What to say when people ask about scars
Alright so obviously your answer should vary based on two main variables. The first thing to remember is it's okay to lie if you aren't comfortable telling them or if you feel it would put you in danger. Besides that, the other main deciding factor is the age of people asking.
Children
If a child asks you I often tell them they're from a hard time where bad things happened and it's hard to talk about. They usually don't pry too much after that. If it's your own child you may want to sit down with them and tell them more. There's no age where they're too young to understand just consider what they may repeat.
Teenagers
If it's teenagers they probably know what they're from and are just wondering how open you are about it. This can be because they are looking to be cruel or because they are going through the same thing and want to know if you'll talk about it, so in that casr you sort of have to make a judgement call on how kind you think this person is.
Adults
For adults just explain vaguely at first, saying something like "I was going through a hard time". If they ask more questions, you may answer what they ask. They will be able to only ask as much as they're comfortable hearing. With adults you have to mostly let them decide how much they want to hear.
I tell kids the boogie man scratches me when im bad lol
@peachcreek115 Haha, way to scare the heck out of some kids!
@desertSunrise88 lol ikr its pretty funny how shocked they look
@UntilThen I love this post, I feel like I am learning a ton. This is a high anxiety topic for a lot of people.
@UntilThen I think this post can be very helpful for many people here, thank you for writting it! Of course, every of us have different situation and different ways to explain it and there are no wrong or right way to do this, but if somebody don't know how to start talking about this, I think your tips would be helpful for them <3
I am adding this to my notes!
Thank you all for being so excited about this :) I'm really glad this is getting some attention. I often get questions on what to say to people when they ask, and I know this is a tough subject for people. I'm working on another post on how to have positive conversations about self-harm.
Depending on who asks you of course, you could turn round adn say 'These are my battle scars-I survived' :) x
@AngelFace97
I agree. Much of what you say can depend on personal comfort level.
@UntilThen
That's so true and exactly what I mean when I say that it depends too x