Scar Tissue

Sometimes, as we all know, the scars are invisible.

[This post is written for a friend. Hopefully you know who you are...this is what I'd say to her if I could. I don't know what to say to you because I've only been on the wrong side of this track. But I hope maybe it helps a little bit.]

Sure, we all have scars. I know at least three people (myself included) who have a scar above their eyebrow from running into something as a little kid. We all fall down, get scraped knees, and have something to show for it for the rest of our lives. Some, like me, have thin white lines all over their ribcages and legs from a razorblade, like a roadmap of the horrible places you've been. 

     And we all know that not all scars are visible. These are the marks left on us from the cutting words people say when they don't understand us. They're what's left of the formerly perfect skin surrounding your sanity, before somebody ruined it with an action that left you torn into pieces. 

     I know there are others like me. I know there are people out there, wearing these invisible scars. And if I could tell them anything, it would be to have hope. There is healing. 

     There are some things that people will never understand just by looking at the surface of things. Like why a girl like me, with a perfect life, would want to ruin her skin with a razorblade, would want to kill herself. And to tell you the truth, people like my parents will never know unless I tell them. I can keep a secret so well. I live with my parents and younger siblings, and day in and day out they have failed to see that I was dying...because I hid it so well that it was impossible to tell that I was someone completely different than who they thought I was. Scar tissue, it seems, is fucking heavy, but people like me can carry it like we were born with it. You'll never know. 

    I guess the point of this post is to say that people aren't what they seem at all. And when everything they've been hiding becomes too much to hold inside anymore, everyone around them gets blindsided and broadsided by these terrifying realizations. Things happen. Solid people fall. Sane people lose it. You can know someone for years and never know until it's too late that they feel too far gone to save. 
     But they can be saved. 
     I could. 
     I was. 
   
     Healing can be accomplished. Hope is still fucking there, you've just got to see it. 

      Scars don't define you. They never, ever will. You need to choose, however, and choose wisely: are they going to be your shame, another reason to hide? Or are your scars--both visible and invisible--going to make you into something?

     I don't love my scars. I hate that my ribcage looks the way it does, I hate that my left leg has the words 'fuck up' carved into it. I hate my invisible ones even more...but I'm learning to deal. None of this will stop me from living. Don't let it stop you. There is much yet to finish before you give in. There is love, to be given and accepted. There are people who need us. Don't let your past determine your future. Don't fucking give in yet. 
   
Hang on,
Ness