“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” -Cormac McCarthy
Sometimes I think about scars in the way the world discusses them (or doesn’t). “Ooooh, chicks dig scars!” and “I need to cover this scar so no one can see it.”
My body has many visible scars — none that point to any of my abuse trauma — and I’ve never really felt compelled to show them off or hide them. I do recall learning early on that my physical scars aren’t super prominent, despite the injuries that caused them, and I realized that for the most part, my emotional scars didn’t seem that prominent either.
Until they were.
Those wounded places of myself are actually helpful for when my brain tries to tell me maybe I was overreacting and it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it wasn’t abuse. Maybe it was just “love done wrong.” Because one thing I’ve learned is this: the way the physical body tries to heal from physical injuries is sometimes how the brain tries to heal from trauma, and that is to make it look like nothing happened.
There are two sides to this: healing is beautiful and necessary and leads to more peace; but also if we try to heal to the point of gaslighting ourselves, we’re just trying to cover what was real, what truly happened.
This is delicate work — to acknowledge the past without causing further harm or holding on in an unhealthy way.
No two people will heal their wounds in the exact same way, and that’s OK.
Our pasts are real, and we honor them, and we also keep moving forward toward the goal of healing and peace. And if it’s your mission or calling to use that past to help others, remember your scars to remember what was real, what you survived, how strong you are, and that you really can keep marching onward. Try to find the harmony within yourself and your journey to keep what is necessary — the facts, perhaps — and release what tries to lie and hurt you.
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