The Stories of Scars.

what i find interesting about the OP is the mention of the flood of memory.

when i catch a wave like that i ride it out, trying to see where it goes.

not just from scars though. it is amazing how much memory can emerge from a little jump start.

Yes, got a few scars and like them all.

One big one on my forarm from falling off a ladder and sliding down a wire using only my forearm (that one hurt)

Another biggish one on my other forearm (they kinda match each other) when I was thrown off while surfing and managed to rip my arm open on coral. Good times.

My favourite is one on my forehead. I ran full tilt into a closed wooden gate when I was a kid and for some reason just didn't think of opening it beforehand. Lots of blood, but it always reminds me of my Grandmother who was there to pick me up and go to the Dr.

So, yes, scars for me each carry a memory and I appreciate the chance I have had in this life to be able to collect them. Good thread.

Cheers
Shane

I have one big scar going right through my left eyebrow. When we where kids my brother hit me in the face with a large toy car... hense the scar.

As a young adult I did anything I could to hide it, I hated it.

But now my brother died 3 years ago and the scar is a memory of him, I don't even hide it anymore. And to my suprise, no one ever asked about it

I have many scars as i am pretty accident prone, however i have a few that are like pages of my life, or should i say turning points.

I have heard people descibe certain scars as ones they would rather forget about. I have one like that, however had that scar not occured, i would not have met the fantastic woman i am with now.

So whilst i could describe the scar as a reminder of what the worst time of my like was, i also see a positive side to it.

I have a facial scar from where a mate accidentaly hit me with the butt of his rifle, he was aiming for someone else at the time.

I have a couple of shrapnel wounds, one on the arm which gives a wierd and wonderful effect as it stretches my freckles.

One on the ankle, and another on my foot where a surgeon had to carefully cut through a tatoo of mine, then he expertly joined it back up again.

Scars can be fascinating and sad at the same time, but i like the fact that they are part of what you are today.

CX.



[edit on 19/7/10 by CX]

I have a scar on my leg and on my forehead.

The one on my leg is about three inchs long and is shaped like a correction mark. How that managed to happen I will never know but I'm fond of it for some reason.

The scar on my forehead I got when I was four and I feel like it links me to my father. He has a scar on the right side of his forehead and mine is one the left. Though he got his in a motorcycle accident and I got mine my tripping over a ball and smashing my head of jagged concrete

As for the one on my leg well I got that from a broken glass bottle hidden in long grass

I don't think there is much of any place on me that doesn't have a scar, from head to toe. I was burned when I was a baby, to what was the equivalent of about 60% of my body.

What was not burned was harvested for tissue for skin grafts. Since it happened when I was a baby, the scars are mostly not noticeable except on my neck and side of my face and some on my arm where I have contractures.

While burns do not stretch as a child grows, I underwent a total of 32 plastic surgery proceedures throughout my childhood all the way to the age of 17. Also, I have tons of stretch marks where the rest of my skin did stretch to compensate. Some stretch marks that are a finger width thick or more.

I was then in a serious car accident when I was a young adult which resulted in serious back injuries that are now being treated with spine surgeries.

Then there are variious other surgeries a lot of people have - gall bladder, etc.

Scars, in my case, had a huge amount to do with forming the person that I am. Growing up as I did, I learned to be tolerant of people with handicaps as a child - I had no choice. I was ridiculed and teased and mentally tortured for something I was helpless to prevent. I learned at a very young age how to hate and how to deal with anger and rage. I spent a lot of time alone, pitying myself.

I can say in retrospect, that who I am today - a person that I am very proud to be - is largely due to the incidents that I suffered and survived. In the end, I would not trade it back, if I could. Most certainly, I would like to know how it feels to be "normal", because this is all I have ever known. But, I would not change it because I may not be the same person if I did, and I really, really love the me I am.

I learned deep compassion, tolerances I do not see in even some adults. I learned a lot. When people say they understand things about handicaps and they do not have one, I can honestly say they really do not.

Even as a child I could empathize with people in wheelchairs, but I still felt a certain thankfulness - that was really now more a lack of understanding. It was not until I became disabled, unable to hardly walk, that I truly understood.

We take it all for granted. Simply having the ability to walk to the door and down the steps to the mailbox. The simplest of things, brushing your own hair. Looking down at a book, leaning back and looking at the sky. Until you loose those things, you don't even realize you have them.

Just in this thread alone, you can go back and see posts where people "worried" about their scars, how people judged them, and what others might think or say. They try to hide them, conceal them, treat them because they are ashamed they have ruined their "pristine" skin.

When someone like me sees posts like that, they come off as being petty and self absorbed, and shallow. I want to scream, "Do you knot see how insignificant it is?" But alas, we all have our own lessons to learn, and I am certainly not anyones' teacher.

The last time I had spine surgery on my neck, the Dr. was explaining to me how he would try to hide the scar in my burns. I just laughed and said, "Look at me. Do you really think one more scar is going to matter to me? I don't care where it is as long as you fix my neck!"

Somehow, when you get to a point like that in your life, you are free in a very real sense. Free because worrying yourself sick over something which you have no control is a total waste of energy, and is really about being self involved and self absorbed.

When it comes to the point of either I have a scar and can walk again, or no scar and stuck in a wheelchair, which do you think I would choose? I wouldn't care if it ran down the center of my face, and I would care even less what anyone else thought, as long as I could walk again.

All I can say is, there is that saying that no matter how bad you have it, someone else will always have it worse. But, it isn't about measuring e-peens, or e-scars, if you will, it is about where has it brought you in the end. Did you take the opportunity from whatever happened to try to make a better you? Not in the physical, but the person inside?

If so, then wear it proudly, like a badge. You should never feel shame over a scar, no matter where it is, or how you got it. And stop buying the scar gels, it is a rip off on the gullible and self absorbed.

deleted double post

[edit on 19-7-2010 by Libertygal]

I have a few smaller scars but the one that im most proud of is a facial scar from being bitten by a dog when i was four. I had 72 stitches inside and outside of my cheek and over 40 butterfly stitches holding all that together. I remember almost every moment of it happening, even remember the 2 hippies who picked me up and took me home in shock.

Its a lot smaller now but, i still see it everyday and to be honest its never been an issue with me. It hasnt ruined my good looks, or held me back in any way.