text, un: bellabelle

[doreimi]

You know...at one point I would've made a post like this anonymously. Not because I'm ashamed or anything, exactly, but because sometimes you just want to talk about things without your name attached, you know? So that it's not really about you, just about the advice you're looking for. Or because you don't want people to look at you differently after they hear about it.

I guess it's because it's been so hot lately that it got me thinking about it. And also because of Cordis, a little. Sometimes I get wings for Cordis, and then all of a sudden my wardrobe gets pretty limited when it comes to...that. But anyway.

Really what I wanted to ask is —

For people who have scars, how do you think about them? Like are they a part of your identity now, or do they still bother you? Do they feel wrong when you look at them? And — if you are okay with them, did you do something to make yourself more okay with them? Or are you just kind of...never going to be okay with them, no matter what?

I have some. I think they're ugly, and hard to look at, and I try to keep them covered up so that they won't bother people who might see them. I guess really what I'm wondering is whether that's a feeling that's ever likely to change.

It's just something that's been on my mind more and more lately, is all.

Comments

[bolderfell]

Looks like a lot of people are saying their scars are part of who they are. 'Proof' of what kind of person they've come to be.

For a long time, I tried to bury the fool who took those scars. I thought it was the only way to survive. Maybe that's why they still bother me. Even now, I still don't want to see myself like that - the way the person who gave them to me did.

[doreimi]

Someone gave you yours, huh...

I'm guessing it's someone you can't forgive for it, either, right?

[bolderfell]

[The answer's a long time coming.]

Actually never really thought about it.

[doreimi]

Really? You never thought about it even once?

[bolderfell]

I should've seen it coming. That's what I told myself. It's what he told me, too.

I can't even fully disagree now.

[doreimi]

I don't like that. That makes it sound like it was your fault, or your responsibility to stop the person who did that to you.

That's not how it ought to be. It's his fault for doing it, not your fault for not preventing it!

[bolderfell]

It's inevitably the kind of thing you end up thinking when you decide you ARE the only one you can rely on to look out for your well-being. It makes everyone and everything a risk to navigate. What, am I going to blame the ground for being too hard if I bruise myself falling? No, I just get up and remind myself to look where I'm damn going. That's how it was for me.

Guess it's not a notion I can drop entirely after a lifetime living it. I look at my scars and still feel like a naive fool for trusting in him, even though it's all behind me now.

[doreimi]

If the ground went out of its way to grab your leg and trip you because it was trying to make you fall, then of course you would blame it. It's not like it's a one-sided thing. There's another person involved, too!

But I get what you mean, I guess, about getting into that type of thinking. Maybe it's not right, but...it's not as though I can't see how you could wind up thinking that way, anyway.

I blamed myself a little bit, too. Until my friends helped me see how wrong that was, I mean.

[bolderfell]

Yeah.

I think that, even if I do someday decide the whole thing was on him, I'll still never really like these scars. Especially not as...something that's supposed to define me.

[doreimi]

That's how I feel about mine, too.

Actually, the thought I hate most is that there's any part of him still clinging to me. If I had my way, he'd just be gone, completely, and I'd never think about him again.

[bolderfell]

I see.

No way to do that, is there. Even without reminders, we have our memories.

[doreimi]

And I hate to say it, but in a place like this, that brings people in from all over...

I mean, there's always the CHANCE.

[bolderfell]

[...]

What would you do? What would you want to happen?

[doreimi]

Oh, I know what would happen. I have — WE have a plan.

He's not going to hurt anybody else ever again, I'll make sure of that.

[bolderfell]

[Therion suddenly feels fairly lucky he got off with forced-but-paid labor after wronging this one.]

That's the spirit. Guess you won't need a knife hidden under the counter at your cafe, then.

[doreimi]

I don't like knives.

Did you put one there?

[bolderfell]

No. Never struck me as the kind of place anybody would need one before now. Fine with me if you don't want one.

[doreimi]

I don't. I mean, cooking and cutting things up is one thing, but keeping something like that around as a weapon...

No. No, thanks.

[bolderfell]

Yeah. I get it.