By Fallon Head | Web Editor
Realistically, I have more scars than I can count. Most of them are small, and I don’t remember how I got the majority of them, but every little scratch, dot or discoloration used to make me pause and become self-conscious. Through time, I’ve been able to not only accept my scars but find love for them as they represent my life, both big and small parts of it.
The scar that took me the longest to accept was the scar right over my eyebrow. It’s not small or just a slightly different color, and for most of my life, it was swollen and hard to miss. There, along with two other places, I had a hemangioma develop when I was a couple of weeks old.
Specifically, I had a capillary hemangioma, common in infants, where blood vessels cluster together and create a benign tumor. The tumor shrinks on its own throughout the years. For most, if you get one as an infant, it’s gone by age 5; for some, it can take until age 9. Mine took until I was 9 years old and still left scars.
Throughout most of my childhood, adults, friends and strangers asked me several times over what was on my forehead and whether I was OK. While people were likely trying to make sure I was safe, the constant attention on the red mark on my face made me annoyed and self-conscious.
There’s a prevalent stigma against scars, with people fearing them or automatically assuming things about people who have any easily visible scars.
For years, I would ask my parents when it would go away and if there was any way to make it go away faster. They always told me it would eventually fade. And it did, albeit not completely.
By the end of elementary school, people started asking fewer questions about it, and by middle school, I began to not accept the mark but to love it. It’s different, but we’re all different. It represents a part of who I am, and I’ve worked hard to accept all parts of me.
Scars make you unique. They also serve as a map of parts of my life on my skin. Every knick represents a fall or a funny moment. Several of my scars represent parts of my life I’m not proud of, but that part of me went through a lot, and it makes sense that it eventually ended up reflected on my skin.
It’s important to be kind to your past self, especially when it’s hard. Know that even if there are still scars that caused more problems than anything else, they show how you have grown.
Whether it’s physical or mental, everyone has scars. Some are more or bigger than others, but all represent moments and who we were. Taking the time to heal and accept who you’ve become is an important part of life. They also represent how we’ve grown and improved — which is always something to be proud of.
