- I was in a pretty bad car crash when
I was in the fourth grade.
The airbag hit the seatbelt,
the edge of the seatbelt is what sliced into my neck
and I almost died.
(soft music)
- [Voiceover] I was dating someone who had a dog.
We were at her house one night eating fast food.
He had gotten into the bag
and the food was all over the place,
and there was a wrapper just on the floor to my right,
I bent over to pick it up,
the dog attacked my face.
- I was on a training ride with my cycling team,
and we were going pretty fast,
about 30 miles an hour.
Someone hit a pothole and they got through it just fine,
and I hit it and I crashed.
- I have five surgical incisions from when I tore
my ACL and smashed my meniscus
when I was playing soccer six years ago.
- I have a long scar from about between
my shoulder blades down to right at the top
of my butt and the base of my spine,
When I had spinal fusion surgery.
It's also accompanied by four smaller, like,
three inch scars on my side.
- For the following six weeks, I didn't have
skin on large portions of my arms.
- It took a long process of healing and learning
to walk again, with my surgery, and initially
the scars felt really weird and foreign on my body.
- It's hard to explain how
emotionally damaging that is,
to suddenly have a scar on your face.
- And it was a very painful process physically
and mentally to recover from.
(soft music)
- [Voiceover] When I was in middle school,
I was uncomfortable with them,
I was embarassed by them.
There's not a lot in middle school you want
to make you feel different from the other kids.
- I couldn't even look people in the eye
for about two months afterward
because I knew that they were staring at my scar.
- I, sometimes, feel self-conscious about them,
especially when I wear dresses.
- I only wanted to wear long sleeve shirts,
even though it was the summer.
- No, I would never feel self-conscious about my scar.
It's a part of who I am.
- To me, my scar is an important reminder
of how precious life is (uptempo music)
and how lucky I am because I came
really close to dying at a young age.
- To me, they're almost like tattoos,
in that they are moments in life,
and I can remember that specific moment,
like what I was doing and where I was,
by looking at that scar.
- Every morning when I put on my makeup,
and I have to put on makeup over it, to cover it up.
It's a neverending reminder of having a scar on my face.
- I accept this as a part of my personality.
It's who I am.
It's not a deformation.
- They're a symbol that I can tackle
something and get past it.
And they're a part of me, they make me different.
I like my scars.
(uptempo music)
(elevator music)
- [Woman] It's so sad, what's happening over there.
- [Man] Oh yeah. Mmhmm.
Hmm.
You don't know the half of it.
(elevator music)