Everyday Canvas

Scars

Prompt: “You don't pity a warrior for her scars, because scars are proof of survival and victory.”
Chloe Jacobs, Greta and the Lost Army
What do you think scars are and how many kinds of them exist?

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A physical scar is the residue of an injury or an operation that stays on the skin, sometimes forever, although it may fade in time. According to medical people, there are different kinds of scars and their visual effects can be minimalized in time.

What is difficult to minimalize or make it fade are the emotional and psychological scars. A psychological scar is the result of a traumatic damage to the mind. This type of scar happens when a severely troubling event causes people a devastating stress, which they are unable to cope with, leading to disturbing long-term consequences.

These consequences show up in different forms depending on the person and the severity of the trauma they have experienced. Some people relive that trauma almost physically and cannot help their reactions, feeling they are in that very situation. PTSD that the soldiers experience after the wars is a good example for that.

Another way could be the anxiety and negative emotions, prompted by cues and triggers as reminders of a trauma. A person with such a scar may not even catch on to the fact that his or her actions are the results of a certain bygone trauma, as they may have consciously forgotten the trauma itself. As the result of their own actions, that person may feel bad about his or her self and those bad feelings can lead to depression. I think this is the worst kind of scar, since it is difficult to see or find out about, unless by serious intervention by a knowledgeable therapist.

Psychological scars can be the results of a war, hurting and displacing groups, or the mistreatments by the people closest to the scarred person. Those people can be the parents or teachers in the childhood, school or work bullies, or partners that inflict domestic violence.

Getting back to the quote, I think nobody should feel disgraced by his or her scars because those scars show that they went through a battle, be it a physical or a psychological one, and they survived it. The way I look at it, they are heroes and warriors in some form, and they have nothing to be ashamed about.