How I Got My Scar

Previously I posted this about the scar I have on my leg.

Usually when people see it for the first time they think I have a long piece of scotch tape stuck to me.  Then they see that it’s actually a scar and ultimately I am asked how I got it.  I always lied about how I got it.  How do you explain to someone that your mom was punishing you for something and you inadvertently got cut in the process?    I remember I was in Mrs. Kropen’s class at the time, which means I was only in kindergarten when I got the scar.  I think I was ~6 years old.

Here’s the version I tell everyone, summarized in a few very basic sentences:

“I cut my leg on the bed stand.  I was jumping on the bed and fell off.  I fell against the metal leg on the bedstand and cut myself.” 

Usually people are so shocked at the size and look of the scar that the simple story is enough to satisfy their curiosity.  I think in some way they know the story actually doesn’t ’make sense’ when compared to the size of the scar, but then human nature takes over and they rationalize it that it was a “freak accident” and drop the topic.

I’m just sick of hiding the truth in order to save face.  That stupid culture thing again.  Man, if anyone knew how horrible our home life was (is).  I hate how everyone who knew us growing up thought we were this great family.  It makes me sick to think that my mom gets to live through the success of her kids, as if she actually had anything to do with it. 

This is the real story behind my scar:

My mom told us to behave for a few minutes while she went to take a shower.  My older sis was ~10 at the time, I was ~6.  We fought all the time as kids, and this was definitely not one of the more “intense” bouts with one another.  My sister wouldn’t play with me and I remember trying to plead with her to play with me.  I can’t remember accurately or not whether she was feeling sick, or whether she was just tired.  I just vaguely remember she was laying down on the bed on her left side.  I was trying to get her to play with me.  I remember lying perpendicular to her with my feet were dangling over her side.  I’m not sure how we got into this position, but all I remember was getting really angry that she wouldn’t play with me so I started moving my legs really hard, essentially kicking her in the stomach multiple times.  I had some serious anger issues as a kid.  My entire family did.  You can only imagine how physical my sister and I were when we fought.  This was still pretty tame compared to other times. More on this in another post.

Anyway, so basically I had knocked the wind out of her, just in time for my mom to come out of the shower.  My sister was kind of winded and couldn’t really speak.  Of course, my mom freaked out.  In fact, I don’t think she even tended to my sister to make sure she was ok.  I think all she saw was that we were fighting and, of course, who else gets punished?  Yep, me. 

I was always getting punished no matter whose fault it was.  My sister lied to my mom and stole stuff from me at least a few times, but when my mom found out she lied, it was MY fault for not sharing with my sis.  However, when I would steal from my sister, I got punished and hit and yelled at because I wasn’t supposed to lie or steal.  My mom always thought of me as the bad kid and treated me accordingly.  Nothing I ever did was right.  I look back and every kid inherently knows justice.  It’s the stupid adults who don’t get that.  It pisses me off too how my mom never directly dealt with bad behavior.  She’s always just gloss over in order to avoid conflict.  I look back and know why she took out so much anger on me, but that’s another rant (and very long and very complicated post)  for another day. 

Ok, so all my mom saw was that my sister was winded and clutching her stomach.  Did she even take time to check my sister?  I don’t remember that at all.  I just remember her reacting as she always did and her grabbing my arm and dragging me into the other room.  She took a fly swatter (or some sort of stick) and basically sat down on the bed with one arm holding me in place and with the other hand  hitting me in the leg with the stick. 

Now try to picture this:  When you are holding onto a child by the upper arm (remember, I was 6 at the time) and the child is trying to get away from you, what do they do?  The child will kind of go limp, bending at their knees and twisting their body to try and wiggle out of your hold, right?  Can you see that?

Ok, now picture that scenario with my mom sitting on the edge of the bed and hitting me.  I’m trying to get out of her hold and to stop her from beating me.  I didn’t know or feel this at the time, but I was literally throwing myself against that bedstand repeatedly standing up, going limp, trying to twist out out of her hold and trying to get away from her. 

When she was done hitting me I stood up to walk away and I felt liquid on my leg.  I look down at my leg and, of course, it’s actually blood running down my leg.  I have a gash that’s at least 6 inches or so long, about 1/2-1 inch deep.  Thank goodness it was on my thigh.  There’s a lot of flesh there to absorb such trauma.  I guess if I was going to get hurt that way, the leg is a good place to take it. 

I see the gash and all the blood and I start crying harder.  My mom and dad rush me to the emergency room.  I don’t remember too much at this point.  I just remember my mom grabbing a wad of paper towels to press on my wound.  I remember entering the emergency room and my mom carrying me and trying to tell the attendant what had happen.  She was crying so hard and was having trouble articulating herself through her broken english.  All I really remember is that my dad is with me in the suture room and I remember crying and screaming hysterically when I get the (tetanus?  anaesthesia?) shots in my leg for the stitches.  My mom was nowhere in any of my memories at this point.  I don’t even remember the drive home with my family.

The scar is still there.  The edges have faded a bit.  Nearly 26 years later a couple of inches have seemed to fade away through time, but it’s still a good ~4 inches in length and an 1/8 of an inch wide.  Deceivingly, it doesn’t hurt, at least not in the physical sense anyway.  Sometimes I even forget it’s there.   I’m tired of lying about it’s origin, but how do I tell people the truth about it?  When someone asks you an innocent question such as, “how are you?” do you really want to know the true answer to that?  And so, it’s just easier to tell everyone a hybrid story of truth mixed with a plausible explanation.  I was messing around with my sister when we were kids and I fell off the bed and cut it on the bedstand.”

I brought up my scar a year or so ago to my mom.  I was really hurting and just wanted to hear her acknowledge some sort of regret, some sort of knowing about what she did, even it was only in retrospect.  Instead, she got angry with me and yelled out me for drudging up the past.  She said it happened and it’s done with, so let it go and why bother bringing it up again?

It hurts.  It really hurts.  Even now, years later, she will never admit any sort of pain she’s caused or any wrongdoing on her part.  I just want to heal and I can’t do it unless she acknowledges her part in it.  I still can’t accept that I may never ever get that from her.  How do I let this go?  How do I accept that I’ll probably never get an apology or an acknowledgement of anything from her? 

And get this:  even after that happened she continued to hit us, and it wasn’t even as if the hitting was toned down.  There were subsequent moments when it was just as bad, if not worse.  She was always physical with us – especially with me – even when I entered my early teens.  It finally stopped one day when I hit her back.  She finally realized that she could no longer control me with brute force.

My sister once asked me if I could remember any happy memories from my childhood. Sadly, I said no.  I’m sure she thought that I said ‘no’ only because I was going through a hard time when we had that conversation.  In all honesty, I have to work really hard to remember any good times.  The few good times I do remember were mostly with my siblings or extended family and none, if any, with my mom.  My memories with my dad are more neutral.  He was never really around since he was always working at the store.  I have one significant bad memory with him, but generally the memories with him are good.

So that’s the story behind the scar on my leg.   

It represents all things bad and traumatic in my life.  It represents the shame, the guilt, the pain and the sorrow of so many broken relationships.  It represents the broken spirit that I’m trying so desperately to reclaim and to find again.  It’s my scarlett letter.  And speaking of “The Scarlett Letter,” I like how this cliff notes version ends:  “The scarlet letter made her what she became, and, in the end, she grew stronger and more at peace through her suffering.”

I hope the same will be said for me.