Each of us carries the map of our lives on our skin
Helping you find confidence in the skin you’re in
What do we carry on our skin without knowing it?
Relationships; loves gained and lost in the wrinkles around your eyes from smiling and crying. Trauma scarring; accidental or, self-inflicted as a way to ease the energy of mental anguish. Tattoos; markings from radiotherapy where precision targeting is required, or thoughts and emotions written on your body for all to see.
We can trace our lives by observing our skin. It can be printed like a map of the world, a path trodden by many footsteps, each indelibly sinking its impression into you, onto you, for you to carry.
How much of it are you willing and able to show the world? And is it ever truly gone, or just hidden?
In this Instagram world with filters and editing, there is a need that is building in momentum to wash our lives away, to only portray the watered-down version. The need to mask the joys, the sadness, the grief, the trips, the surrenders, the fights, the happiness.
Can’t you see the shape I’m in?
So many stories of young people not knowing how to deal with their emotions. No idea how to express the pain, the anxiety, the changes. Just a mess of energy and a release needed to happen somewhere.
In an age of showing yourself, face and body all over the internet for everyone to see, people are more and more moving to self-injury as a form of release. Other than the psychological harm this can do, this also leaves very physical and obvious harm scars.
I remember going to a live performance of an artist Franco B about 25 years ago. He was using medical equipment to enable him to bleed out from his arms onto the stage. There were medical staff around to aid him if needed and make sure he didn’t lose too much blood. But the only thing I could think the whole time I was watching, was how sad he was. How much he needed people to see his pain. How he needed to express his pain by pouring his life source. He was a child of Barnados and as an artist, he was expressing his feelings through his body. And I felt so sad. And I understood him.
Can everyone wear their pain with love and with pride? Everyone is so different and their needs change throughout their lives. There is a person with a tiny scar and big story. That tiny scar means nothing to anyone else, but reminds him of his sheer helplessness in an attempt to save a young girl from a fire.
Should you wear it with pride? Yes, if you can. No, if you don’t want to or can’t. Another judgement is not necessary to decide how people wear their lives on their body. Whether they want to rid of a few years off of their skin, or whether they want to rid of their trauma, nowadays there is a solution.
It is not for me to judge.
Only to be aware of each person’s journey and to offer the best treatment for each individual person.
Whether your scar is one year or twenty years healed, when you have the outward scarring to remind you of your past pain, or of a surgical decision that you took, every single person you meet can see because it is etched on your face, arms, legs. So when patients walk through my door, whether they are presenting a full body of self-harm scars, or a tiny dot of hypopigmentation on their forehead that is barely visible to the naked eye, I observe, I listen, I let go of judgement and I use 47 years of experience to form the most appropriate form of treatments to deliver that patient what they need.
To guide them on a pathway to restore their self-confidence.
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