body image after surgery

simplegirl

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I know I'm not alone, so hopefully others can chime in and give me a bit of help. I'm having a personal issue with body image after several abdominal surgeries. Because of health issues, I've been sliced and diced and I have to say, it ain't pretty. Part of me is just really glad to be alive. The latest surgery is still pretty fresh, so I know I've got some adapting to do....but still.

I have to say, my husband doesn't care about my scars. He's thrilled I'm alive. So he's definitely not making me feel unappealing. He still finds me beautiful as ever.

I'm hoping to get to the point where I can view them as a badge of honor for having survived everything, but right at this moment, it's pretty hard to feel sexy. I could have plastic surgery to improve them, but frankly, if I never have surgery again in my lifetime it will be too soon.

Maybe I just need time. Anyone got any pointers on self-acceptance?
 
I know I'm not alone, so hopefully others can chime in and give me a bit of help. I'm having a personal issue with body image after several abdominal surgeries. Because of health issues, I've been sliced and diced and I have to say, it ain't pretty. Part of me is just really glad to be alive. The latest surgery is still pretty fresh, so I know I've got some adapting to do....but still.

I have to say, my husband doesn't care about my scars. He's thrilled I'm alive. So he's definitely not making me feel unappealing. He still finds me beautiful as ever.

I'm hoping to get to the point where I can view them as a badge of honor for having survived everything, but right at this moment, it's pretty hard to feel sexy. I could have plastic surgery to improve them, but frankly, if I never have surgery again in my lifetime it will be too soon.

Maybe I just need time. Anyone got any pointers on self-acceptance?

A good many years ago, a thread was started by a young lady who had an open heart surgery. The advice given on the thread is absolutely worth a read.

the_pet wrote a post where she also showed a photo of her scar. The photo has been taken down since, but I seem to recall that it cut through her chest and into her shoulder. What struck me about that post that I still remember it years after is how much she loves her scar as it became a unique identifying feature.

Accepting your scars will take time. But they are your battle trophies, not wounds - and no one can take that away from you. And besides, often the most interesting people have scars somewhere, because they have lived, and that's what makes them so interesting.

The marks on our bodies should be read as a road map; they tell us not where we have been but rather how far we have come.

:rose:
 
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I have to say, my husband doesn't care about my scars. He's thrilled I'm alive. So he's definitely not making me feel unappealing. He still finds me beautiful as ever.

Trust in your husbands eyes, in time you will see through them.

No one is ever tall enough, thin enough, big enough, small enough, whatever. The thing is, no matter what we think we we lack in ourselves, there is someone out there who thinks that we are the center of the universe.

While you may never wear your scars as a badge of honor, just remember that you ARE NOT your scars, and anyone in this world worth being around will see you for who you really are, not what blemishes may be on the packaging.:rose::kiss:

Much love and best of luck in believing who you are. Again, see yourself through your husbands eyes and you will come to understand how beautiful you truly are.:rose:
 
I am a 30 year psiriosis sufferer, by wife got to the point she didn't even notice it.

It covered 30% of my body with big ugly scabs.

A few scars on your stomach, easy to deal with. Wear them like an old war wound, be proud you survived.
 
Look at it this way...when you find somebody that wants to caress your scars, you have found a keeper. Show 'em off I say.
 
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thanks for the replies everyone. I now I'll get there, it's just really jarring, as this latest surgery is still really new. Thinking about it, it's partly the scars but I think maybe a huge part of it is I don't see what I expect to see in the mirror, I look different, so it's throwing me off. My insides were such a mess that when they sewed me back up, nothing on my abdomen is lined up anymore.

Fire Breeze, wow I had forgotten about that thread. Imagine my surprise when I saw I had posted on there!

I appreciate the support :)
 
I think given some time to settle down you will start to see it more like your husband does. It sounds like you have been through a lot in not very long. I'm guessing you have been told this but Bio-Oil is really good for helping scars to heal and if he wanted to do it for you I am sure that would make you feel better. :p But my boyfriend is covered in little scars and blemishes and I never notice them. When I do I think he is beautiful for them.
 
I've tried Bio Oil in the past. I found it helped so-so. I'm trying a concoction I made this time around. Mixture of coconut oil, cocoa butter, jojoba and lavender oil.

I must say I'm bowled over by the warm sentiments and wisdom here. I've got the warm and fuzzies now. :)
 
By the sounds of it, though, you have someone who loves you no matter what so he will be there until you find your way to accepting the scars. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, or how many times - you must believe it.

Still, they do say "fake it 'til you make it" - perhaps hold your hand over the scar and say quietly to yourself, "I'm alive". Because at the end of the day, this is what that scar has given you - continuation of life and love.
 
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When I was fifteen I had a golf-size blood cyst that diseased one of my tubes and ovaries. My father was an active military officer then and I was taken care of at a military hospital in which they left about a foot long scar from my belly button to where well into my pubic hair would be if I was not bare. No more wearing bikinis and such and I was very self conscious about it for years. No one who ever saw it thought I was ugly, no male that saw me naked that I was intimate with ever turned me away. I had two c. sections, one of them a few years later where they reopened the scar and the other over a decade later when I had my twins and they cut me vertically for that one. Then when I was precancerous, I had to have a complete hysterectomy which was the Leonardo robot one, but still, that gave me three tiny little staple looking marks. So my lower abdomen does not look like the porn stars' and models' ones. No one shirks in horror at my disrobing.

Frankly I think anyone that would be bothered by it is the ugly one. My scars are from my life being saved and my children being saved. Well one of my twins died anyways, but still, she was born alive and I had priceless time with her. Being alive and having my children are worth the price of a not sexy area of my body by a long shot.

Yes, I do still feel self conscious but I remind myself what those scars represent.

I am glad you are still with us and hope in time you make peace with your "life lines"

:rose:
 
I can relate to this...

When I was 12 (I think) I had to go in the hospital for a ruptured appendix. Now 40 years ago surgical technology wasn't nearly as good by today's standards. Without going into the gory details I ended up with a scar that ran from just below the breastbone all the way to pubic area. Plus I also have two small scars on my lower abdomen either side of the main scar that are remains of the drain tubes I had stuck in me.

This all happened right before going into Jr Hi so one can imagine the issues in the locker room not to mention the extreme weakened state I was in when the school year started.

Years later I always got asked "what happen to you. did you get shot or something?" Of course it was nothing that dramatic and it took me years to recover fully from that experience. These days you can't really see it anymore except for one of the drain scars that still looks like a bullet scar.

Pretty much anymore I take it as a badge of honor. Not that anyone sees me undressed anymore, but if they did I would say "Yup, this is what happened and I survived."

Scars are badges of things that happened and we lived to tell the story.
 
All as I can say I find all scars, blemishes, imperfections a turn on. It shows your character and who you are. Don't be emberassed, I think there is alot of guys out there that think like me.
 
A good many years ago, a thread was started by a young lady who had an open heart surgery. The advice given on the thread is absolutely worth a read.

the_pet wrote a post where she also showed a photo of her scar. The photo has been taken down since, but I seem to recall that it cut through her chest and into her shoulder. What struck me about that post that I still remember it years after is how much she loves her scar as it became a unique identifying feature.

Accepting your scars will take time. But they are your battle trophies, not wounds - and no one can take that away from you. And besides, often the most interesting people have scars somewhere, because they have lived, and that's what makes them so interesting.

The marks on our bodies should be read as a road map; they tell us not where we have been but rather how far we have come.

:rose:

^^^^^^our very own Hallmark blabbering app
 
Simplegirl, those marks on your body are not scars they are the marks of a warrior, the marks you earned when you battled an implacable enemy, one whose only want was to kill you. You girded yourself and battled that killer head to head and overpowered and defeated it. It is now dead and gone from your body. Those marks are the marks many courageous fighters such as yourself wear. They are not marks of shame but marks showing your courage, determination and your refusal to surrender to a deadly enemy.

Please do not think of them as scars, but as badges of honor, honor of you resolve, determination and courage in defeating a deadly enemy who is dead and gone from your body and your life. They are not marks of shame, but marks of your courage, wear them with pride.

Please believe me when I tell you I would much rather have the love of my life wearing the marks of her courage then never having her with me again.

Very respectfully


Mike
 
Anyone got any pointers on self-acceptance?

We are all bombarded with media telling us what is supposed to be pretty too much. Imagine an alien coming to earth, would they think all those glorious models pretty too? What if the imperative of good looking was scars for that alien and unblemished skin looked ugly to them? My point is, it all depends on how you see it. Scar by itself is neither good or bad looking until you give it a meaning. And in time, things you see every day become normal and you get used to living with somebody beautiful the same way you get used to somebody ugly, it evens up, what you see them as depends more on how you feel about them than what they look like. For every child their mother is the most beautiful woman in the world.

When I see a particularly big and nasty scar, I only feel compassion for that person for probably being in life threatening situation once. I am happy they are alive and well. I am more prone to give way and be nice to them. Physically, scars do nothing for me, I dont feel appalled, I dont see them as ugly. Just, part of that person.

My first husband has a really long and thick scar across his chest and belly, a result of thoracotomy when he was a newborn. It saved his life but left particularly visible scar. He was very self conscious about getting naked at first, would always try to keep a shirt on, but once he saw I had zero reaction to it, he eased up completely.
My second husband misses a finger, got caught by a wedding ring when fixing a car. It doesnt affect him much unless he is tired or upset, if we argue in example and he tries to pick something with that hand, he will probably drop it. That ends the argument because it makes me feel gentle and overprotective and melt all over him.
I have my share of scars, nothing very big admittedly, but I dont think of them, I see them the same as I see wrinkles or gray hair or any other way my body is changing in years, as natural process.

I dont know if you got any pointers from my rambling but I wish you to see yourself as beautiful as I am sure your family sees you.
 
Thanks so much everyone. Your words ARE having an impact. I'm finding my belly easier to look at in the mirror and I'm getting a little less self-conscious of it. Baby steps, but they are significant. I'll never wear a bikini, but I also don't feel like people are going to run screaming from the hills if my shirt rides up a little and exposes them.
 
I once saw a movie where Kirk Douglas was a Viking. He was raping and pillaging like the rest of his crew, but he sort of fell in love with one woman. He also was blinded in one eye. The poignant moment of that movie that applies to this issue was that he wanted her to bite and scratch and fight him while he tried to rape her. It hurt him more that she pitied him/ he wanted her to see him as a man instead of as a broken man. (I don't think she loved him, she loved his brother, but that was besides the point).

Premise for supporting that I know what it feels like on the receiving end:

When I was a kid, I was habitually getting my knees barked (oddly enough only one knee shows scarring). I've fallen on a barbed wire fence while climbing over it (no stitches but scarring). I drove into a thicket of woods instead of putting a motorcycle down going 65 mph so I didn't go under the stupid driver who cut me off then slammed their brakes on in front of me (only got 65 stitches for that). I've had a "glass bath" that left me with a V cut on my arm and a lateral scar across my ribs.
I've gotten 3rd degree burns that shockingly never showed scarring though it took many years for the discoloration to go away.

I've had some scars that show up that I don't remember getting (perhaps from my bout with chicken pox as a baby?) and some scars that simply vanish for all intents and purposes.

My reactions to women who see me and when I see their scars:

When a GF sees my scars, I don't mind if they look away.

I met a woman online once and found she had a scar across her neck from ear to ear that she never mentioned. When I looked at her, my eyes would start to tear up in sympathy and I would look away. It took a while for me to look at her and not show sympathy (a couple of days). After that, I saw her and not the scars.

I've never had a woman look at me and go "Eww!" (...well, NOT from looking at my scars at least! XD) I've had some that look at me and their eyes soften when they see my scars, and I feel like that Kirk Douglas character. I don't want their pity. If they look away, I look at it not that I was revolting to them, but they are trying to spare me seeing their pity. I can respect that. That they stay around, means they like ME. The rest is just them getting used to the scars.

This might not be how everyone looks at it, but that's how I look at it.
 
My husband had been through four open heart surgeries by the time I met him in high school. I never saw the scars as a flaw or bad thing. Honestly it was a trail of awesome to follow. We've been married 12 years now with him having another surgery in 2012 that left a few more scars and a pacemaker in/on him.

The scars are a part of him, a sign that he doesn't give up, won't let his heart stop him and that he will fight to get back to his loved ones. He does get looks at the beach or pool but that's ok to him.

Life scars us all, inside and out. Those scars are proof we survived and kicked some butt right back.
 
My friend Jehoram wrote a story for the Nude Day competition about two people who were asked to strip naked. It turns out that they both had scars, and the sight of each other's imperfect bodies created a link that grew into love (or lust, anyway).

http://www.literotica.com/s/nude-day-at-the-daredevils-club

I should note that Jehoram has a few rather conspicuous scars on his body, so he knows whereof he writes.

I usually edit his stories, but I didn't edit this one. So don't blame me for the mistakes! I did think it was a very sweet story.
 
I usually edit his stories, but I didn't edit this one. So don't blame me for the mistakes! I did think it was a very sweet story.

What mistake? Oh, that one. And that other one, too. Mea culpa.

And thanks for the compliment!

As for my scars, well, I've always thought that more people have scars than you realize. It's just that a lot of those scars are on the inside. And it's as easy to misjudge people for the scars they don't show as it is to misjudge them for the ones they do show.
 
Those lines tell the story of who you are, a survivor. I have stretch marks from my babies and a C-section scar. But hey, I created life and the C-section saved my son's life! I just dress to accentuate what I want. I've seen some lovely scar cover-ups for breast cancer patients. Imperfection is beauty.
 
Give yourself time, just like you say. And trust your husband when he say's he doesn't mind. (as I'm sure you do)
 
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