port they implanted to give me chemotherapy. This all happened in the past year.

Now that I have my hair back, I tell people I got into a bar fight :)

Looking into the mirror is my version of diving into the wreck.
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AmericanSplendor
07/22/09

@PartyOfOne:

You sound absolutely beautiful.
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1.1.1.
07/21/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
Several years ago, a women's mag (Allure?) ran a similar piece. A fiction writer rhapsodized about her roadmap of scars and how meaningful and comfortable she was with them.

But the magazine was not sufficiently comfortable to run a photo of these meaningful cicatrices.

Scars are to be "embraced" but not shown?

Yeah, right. SOS.
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cdanna
07/21/09

In reply to On Embracing Scars
i scar super easily. its like my body doesnt even try to heal, it just automatically turns to scars. so and i have maaadd scars on my shins and ankles from mosquito bites and shaving accidents. they really bother me and when it gets cold they turn this awful purple color and its embarrassing...but i wear skirts and shorts anyway and just say fuck it.
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Dictator for Life
07/21/09

@cdanna:My scars tend to be purple even in the summer. And, like you, I have them all over. My arms are just about polka-dotted from mosquito bites and chicken pox.
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Flackette Goes Retro
07/22/09

@Dictator for Life: I also scar from insect bites. It's ridiculous, really. Any inflammation on my skin will turn purple for months, then eventually heal into a white scar. And I have the purple leg issue as well. I used to be freaked out about it, but now I just let my pale, purple, scarred skin show.
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