Take it from an oversharer – there’s no shame in holding back
‘In 2018, you may as well be awarded a George Cross for daring to exist’
One of the most fascinating things about last week’s royal wedding was not, for me, the cast of celebrities who showed up – or, as in the case of the Duchess of Cornwall, the ones who didn’t.
It was not the closeness of the happily divorced parents of the bride, or the endless pictures of sloshed socialites.
No. It was that Princess Eugenie felt happy enough to show us the scar from the scoliosis surgery she had as a 12-year-old, the result of an eight-hour operation to correct the curvature of her spine.
The visibility of that silvery line as she walked into St George’s Chapel was significant in a world where more often than not, scars are hidden or Photoshopped or filtered out. The rise of Instagram and apps such as Facetune, through which you can alter your appearance, means that we all present to the world computergenerated versions of ourselves.
Every time we apply a filter to make a photo look “better”, we turn ourselves into avatars. We no longer see the lines and the lumps that make our bodies what they are: stunningly brilliant and clever systems that keep us alive on a daily basis, often against all the odds.
In choosing a wedding dress that displayed her scar instead of hiding it, Princess Eugenie sent a powerful message to anyone who has ever felt ashamed of theirs; proof that sometimes, the things we perceive as ugly are actually amazingly beautiful. In the days after, social media was flooded with images of people’s scars. I took a snap of the remnants of an appendectomy I had when I was eight, which haunted me well into my 20s every time I put on a bikini. Others showed their scoliosis scars, their self-harm scars, their mastectomy scars, and so on. It was a powerful reminder of the reality of the myriad ways a human body can look.
Yet, while what goes on in our minds may be less visible, that can be just as complex as our physical appearances.
On Saturday, I received a message from a woman who had also gone through surgery for scoliosis. She told me that she had been greatly comforted by seeing images of everyone’s scars, after a lifetime feeling ashamed of her own, battling to find swimming costumes that would cover up the long line she was glad was on her back, because at least it spared her having to see it in the mirror.
But this woman was worried, because she didn’t feel “strong” enough (as she put it) to share her own. She said that while she was pleased that people were happy to put things out there, often she felt extremely ashamed that she wasn’t able to. Did her inability to share her scar make her weak, she asked?
Now you all know that I am more than happy showing off each and every part of myself: I have run a marathon in my underwear, modelled for a plus-size lingerie company and written endlessly about the troubles in my brain. I am a huge advocate for sharing, and the power that comes with it.
Every time I see someone talk about their depression, or their feelings of ugliness; every time someone posts a bikini picture on social media without first filtering out all their cellulite, I let out a little cheer.
But I worry about the people who do not feel able to do this, the people who don’t feel comfortable parading their weaknesses on social media. I worry that there are zillions of people out there beating themselves up for not having the “courage” or “strength” to be open about their internal battles.
Sometimes, when I post a picture on Instagram of my unfiltered bikini body, I receive comments which make me out to be so brave that you might think I had actually gone off to war.
This says a lot about the culture we live in: in 2018, you may as well be awarded a George Cross for simply daring to exist as you are.
But it doesn’t mean that you are weak if you don’t feel able to do this.
If you want to wear a wedding dress that covers up your scars, or if you’d rather only tell one person about the state of your mental health instead of putting it on Facebook, you are not a failure as a human being.
Sharing ourselves, and showing ourselves, is a wonderful thing. But we must not lose sight of its purpose: acceptance of people as they are, whatever that might look like.