Scars Tell Stories

‘Scars Tell Stories

Many people describe scars as ugly and see them as only blemishes. Sometimes scars bring back bad memories which are unavoidable. There can be many different ways to view the bad memories and deal with them. Many types of scarring can be linked to unpleasant or traumatic memories. There are self-harm scars, surgery scars, abuse scars, or scars from life-threatening accidents. These scars are the extremes, but they all can be linked to very bad and traumatic memories. However, incidents can be as simple as a scar you received at a young age which you can’t remember. Others can have a bad aura around them. Having to see these scars can cause the traumatic memories to resurface and it’s not always easy to deal with. That’s why deciding to see your scars as stories, no matter how painful the memories are, is so important to improving your mental health. 

Scars can cause a lot of symptoms and allow different mental health issues to resurface. This is especially true for people who have experienced abuse or other traumatic events. In some instances, the scars can even cause dissociation or flashbacks. Dissociation is best defined as a disruption of consciousness, memory, physical actions and/or identity. When experiencing dissociation there are many symptoms that can be experienced, for example, temporary amnesia (forgetting who, what, and/or where they are), a loss of identity, a sense of detachment of oneself or to others, inability to control physical actions or emotional behavior and/or inability to focus. Flashbacks are described within the word. The victim will mentally go back to the traumatic event as if reliving it while disconnecting with reality. When flashing back to the traumatic events the victim can feel helplessness, panic, fear and can even start screaming or crying while stuck in the memory. Scars can be a direct cause for both flashbacks and dissociation since they can remind the victim of the trauma and can cause them to remember. 

Now, having determined that scars can cause some very bad mental repercussions on people who have trauma related to the scars it could be decided that there is nothing good that can come from scars. That, however, is wrong because scars are important for some people. Scars lead to the remembrance of memories and even though reliving bad memories isn’t good, having reminders of the past is important. Having gone through the past and the experiences shaped you into who you are today. Scars may have hurt in the past and may still hurt when you’re reminded of them, but they were defining features in the creation of you. Each scar will tell a story of something that has happened. Those stories show what you’ve been through and how strong you are. Scars come from wounds and to be able to survive the wounds is not only very respectable but shows strength. The scars also show healed wounds because that’s what a scar is. 

No matter how sad the memory connected to a scar is it’s a story that is worth telling because it was a building block to your life, shows your strength, and shows that you’re healed or are healing. Coming face to face with any of your traumas isn’t easy but the scars are there to show that there have been unpleasant encounters in your life but you got through them. Stories are meant to be told and everyone has built their own stories throughout their lives. The scars just help aid explain the story and show how it progressed. Each person has their own story and being able to tell your story confidently is a very high achievement in life. Not everyone will be able to but having scars hold the stories until you’re ready to tell them. 

• memories
• remembrance
• scars
• Trauma