‘These So-Called Imperfections’: Reflecting on Bodies, Scars and Stretchmarks
By Rachel Hartley
You’ve heard the phrase ‘you are what you eat’, right? This essentially translates to ‘your exterior body tells the world about what’s going on internally’. You may feel pride, neutrality or shame from what your body says.
I’ve veered between these three mindsets for most of my young adult life (I’m only twenty, have I even had enough young adult life to warrant this statement?). With social media, we are seeing more and more of other people’s bodies. Influencers telling us what they apparently put into their bodies to make it look a specific way. The fit gym girls. The Bella Hadid’s. The plus-size; the mid-size. The boys of ‘roids. The dad bod, the gym lad, the Pete Davidson lanky boy. We see so many bodies.
A few years ago, I saw a trend of women decorating their stretch marks with glitter. It was beautiful. These so-called imperfections, bedazzled to draw attention. Having grown up with gossip magazines circling these things on celebrities and adding captions that exclaim shock and horror at these natural effects of being human, you can see why I didn’t want this trend to die out.
When I first became aware of the trend, I didn’t have stretch marks yet. I was too young. These glittery bodies comforted me not because I had these stretch marks that displayed my natural development and bodily growth, but because in my head I transferred this glittering celebration to my self-made marks.
After a few years of trawling ASOS for long sleeved tops, dresses and so many tights, the idea that maybe these marks didn’t have to be hidden in shame was internally liberating for the possibilities of physical liberation it possessed. I remember, not soon after seeing these pictures, I was training for a 10k. The proceeds were going towards my school’s chosen charity, Mind UK. It was going to be in summer, running in hot weather, wearing the school’s short-sleeved athletics uniform. Could I?
My body tells the story of one of the areas Mind UK seeks to help with. People have done charity runs with glitter on their faces. Why not on their scars? Could it be fun? Could I feel free? I mentioned the idea to a boyfriend at the time. He laughed awkwardly. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit silly? Attention seeking?’
I did the 10k in a long-sleeved running top, claiming to the teachers that I had lost my uniform. My brief mindset of pride was over.
Summer continued. Like any other pale Brit, I like a tan – get the arms and legs out as soon as the temperature hits double digits, that’s what I say. I didn’t want to spend my summer sweating in layers, and so here I entered a period of hesitant neutrality towards my marks. I figured out quickly that people can be quite oblivious to bodies in real life. There isn’t that lensed focus of Instagram. Either that or they were too polite or uninterested to say anything. Fine by me.
Family, though, was trickier. I didn’t want them to see me. The looks of pity, or guilt, were too much. It’s not their fault, but that was the self-accusation I saw in my mum’s eyes. At family parties – even though my parents never said anything to suggest I should – I felt obliged to keep the long sleeves. I felt my body reflected badly upon my parents; I didn’t want relatives to think I was my parents’ messed up child.
The past year was one of complete indifference to my marks. I wore that nice top to the club if I wanted to. Why? Clubs are sweaty. And hey, I looked nice in it. Sports tops and bras to the gym: I’m there to work on myself, like everyone else here. I have no interest in what their arms or legs look like. I would wear whatever I wanted to family parties because I was there to chat and have fun, not judge their bodies nor they mine. I wore that bikini and took that picture because both I and the view were beautiful.
Lately, however, I’ve become ‘aware’ of my marks again. People I’ve been on dates with have asked, ‘What happened?’ ‘What’s up with your arm?’ ‘Are these birthmarks on your thighs?’
These remarks remind me that my long-internalised problems are written across my body for anyone to see and read. So open. Kind of vulnerable. It feels odd to think that a person I just met could gather most of my life from these parts of my body, even make a further assumption about my character to add to what they already gathered from my hair, face, eyes. ‘Completely irrelevant’ is what I would say to these remarks.
The thing is, I don’t know how I should feel towards these marks as I know how I should feel toward my stretch marks. Yes, I now have them. I don’t want to feel shame, but it’s so easy to. It’s so easy to look down and want to scrub off these remnants of past problems.
I don’t want to be ashamed of my body. No one wants that. Neutrality is fine, but they’re still there, no matter how much I ignore them. Should I feel pride? Pride in that I haven’t added to the marks in nearly a year? Pride that I no longer feel the need to? I don’t think of myself as a survivor. But maybe, in a way, I survived myself?
I’m still deciding. I don’t know when or how I’ll come to be completely at ease with these marks on my body, but I can think back. I can think back to when I was seventeen and I wore a short-sleeved top around my grandma for the first time in around three years. She said something like, ‘I’m glad you’re starting to be comfortable with yourself.’
That’s all I want to be, really. To be comfortable in my body.