Hey Everyone? Please Stop Asking Me About My Self-Harm Scars
Content warning: This article contains references to self-harm and suicide.
As part of the Safe Spaces group online takeover from Comics Youth (and their My Body is Not Your Business campaign), Lucy Butler has raised the point that (as another Safe Spaces member put it) none of us has to be an ambassador for the things we’ve experienced. And when it comes to self-harm scars, being repeatedly and unexpectedly questioned about such experiences can be extremely triggering and harmful, as Lucy explains…
The inability to escape the stigma around self injury and the entitlement others feel when making comments about my scars is wearing me down. In public, people steal glances at my arms like they’re 11-year-olds looking at the naughty magazines on the newsagents top shelf.
On holiday, strangers ask me “what happened?”. While out dancing with my friends I’m approached and, without my consent, told stories about a sibling’s suicide, their own self harm journey or a long spiel about the light at the end of the tunnel (that I didn’t ask for).
Whilst working in a cafe as a student, a stranger who claimed to be a psychologist from Spain demanded to see my arms and then asked if I had ever considered plastic surgery.
I’ve also had multiple messages on the clothes-selling app Depop regarding my scars and it’s getting to the point that I’m considering putting a disclaimer in my shop bio. In one message, I was told I was ‘brave’ for ‘publicly showing’ my scars, as if they knew anything of the violating nakedness I feel; as if I have any choice but to publicly show them.
I’m not over-reacting. At fourteen, after three years of jumpers and jackets, I started wearing short sleeves again. I’m now twenty. Anyone with self harm scars will tell you how they cause people to assume who you are before you’ve been given a chance to show them. How you feel like an exhibition every time you leave the house.
Despite how awkward and ashamed it makes me feel, part of me is also really glad that the vast majority of my interactions have been good-natured because that means the negative and misinformed perceptions of self harm are shifting to something more positive.
Alas, it doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are or how much it makes you feel like you’re a good person. At the end of the day, all you’re doing is putting me in an awkward position by making me uncomfortably aware of a part of myself that I am still making peace with.
I am not inviting you to any kind of discussion about mental health by simply existing with self harm scars. Though I’m very open about my experiences with mental illness, it doesn’t mean I want to talk about it all the time - especially not when I’m just selling my old clothes on depop or pouring you a cup of coffee at 5 o’clock in the morning!
These sorts of ‘supportive’ comments are, at the end of the day, an empty gesture and rude. I can no longer passively accept the stares, faux-innocent questions and well-intentioned insults. I just want to wear short sleeves without being hyper-aware of the possibility that, at any moment, something extremely sensitive could be brought up.
But, I get it. You probably think that your comments are harmless. You probably think that if I’m showing my scars, it means I’m okay with people approaching me about them. However it’s crucial to understand that having them on show isn’t something I can control and the unsolicited comments only further my desire to hide them.
The kindest thing you can do is ignore them and treat me like a human being, not some ‘other’ who needs the approval of neurotypical people to exist.