Scars


            When I was 15 years old, I worked at a scout camp where they provided tents and spring mattresses for the workers. The mattresses were old and I learned the hard way that some of the springs liked to poke out. A nice gash was formed on my arm that day, a mark that still has never gone away.

            Scars rarely go away, and if they do, it is only after a long period of time. Aside from the biological purpose for scars, there seems to be an emotional response that is caused by physical scarring. Looking at a scar entices a memory whether it is positive or negative. Memories then manipulate emotions that can then impact a person’s actions and beliefs. This process holds the same for emotional scarring.

            Emotional scarring is not visible so its process is only slightly different. The emotional process involves triggers. These can be something seen or heard or sensational in any way that is reminiscent of a situation or memory (again positive or negative) that can then inflict a response. Because these non-visible scars are not out in the open, they can become discounted by others and diminished in significance. No matter how much an individual discounts the emotional scars of another, the impact rarely changes on the part of the one who is marred by the reality.

            No one is exempt from emotional scarring.

            In fact, it is highly doubtful that anyone has or ever will escape this life without some sort of emotional scarring. The trick for humanity is how to deal with it and with the triggers that serve as unwelcomed reminders.

            For me, the scars began to appear in my childhood with athletic prowess and its pursuit of perfection taking over and controlling my life and multiplied throughout middle school and high school attempting and failing miserably to carve my way through the adolescent social scene (arguably the time when most emotional scarring occurs). They then plateaued and remained as simply reminders for me during my early adult years and surprisingly peaked again over the past few years as heightened social pressures and dating failures plagued my daily routine. As of yet, I have not found the way to rid myself of the pain of the events that caused the scars as well as the reminders. But if the biological process of physical scarring is of any relation to emotional scarring then there is hope.

            That scar on my arm has faded. I really have to try to think about it (and really have to look for it) to see it and to remember the experience that gave me it. Life goes on. Time passes. Memories will fade.

            It isn’t just a waiting game though. The phrase, “Just deal with it,” does nothing to help. What does? I’m not totally sure. But for now I am going forward with making new memories that may, with any luck, replace the triggers of emotional distress. For now though I remain tied to memories and am subject to sporadic emotional distress which I will always attempt to combat with the happiness that I have found in simply being me. The new and real me. Not the old memory of me.

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