Beauty over harm

Tami sent me these pictures of a nice scarification piece done by JesseV at Thrive Studios in Cambridge.

I immediately noticed the scars behind her new scarification piece, and assumed you guys would too. Rather than let myself or the commenters make assumptions, I went on and asked her about them.

They are clearly self harm scars, self injury was something that I struggled with for the better part of the last 10 years. It has now been a year since I have hurt myself, and since I first learned about scarification (about 5 years ago) I had decided that someday I want something done to cover up the scars. Not that the scars were embarrasing, but it was just uncomfortable to me to have perfect strangers asking about them, and when I would reply that was just the way my skin was people seemed to be offended.

I have always liked the look of scars and decided that I wanted one that actually looked nice and wanted to show to people. It seemed to make more sense to me to cover up or disguise the existing scars with another scar instead of a tattoo.

To me, this is a perfect example of what body modification can be, an opportunity to reclaim one’s body. This piece turned  something negative into something positive and beautiful and that, to me, is a big part  of why I love body mods so much.

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Fore a few more shots, keep on keeping on.

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39 thoughts on “Beauty over harm

  1. itll be interesting to see what the scars turn out like since they’re going through other scars

  2. YAY for Jesse!!

    This has been one of my favourite posts in a while. Not only is the piece gorgeous, but the story is as well. This was wonderful!

  3. This is really beautiful in many ways. The contrast between the old and new scars will be interesting.

  4. hoping we get to see what it looks like healed, whether or not the other scars interfere too badly. This is something I’ve been considering doing for a long time so hopefully it turns out beautifully.

    Congrats on a year Tami

  5. beautifulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

  6. i also want to see how it heals. i’m considering getting a similar scarification over old si scars.

  7. great story, nice work, beautiful young lady…i too would love to see a healed version…

  8. I also have self-injury scars on my arm and I want something very similar, but not covering my old SI scars. I have decided to keep one arm as my “scar arm” and have the other arm to have similar designs tattooed on. The same, but different 🙂

  9. Oh, and congratulations on one year 🙂 Every day, week, month and year is a milestone, and you should be really proud of yourself and your achievements!

  10. Its kinda like a scarification cover-up…though don’t know if it could have been possible to include the old scars in the design.

  11. Ive been thinking of getting a scarification to cover bad SI scars. Im extremely happy for this lady and Id love to see some healed pics. If I DO go ahead with the SI cover up, Ill be sure to submit them here 🙂

  12. wonderful post/idea!

    congrats on the one year, i’ve lost count of how long it’s been for me but i remember all the times i kept tallies and how good it felt to pass a certain milestone =)

  13. Don’t have any experience with self mutilation or depression so it may be a bit presumptuous of me to ask, but if a person like this becomes depressed again in the future, do the ornamental scars help as a reminder not to self harm again?

  14. How wonderful to see something that seems to be resonating positively with so many members of the community 🙂
    This is beautiful, and like everyone else I would be very interested in seeing how it heals!

  15. This is beautiful, and something I was just thinking of as I came across it. I too would love to see updates on this, especially to see it once it is healed, and I am also considering doing the same thing over my scars.

  16. Congratulations on your 1 year! Stay strong! I’ve almost made it a full year.
    I’m obsessed with the texture of scars which makes stopping harder because when the old scars get flat I want to make new ones so I can feel them again.
    I love the idea of scarification and would love one day to try it .

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