Time For Plan B

[Scarface]

@Stickler What makes you think it's only an inch?

The scar is much bigger than that. Its very wide too. And the whole area around the actual scar line is indented. It basically looks like my forehead was smashed in above one of my eyebrows. (Because it was). A giant dent of soft tissue cannot be concealed with makeup. I've already consoled with a professional makeup artist. My only way to cover it completely is with a hat or hair covering that entire side of my face. And this is a very restrictive way to live. Please don't minimalized this. Just don't. I basically lost 1/4 of my face. You have no idea what I'm going through.

 

[Scarface]

Out of curiosity, if you could chose between your previous appearance and having a family loves you and who's willing to take care of you, which would you pick?,

I would choose my face. With my face, I could be independent. Without it, I am disabled, mentally distressed, and a dependent burden on the family that loves me.

 

[Scarface]

I guess I wasn't clear from the beginning: not only is there a cut in my forehead, but I have extensive soft tissue damage (muscle, fat, and skin atrophy) surrounding the scar that covers half my forehead.

 

[Stickler]

...Or a latex fill piece glued in with spirit gum.

Ok, so it's (takes fingers to own forehead 2 x 2. So 1/7 th of your face.
What if half your face was scraped off? Or burned off?
You tell me I'm minimizing. Maybe I am?
I will offer my opinion in return that you are mentally magnifying the effect of the scar on your appearance.

You are also letting it decide your value as a human being...which...your value as a human being has NOTHING to do with appearance.
Rather than being determined to make a path forward, regardless of your looks?
You have fallen for the belief that your facial scar destroys everything.

Rather than waiting for others to accept or reject you, you are isolating yourself. Not risking actual rejection at all, just assuming they will find you hideous.

Maybe I do not want you to condemn yourself to a life of cold storage because of a facial injury?
It seems like I'm being unsympathetic...

But I see a person climbing into a cage...or more appropriately, a dumpster...that they made for themselves.
Condemning themselves to a human scrap heap.
That's sad!

I am trying to get you to realize you're making this choice...Because you are very capable of making a better set of choices.
Even if your face DOES MEAN you can't be in public relations and you have to do something else as a career...
Or that you may have to date guys who are not quite as hot ( my observation, guys are less hung up on that than women. They love you, they love what you have. ).

You can adapt.

...or curl up in a little ball and lock yourself away.

The latter choice seems like a waste of a valuable person, and guaranteed misery for you.

You are not your scar, or your face.

You have intrinsic worth.

Please, go get professional counseling!

 

[Scarface]

@Stickler

Look, I appreciate the fact that you are trying to help. But you simply just don't get it. A destroyed body image is devastating, especially to a young, single female who is otherwise healthy. Probably one of the worst fates possible. I mean, look at the following post from a 45 year old male on the changing faces forum. No one gets it till it's on their face. Period.

 

[Sideways]

Before your injury, before the scar, when you saw people in the street who were significantly disfigured in some way, or significantly disabled some way, did you ever actually think to yourself, "That person's life is over, why are they even coming out of their home, they should cover that up, they have nothing to live for looking like that?"

No. Not once. Me neither - never ever is that what I think. Got a very strong impression that no one else here is thinking that either.

It will get better. And I'm with the others - get some help, some support. Don't write off your life because of this.

 

[joeylittle]

A destroyed body image is devastating, especially to a young, single female who is otherwise healthy. Probably one of the worst fates possible.

(bolding added for emphasis).

Your face is not destroyed, no matter how much you would like to insist that it is. You have facial features. You don't need a full facial transplant. Your face is therefore not destroyed. Your forehead is destroyed, fine, we can go there.

Your body image is created by you - not by others. So yes - having a destroyed body image is devastating. I can identify with that. I'm obese but I wasn't always this way. And I often think my life is over because I'm fat. I understand that too. But I also know that my body image is constructed by me, not by anyone else.

You are responsible for how you see yourself.

And if you choose to see your forehead scar as one of the worst fates possible, then you condemn yourself to living an unfulfilled life.

Get a prosthesis. Plug the hole in your forehead. Whatever 'professional' makeup artist you talked to, I can tell you that they don't know their business. Here's an article on paramedical makeup: Dead Link Removed - it's just an overview, but maybe something in it will help you see things a little differently.

I find myself wondering - again - if you are telling the truth. Your posts seem almost designed to escalate argument. Perhaps you would consider starting a trauma diary, if you would like a place to put these thoughts without getting responses that are clearly not what you are looking for.

 

[Stickler]

I've lost and gained and lost huge amounts of weight.
Being socially considered moderately attractive and being socially considered hideously ugly at above 300 pounds are both in my experience.
Dunno if I mentioned that before. I have had the experience of being laughed at daily and bullied for my weight in high school.
I can tell you that people are a lot less judgmental regarding my appearance since I got out of high school.
...Not everyone is going to judge you because you have a big chunk out of your forehead. In fact, the shallow idiots are going to wig out at it. Not more compassionate people.

While your scar isn't fixable, and I do get that?

I'm really surprised a plastic appliance cannot be inserted and anchored under the gouge to at least fill it in...in the manner of plastic cheekbone implants.

You see...
I am going to try to get what's called a frontal sinus obliteration for sinus disease?

This is USUALLY done by cutting the forehead loose at the hairline, to minimize visible scarring...
And then flipping the entire forehead down and out of the way, over the face.

They will then cut two sections out in my forehead roughly where my eyebrows are, drill out all the soft tissue in my forehead sinus cavities, fill the holes with bone cement, and put the bone sections back into place with screws.
Since I have had worsened asthma and fairly constant fatigue issues from my sinus infection for the last 14 years, and I expect some reduction of exhaustion?
I am really looking forward to having holes cut in my head.
:D
Already had two less invasive surgeries, taken a collection of antibiotics, take tons of maintenance meds...irrigating my nose with diluted hydrogen peroxide burns horribly but actually knocks the infection back.
My life fell to pieces over the fatigue, illness costs, depression, returning PTSD, emotionally abusive marriage( lasted 10 years) low income no longer being a living wage, asthma becoming hard to control...Getting back memories of my dad sexually abusing me...feelings attached...and now that he rented me through a friend of his...again, terror and disgust and shame attached.

I'm still fighting to get my life back from the slowly evolving clusterf*ck...even if I feel like I am barely crawling forward.
Crawling forward is still forward movement.

I'm getting psychiatric help, going to a support group, getting back into therapy. Fighting to shower, brush my teeth, eat right, because right now those are accomplishments. Balancing between self-compassion and pushing myself to do what I can.
I have thought about suicide a lot since 2009, i am probably thinking about it more than half the time.
I keep adding pills to fight that. No luck on that yet.

...Yeah, you can give up over a giant facial scar.

 

[Casey_03]

@Scarface I have a theory about what you are going through and it's something I just want to put out there. It's only my opinion and I obviously don't know you, so forgive me if I am way off. But I don't think this is just because of the physical scar; the pain you are describing is not that superficial. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that the despair you are experiencing is not simply from losing the appearance you were born with -- it's about the WAY in which you lost it. Abruptly, with no warning, violently, in a deeply traumatic way that showed you, more than anything else ever could, that you have absolutely no control in this world. So for you, it's like your face -- which up until now you have viewed as your identity -- was literally violently seized from you against your will by invisible forces in the universe. I can understand how that kind of trauma is on par with various other horrendous traumas - I dare say even rape or being violently attacked. Because for all of these traumas, the biggest shock and the hardest thing to get over is the loss of control, the realization that your life and your very identity can be taken from you in the blink of an eye, just like that, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Many people who get PTSD from horrific accidents say the trauma is a result of that sense of losing control ... of seeing how your own life can be flipped upside down in an instant. I think you are experiencing the same thing; it's just that you are fixating on the scarring because it's such a visible reminder. And now when you talk about plan B and suicide, I guess I don't see that as you seriously wanting to die. I see that as you trying to have some control over your own life after having control ripped away from you. The more you talk about Plan B, the more you remind yourself that "No, actually I do have some options and I do have some control." Could this be right? I guess what I am saying is, I don't think this issue is as superficial as facial disfigurement, I think there are deeper feelings that need to be confronted. I think the scar causes you such anguish not only because you feel you have lost your identity, but because it serves as a very visible, very jarring reminder of HOW you lost that identity ... of HOW control was taken from you in such a traumatic way. Maybe you could try to reflect on that, or talk about it, instead of planning for Plan B.

 

[Scarface]

(bolding added for emphasis).

Your face is not destroyed, no matter how much you would like to insis...

I'm telling the truth. I'm just suffering so much I guess I'm just coming here to vent. The trauma, the scar, it's all like a broken record playing over and over again in my head every second of the day.

I'm sorry that you struggle with your weight. I can't even begin to imagine how hard that must be. I don't know why you have weight issues, but with proper exercise and diet, it is highly likely that you could lose weight. I'm sure you already know this and I'm not trying to lecture you, but my point is this is something you have some control over. Disfigurement, on the other hand, is totally out of someone's control.

However, what if you were forced to walk around with your overweight body naked and fully exposed? That is how I feel with this scar.

I've tried to find help covering my scar with makeup. No one has been able to help me. It sucks. But if you think about it, if Hollywood can't even cover Tina Fey's scar for the camera, what makes you think I can cover my deeper and wider scar in person?

 

[Sideways]

If you've honestly reached the point where, in your head, everyone else's suffering pales in comparison to yours, minimising the immense suffering clearly going on for others in a ptsd forum, I'd suggest that the scar is now a secondary issue, and in fact the depths of your depression is what needs the most urgent attention.

Putting that out there from a place of concern rather than criticism.

 

[joeylittle]

I don't know why you have weight issues, but with proper exercise and diet, it is highly likely that you could lose weight.

Nope. After a good two years of bouncing around between various doctors and looking at various options, the answer seems to be - there is no answer, except some kind of metabolic change that came along with a particular antidepressant. Medically, I appear to be stuck with this; that's the opinion shared by the doctors so far, and my experience bears that out.

But if you think about it, if Hollywood can't even cover Tina Fey's scar for the camera, what makes you think I can cover my deeper and wider scar in person?

She doesn't try and cover her scar for the camera, as far as I'm aware. Look, we could debate this forever - but I'll maintain that you've not scratched the surface of what paramedical makeup could do for you. Doesn't matter. Point is: as long as you insist that your life is over because of this scar, then your life will be over because of this scar. But it's you doing that, not the scar.

Have you considered (instead of retreating to small town) doing some time inpatient for trauma therapy or for depression management? No-one in there cares what you look like, either - but you might get some relief from your mental anguish.