Every Scar Tells A Story...But People Make Me Feel Ashamed of Mine.

When I was at primary school in the 80's I had an accident while playing with friends in the playground. We were playing a game of sharks which was an idea from a film, and we had to run and get off the ground in order not to be caught. Like all young children do, I got a little over excited and I ran straight into the double iron gates in the playground and slashed open my eyebrow, close enough to my left eye to have almost killed me as the hospital told me. I still remember the excruciating hot pain, fever, sickness, severe headaches, dizziness and almost concussion from that accident. It is an everyday nightmare that still plays like a video in my head. The children just looked at me, they were really scared, as a teacher rushed me in doors with blood dripping down from my brow to the side of my face while I screamed in agony. I was terrified. As a very young child, I had no idea what was going on, but as the first aider in the school sick room had problems stopping my brow bone from bleeding, and as I was in so much pain, I wanted to pass out as well as a very deep anxiety, I knew it was pretty bad.

I was taken to hospital, though to this day, I can't remember how I got there. All I remember of that is I wanted to sleep, but I was told to stay awake. When I got seen at the hospital, I had to have an excruciating injection in the top of my brow containing an anaesthetic to numb the pain, and up to eight cotton stitches in my brow, that ended close to the corner of my eye itself, and I was in agony for some time after that.

I know have a scar that curves on my eyebrow, and runs all the way down to the left of my eye. That same brow is lower than the other one due to the damaged tissue and bone. My brows are uneven today, and my eyebrow on that left side did not grow back, which means I do not have my full brow over that eye and when I tidy them, my scar really shows its ugliness. That accident also caused my left eye to be lower than my right eye, and it also damaged my pupil which means I have a moon shaped pupil and I am short and long sighted because of that.

When I go out, some people treat me in disgusting ways. They call me partially blind, one-eyed cat, scar-face, boss-eyed and ugly. They even go as far as telling me I am de-formed. These names make me feel ashamed of my eyes (which my husband says are pretty), and out of desperation, I often resort to using brow pencil or powder to cover it up, and I sometimes cannot face going out without sunglasses in order to cover that scar and feel less ashamed of it. I was in a supermarket once, when a teenager told me 'I do not belong on this planet, because I look strange.' Now, if he had been a child, I could have ignored it, but this was an eighteen year old so I expected him to have been a lot more grown up. Do people out there actually understand how these names and comments make me feel? No? Well I'll tell you.

Some days I look in the mirror and I see a pretty smile, then my smile fades and tears come to my eyes because I notice the scar. I start to hear the names I have been called, and I want to lock myself up and not go out. When I do go out, I see a lady with beautiful shaped brows, and all I can think about is how desperate I want my brows and my eyes to be like hers. Yes, you can say "You're beautiful the way you are," but would you say the same thing to me in real life and actually mean it? Or will you say it then snigger at me like the rest? One already feels abnormal and different to others when they have a scar and an eye that makes them feel like a misfit to the rest of the humans on this planet, and after so much name calling and stigmatizing, it doesn't take long for the paranoia and low self-image to kick in.

I have another 2 scars, at the bottom of my stomach where I had 2 C-sections, one of which reminds me of my fractured pelvic bone that landed me in a wheel chair for most of my pregnancy. During that operation I lost a lot of blood and I had a severe allergic reaction to the penicillin (which although the surgeon knew I was allergic to because it was CLEARLY written in my notes, they added it to my drip 'by accident'...so they say). That C-section almost killed me. I can't wear a bikini or allow my scars to be seen, because I am anxious that I will also be bullied and stigmatized for that too.

I understand there are many people out there with scars. My husband has a lot of scars from his skin grafts and cancer operation, and he has 2 hernia scars. Apart from the scar at the back of his neck, he can cover the other scars. However, although I can cover my C-section scars, I can not fully cover my brow scar. Why should I have to live feeling I have to cover them? Put yourself in my shoes and imagine how you would feel if you went through what I went through, only to find the world is heartless and resorts to bullying because you have 'normal imperfections.

The questions are, could you really live a life of feeling ashamed because of your own visible scars left by trauma? How would you feel if one day, something happened to you and you were shamed by others into embarrassment over your own body?

Shaming and name-calling over my scars make me feel inadequate and even worse, guilty, for having them. I should not have to live like this, just to avoid the torment from brutal outsiders who cannot accept that yes, my scars make me look different, but forget I am a human being with feelings. I often wonder if any of these shamers have hidden scars themselves, and if they do, could they live with the same bullying I have to live with?

The point is every scar tells a story that not everyone hears about. When you see a person with scars, don't judge them for what you don't know about, and for what you wouldn't want to be bullied for yourself.

Thankyou for reading my story. All hearts and tips are deeply appreciated

Take a look at my other stories here:

https://vocal.media/authors/carol-townend