Bonus Post: The Strength in Our Scars — Survival Worn With Pride
There was a time I hated my scars.
I used to trace them in the mirror like a roadmap of everything that had been taken from me — dignity, health, trust.
I saw them as failure made visible. Ugly reminders of pain I didn’t ask for, but still had to carry.
Now, I see them differently. Now, I know better.
My scars are not symbols of brokenness. They are battle lines.
They are proof.
Proof that I’ve survived 47 surgeries over 28 years.
That I’ve woken from anaesthetic more times than I can count — groggy, bruised, stitched back together, but still breathing.
Proof that my body has been cut open and rebuilt — not just by scalpels, but by life itself.
There are scars from the inside, too.
The kind you don’t see unless you’ve lived them.
The kind left by being raped by someone I was told to trust.
The kind left by being told it was my fault.
The kind left by being gaslit by the very systems that were meant to protect me.
And there are burns now. Not metaphorical — literal.
Erythromelalgia.
A rare, relentless condition that makes my skin feel like it’s on fire from the inside out.
Some nights, I lay motionless on the bathroom tiles, because I can’t use ice — I’ve lost too much sensation, and the risk of ice burn is too great.
Most nights, I ease into a body-temperature bath — not hot, not cold — just warm enough to trick my nervous system into thinking the water is part of my bloodstream.
It’s the only thing that quiets the flames, even briefly.
Even just long enough to exhale.
I’ve been told it’s in my head.
I’ve sat in sterile rooms while doctors scribbled notes and dismissed my pain.
I’ve had to become fluent in medical jargon just to be heard.
I’ve had to advocate for myself when no one else would.
But even that isn’t the hardest part.
The hardest part is watching it happen again.
To my children.
To my husband.
To the people I love most
Watching the NDIA drag us through tribunal after tribunal.
Having to prove, over and over again, that our pain is real. That our needs matter.
Watching Adrian’s health deteriorate while the system shrugs.
Watching Hunter be denied basic dignity by decision-makers who’ve never looked him in the eye.
The trauma of my past gets reopened every time a government department deems us “not eligible.”
Every time I have to tell my story again — not to be believed, but to be assessed.
Every time I’m made to feel like a liar. Like a burden.
And I’ve stood in the rooms of power.
I’ve seen the political boys’ club up close — the way they talk over you, the way they protect their own,
the way they call you “emotional” when you dare to name the harm.
But still, I rise.
Because these scars?
They are mine.
And they tell a story worth hearing.
They tell the world that I have lived — fully, messily, gloriously — even when the world tried to reduce me to a file number.
They tell the world that I refused to give up.
That I chose love. That I chose truth. That I chose life.
So no — I don’t hide my scars anymore.
I wear them like war paint.
Not because they define me,
but because they remind me:
I am unbreakable.
Not because I was never shattered —
but because I stitched myself back together, again and again,
and called it grace.
