Self-Injury Support Group

I am not comfortable with my scars, and I have a couple relatively new dark red scars on my arm and leg, and all of them attract attention and people stare or pretend they aren't staring and make it obvious they are trying not to look, and questions come up. I have been "lucky" so far lately and no one has questioned the amount of scars or their locations. I don't have to tell you guys how obvious it is when a scar looks intentional, and people are not stupid.

So, I guess it is time once again to sweat my ass off wearing long jeans and long sleeves or sweatshirts over tank tops and suffer the stares of everyone wondering why I am making myself suffer through 90+ degree weather in winter clothes.

Ironically, when I am home and can be comfortable wearing shorts and tank tops, seeing my scars is a trigger, so temptation rises more in Summer. Just cannot escape it.....

When summer came I wore wrist bands with my T shirts some times they would work as arm band to cover certain parts of my arms. People never questioned it cause I played a lot of sports back then. I also wore ankle braces and knee braces which covered most of the areas that I tended to cut. As time went on I was able to stop wearing these things. It took awhile for me to accept myself but it is a blessing and wonderful feeling to not be ashamed of what I have done to myself. Granted it took many more months to get used to people asking questions about the scars, but the answers to those get easier with time as well. I started off avoiding the question then, saying I'd rather not talk about it in public, now I can comfortably state that they were self inflicted. Kinda like people who are alcoholics who finally can admitt it. I'm a recovering self injury addict. It took me many years to get there though so don't expect it to be something that happens quickly.

Be proud of who you are because its doesn't matter what you have done to yourself when you are proud of who you are. What other people think shouldn't make you live uncomfortably, so enjoy your summer and &$@#$& everyone who judges you before they know you! Hope your able to feel a little better about summer and are able to stay safe,

Alicia

I totally get the summer scars thing. I have so many scars and right now I have a particularily obvious one on my arm and it is so hard to know what to do. I mean I think it depends on your comfort level. There are some places where I just wear what I want to wear and I don't worry about people judging me like when I am at home. But it is difficult especially when people stare. If you really are very self-concious maybe you could think about using make-up to cover it up until you're comfortable showing your scars?