What is painful to me? What are scars to me? Throughout my life I have felt pain in several aspects, whether they were physical, emotional, or mental. I think pain comes in so many forms. You are riding your brand new, pink unicorn bike as a child and trip over the little pebbles, because you were blindsided by the joy you felt. The scratches bleed and as the blood drips on your scratched up knees, jolts of a burning cut-like sensation spread your veins. 2 months later, you take a look at your knee and see crooked indentations of delicate, salmon-colored skin, perfectly standing out from the tan. They are scars. Faded over time, and the pain lasting only the first couple days of the fall. I still see quite many indentions on my skin, sparking physically-intense memories as my eyes pawn over their presence, but the pain that has faded the moment my wound turned into a scar. But there are some scars that stay fresh even after years have passed. That bleed after years of healing. That traumatize your mind and sanity as you start ruminating on their reason. That somehow sparked memories in which your emotional capacity was shattered and your heart lay in pieces. That makes you wonder and spiral down the rabbit hole of why it had to have happened to you. They make you feel like you've been targeted, and somehow never seem to fade into oblivion. They show up when you least expect them to, and from people and circumstances that you truly believed would spark epiphanies. Those are the scars that come from emotional pain. Those are the scars that come from trauma, abuse, bullying, betrayal, and self-destruction. You can't see them, but their wounds go so deep that sometimes not even death seems to heal them. Emotional pain stays with you, it haunts you, it swallows you alive, it keeps you ruminating on it, keep hating yourself because of it, and keep denying the possibility of help and betterment because it’s made you lose hope. It's funny how one event, how one person can turn your life upside down. How it can so easily have the power to break you, to heal you, to hurt you, to kill you. But that's emotional pain. It's this burden of intense heartache, everytime the memories of your soul’s death antagonize your mind. It's complex. It's difficult. Sometimes you never heal from it, and sometimes even healing from it isn't enough for it to stop. For it to disappear. It's hidden in your memories and can be triggered at any given moment. It's what makes us human. The scars it leaves behind are a remark of the effect that pain had on us, what it did to us. Whether it ruined you or made you stronger, now that's up to you. Scars bleed and bleed till you bandage them, till you clean them. When your mind gets scarred, or your trust or any one of your cognitive processes or contests, your bandage and healing starts from acceptance and support. It might never heal, but give yourself the chance to at least try, to athletes take a shot. These scars sometimes come from yourself too. You've been hurt to the point of self destruction, because the world has put all of these boundaries, pressures, judgements, and stereotypes around you, that you force yourself to fit into them. When you try but somehow fall, and no one is able to heart yur screams of terror, tiredness, and pain, thats when you turn on yourself. You self harm, your drink, your use, your rage, and you slowly start to kill yourself. Those scars don't fade, the scars you place on yourself i'll always haunt you, because they are proof of how terribly broken and hurt you were. And everytime your eye gazes upon those scars, the healing shell that they have developed fades and they start to bleed. Those scars are a representation of your inner demons, your inner ghosts, your self hate, your self judgements, and they make you feel so guilty and miserable. You are supposed to be your best friend, but you have let society and people in your life affect you and immobilize you till the point of self-destruction, and that loss hurts. You've lost yourself and that mental pain never lets go of you, it stays and bleeds till you slowly start to pick yourself up. Till you rebuild the puzzle that the pain broke, and the heart that it shattered. It's not easy, and sometimes the scars will bleed, but one day they will get a little less difficult to acknowledge and a little less painful to feel. So physical scars fade, emotional scars stay, and mental scars consume right? But why are they scars? Why are they not wounded then? Because even though I spent the last 500 words talking about scars bleeding and not being able to heal, I used the word scars. I never said wounds and I never said forever. Scars are scars because they represent you healing from the battle that created them- even if it is just for a second. They represent your strength and courage to fight even when all the odds were against you. Some take longer to heal, some continue to bleed, but the moment you start seeing them as scars and not wounds, the pain and control they have starts to fade till you see hope and strength in them. And that right there is your silver lining.