How I got the scar on my cheek:

I used to have terrible skin. Terrible enough to kill my teenage self-esteem. Terrible enough to warrant trips to the dermatologist. I tried all of the basic treatments, everything they offered over the counter and maybe half the things made available to doctors. I watched my diet and washed my face regularly. I used hypoallergenic products, and I was moderate with the make-up and the cover-up creams.

Nothing worked. I got everything from blackheads to whiteheads, from big red painful zits to pus-filled little pimples. I hated myself and thought I was ugly to the core.

My mother assured me that it was a phase and that I'd outgrow it. She'd had a few while growing up, and my father had gotten more than a few. She warned me about picking at them and said that if I did so I could end up with a catered face like my father. God forbid. I made absolute sure not to pick at my acne.

...too much.

It was good advice, but she should have broadened her audience. On one of my trips to the dermatologist, I made a complaint about a blackhead that had been bothering me for weeks. It was smack dab in the middle of my left cheek, and in my hypercritical eyes it was huge. HUGE. A glaring beacon of ugly blackheadedness that ever was seen. My gentle picking at it and careful squeezing of it had not affected it at all. It still gaped like the greasy black hole that it was, and I was getting desperate.

"Please," I implored the dermatologist. "Is there anything you can do?"

He looked me over for a moment or two, and I thought perhaps he was mentally going over his inventory, his medical artillery against teen acne. I thought for sure he had a snake oil cure-all that would make the blackhead disappear on the spot.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

He called to his assistant to get some kind of tool. I think it was some kind of tiny spoon with a long handle. He may have even had two of them, I don't know.

Then he leaned toward me, his face looming over my face, and before I knew it he was pressing on my cheek with those metal things, squeezing and squeezing, and God damn it, hurting the hell out of me.

My thoughts were rather predictable:

Aaaauuuurrrrgggghhhh! What the...?! My mom warns me not to pick at my face, and what does this guy think he's doing to me?

He was picking at my face, that's what. He was picking at my face and hurting me. Suddenly, it felt as though he'd slipped, and the pain actually got worse.

"There!" he said proudly. "I got it."

Jerk.

My entire left cheek was throbbing, and I was bleeding a little. The greasy blackness was gone, but I had no idea what was left. The little cratered scar didn't show up until later, slightly bigger than the blackhead ever was, and in the shape of an upside down Canadian maple leaf.

To this day, I still have it. It's the only acne scar I have.

And if I ever see that dunderheaded dermatologist again, I'll do what I wish I'd done back then and punch him right between the eyes.

April  3 Jun 2003

I wish I had a story like that, something connecting a physical memory on my body with a person that really matters in my life.

All the scars I have on my body are marks of stupidity. Falling from a roof: six stitches to the chin and seven root canals. Jumping a bridge with my bike: no suntan on a portion of my back. Climbing the other kids' backs to get at the chair in the middle of the ring: hairless spot in the neck. Luckily, I shave my head regularly. ;)

The only "good" scar I have is the tatoo I got when I moved from USA back to Sweden. Remembering me every time I look in a mirror never again to get caught in a situation where I move in circles, getting nowhere, learning nothing.

Stupid, isn't it. Wishing to have a scar.

Manne  3 Jun 2003

back then when i was a naive junkie in love with the man who turned her on, got her hooked and then left her to cold-turkey while he shot himself up ... back then i suddenly cooked some very dirty filters in a big ladle with vinegar since there weren't any vit c tablets. pulled it out in a blunt gun, fumbled around in my right forearm for a vein and shot the whole shit in to the tissue.

he came home and cursed me for breaking down and swore it would swell up and stink and become a boil and it did. and i accepted it as my just fate. i carry a scar and it's not on my body - i betrayed myself. but that was loooong ago

walker  3 Jun 2003

two things used to happen to me when i got drunk. one, i got incredibly generous - far more generous than a poor student should get. two, i got brave. really, really brave.

now if i was 6'3" that would be fine, but i'm not - just an average 5'10".

so along i go, drunk, to a nightclub in southampton, uk, with a friend of mine. we were dancing, hanging out, staggering about a bit - all the usuals. then a fight broke out on the other side of the dancefloor. a bunch of blokes punching each other with too much testosterone knocking about.

and 5'10" (not 6'3") me piled in and grabbed the largest bloke - i remember i couldn't even get my arms around his chest as i held him from behind. nothing to do with being a hero. just drunk-braveness.

strangely, he seemed to stop as i held onto him and the fight subsided. so i gave him a moment to calm down before letting him go.

nice, i thought. sorted.

he turned round, smiled...

...and nutted my nose with the hardest headbutt you've ever felt - apart from the fact that i was too drunk-brave to feel much.

i staggered out of the nightclub with an interesting triangular blood shape on my shirt with the apex under my broken nose.

and that's why it is the shape it is today.

unfortunately, this doesn't account for its size...

mike  3 Jun 2003

I've got scars on my left leg, all accquired over the course of my childhood. Three of them - two large ones on my pelvis and one small one on my ankle.

What they mean is that I can't walk for more than three miles without feeling a degree of pain in my left leg. What they mean is that I have to get my shoes handmade, and adapted to help compensate for my left leg being a couple of inches shorter than my right leg.

I'm going to be holed up in a hospital in my 30's (in my 40's if I'm "lucky") getting my left hip replaced, hoping that my life will be more comfortable when I get older.

Essentially, what they mean is that I'm crippled for life. I can't drive a car that has a manual gearbox. I can't play contact sports (and when you went to a school that lived by contact sports, that was sometimes a problem). I can't be as agile as I'd like to be when it comes to being between the sheets (if you know what I mean). I wasn't able to follow my dreams and be a pilot, because the legal and insurance ramifications of allowing a someone with reduced mobility in his leg means a pilots license is out of the question.

It could be worse - I might have been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I might even have died (in fact, I was expected to die). That's what my scars mean, all because a couple of doctors refused to diagnose my illness, all those years ago when I was a six-month-old baby.

tomcosgrave  3 Jun 2003

I had three scars. Two of them have faded. One was from my first year. One of my testicles was stuck, and they cut me open to see if they could loosen it. It looked like an appendix scar. It's faded and gone now, the remains hidden in the undergrowth.

The second scar I got from a stinging jellyfish while skindiving when I was fourteen. I came up underneath one. It draped across my shoulder. I picked it up and flung it off. I had boils and scars across my forearm, my shoulder and down my back. I only noticed the scar on my forearm, and it faded after a few years.

The third scar is still with me - down the back of my left arm. An angry welt I can only see in the mirror; a reminder that you should always wear a bike helmet, and don't hang stuff from your handlebars. I managed to jam a bookbag into the front spokes of my bike on my way to classes and flew over the handlebars. Luckily I didn't crack my skull open, but my elbow took all 160 lbs.

The surgeons fixed the split bone, rebuilt the elbow joint, and stapled me together the same day. Six months of physiotherapy and the arm was almost as good as new. Every now and then the weather makes it throb for some reason, but I don't notice that the arm doesn't extend 100% really.

It's an impressive scar - about ten inches long that curls around the elbow joint. It's a handy conversation piece whenever I wear a t-shirt.

Christian Mogensen  3 Jun 2003