Mental Healing

After each shunt surgery, there has been a bit of mental healing that needed to happen. My memory turns to mush, & I have to re-learn names, places, directions... This time, with four new incisions, I am also dealing with struggling with how I view myself. It sounds vain, but it has been trained, engraved in my mind by years of comments and remarks from others.

These comments and remarks are what led me to not talk about hydrocephalus, even try to hide everything that makes me different... for years. In school, I was the freak, the outcast. As an adult, each revision has been followed by people being "uncomfortable" with seeing my scars. Last night, I saw my collection of scars in the mirror, all at once for the first time. I saw myself through those other people's eyes, & called out to my husband that "I look like 'Frankenstein's monster'." He answered with humor. I know he doesn't see me the way I see myself. I know he loves me. It will take me time, but eventually, I will see myself the way my husband sees me: beautiful, & the way God sees me: Fearfully and wonderfully made.