"What's the dumbest way you've gotten a scar?"
Someone's Got Issues...
"My cousin scratched my face because I was very ill and everyone was taking care of me."
"So she got jealous and nobody noticed for a long time because they were focussed on getting my temperature back to normal."- notmytype_xoxo
Partying A Little Too Hard...
"I was headbanging my hair dry in the bathroom, I hit the counter."
"I was 8."- calamityjane515
Tried To Get Ripped, But Only Got Cut...
"I was in middle school and we were going to see 'Coach Carter' in theaters with the boys b-ball team."
"Middle school me was PUMPED."
"While in the shower I thought 'Coach Carter' eh, I bet they do push ups in that movie'."
"Imma do push ups right now'."
"Tried to do a wall push up."
"Slipped, smacked my face on the edge of the tub, and split my upper lip open from mouth to nose."
"Needless to say, did not make it to the movie."- lovesbreadtakesdumpz
Yoga Push Up GIF by YOGABODYGiphyTighter Squeeze Than Anticipated...
"I was trying to squeeze between 2 cars."
"One of the cars must have had a jagged bumper because it sliced a 2 inch gash in my leg."- Carsto_2
The Dangers Of Potty Training
"I got hit on the bridge of my nose by a ceramic toilet seat when I was learning to pee like a big boy."
"Now I think about it, that's probably the best outcome there."- Oddball_bfi
Pain In The Name Of Cleanliness
"I used a pressure washer on my foot."- polish-polisher
Limpeza Faxina GIF by WAPGiphyThey Warn You Not To Play With Needles
"Fir needle cut me across the wrist while playing hide and seek out in the woods."
"A fir needle!"- wunderbraten
Happy Birthday Indeed...
"For my 8th birthday, a classmate got me something like a 'grow your own stalagmite' kit you could buy at educational stores."
"Apparently, the purpose was to add water to some powder material, and use a funnel in the kit to drip it down to make your own cave features."
"Exciting, I know."
"Anyway, I kept it and the other birthday presents I got in a cardboard box in my room."
"Evidently, at some point, moisture got into the box and the plastic the powder was in, and it began expanding."
"Having nowhere else to go, the 'stalagmite' material oozed its way out through the narrow slits in its box, and hardened into razor sharp edges."
"I found this out quite bloodily when I put my hand into my birthday box to grab another toy, and pulled it out with permanently altered fingerprints on my thumb, index, and middle fingers."- Dahhhkness
Good Thing They're Now Mostly Obsolete
"Boys from my class were throwing CDs like you throw frisbee."
"One of those hit me right between the eyes."
"Still got a small scar there."- Domoradzka
cd spinning GIF by Anthony AntonellisGiphyReady Or Not, Here I Come!... Or Not...
"Playing man hunt."
"Some idiot made the camp fire area base."
"I was running for my life to get there, jumped this huge pile of fire wood, tripped over something and rolled right into the fire"
". It could've been SO much worse, but I only burned my elbow and some of my hair."
"It's been probably 15 years and the scar is only about 3inches long and 1 wide."- jwolfe728
Scars are a lingering reminder, often of things we would rather forget.
But seeing as they won't go away anytime soon, all we can do is own them.
For at the end of the day, all scars, be they from fighting in battle or simply falling over your own to feet, should be worn proudly.
It will always be the small things that get you. The more simplicity involved, the higher the level of danger. If only we knew that tying a necktie or gardening in the yard could lead to catastrophe. Although if we're more aware of the world around us, we'd never leave the house. But we should stay vigilant. The following people probably wish they had.
Tied Up
grocery store falling GIFGiphyI couldn't tie my laces as a kid and liked to walk with my hands in my pockets.
This led to me tripping over my laces, no hands to protect and landing face first onto a stone step, the corner of which went right between my eyes, leaving a small scar where my monobrow grows.
Soaked
I was holding a super soaker reservoir bottle underwater at a lake to fill it up. It slipped out of my hand and shot up out of the water, hit me in my lip and split it open all the way through to the other side. Needed stitches inside my mouth and right below my bottom lip. Got a small scar from it.
Bad Veggie
Kid in the church nursery hit me in the eye with a plastic carrot. It was 40 years ago. I've still got a scar.
Damn Corn
I was in a cornfield and grabbed a cob of corn to throw at a friend. The leaf from the corn stalk went between my middle and index fingers as I released the throw and sliced the webbing open deep enough that I could see my tendons. That was 25 years ago and I still have the scar.
I can't do blood; not mine, not yours. If a massive injury befalls you and I'm around... I hope it's a good death. I'll be passed out bleeding from the head, due to my fainting on the floor next to you. The next bunch of people have witnessed or survived a few instances that require a trigger warning. And I hate the word gnarly. It holds too many memories... you'll see.
Stitches Required...
My father fell off his motorbike and went through a bush that contained a barb wire fence. Tore his mouth up pretty bad.
But that's not the story I'm telling. No.
My auntie had knee surgery when I was a toddler and as she was just about able to walk she came over to visit. Toddler me, being a little fool, decided to go over to her with my plastic mallet and bopped her on her knee. My father laughed so hard that his stitches opened. :/.
to be sure...
angry knife GIF by MunchiesGiphySomeone said "that knife is for cutting tape, so it won't cut people" and I checked.
face first...
The headrest of our bed was made of solid wood and had curved edges. It was wide enough for a 2 year old (me) to sit on and I used to love sliding off it. Well one night I sat on it to slide as usual with my legs on either side. My leg on the bed got stuck between the pillows and I fell face first on the floor. Got a cut on my forehead which required 6-7 stitches.
Gnarly Elbows
10 year old me shredded too hard on a razor scooter. I hit a bump going down the steepest hill in my hometown and gave the concrete a pretty good People's Elbow.....still have a 3 inch scar that wraps around my elbow and looks pretty gnarly for a razor scooter accident.
Sometimes we're just lacking in common sense. I have a broken tooth (now mended cosmetically) from the time I decided to swing around a pole like a lasso wrangled by a cowboy, with my eyes closed. I loved the feel of the air refreshing my face. However I wasn't paying attention to the ground beneath me, so when I tripped on my last spin, I smashed my face into said pole. And the rest is horror history. The next few dolts can relate.
Circles
Got a string tied around my ankle to see if it was strong enough to hold me back when I ran.
It was not.
The scar circles my ankle and hasn't changed in 20 years.
Brought him to my mom's place on the coast, and while I brought my own normal-sized leash, my mom had one of those extend-o leashes with a tiny round cord, which I thought might be nice for him to run on the beach.
On the trail back from the beach, we came across someone walking another dog. My dog gets really excited about other dogs, especially now that we're all isolated and crap. In his frenzy he wrapped the leash around my shorts-clad legs and then yanked it tight. The stupid skinny leash worked like a garotte and sliced the mess out of my calf.
A Handout
GiphyI stuck a hand between the gears of my grandmother's sewing machine while it was running.
Ouch!
Scars, like tattoos can be very sexy. However, you don't want too many. So be careful out there. Look both ways at crosswalks, be methodical in action. Literally tripping over a soda can can kill you... true story.
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One Reddit user asked:
What's the dumbest way you've gotten a scar?
And these answers honestly remind me of my brother's little family motto for his four sons. "If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough."
We just ... I ... we have no words. Enjoy the responses.
Friendly Fire
I have a scar on my forearm from a weaponized paper airplane I taped razor blades to and launched with a rubber band.
Sadly, this happened when I was 22, in the Air Force as a 3D0X2. It sliced my forearm open on launch.
I enlisted the help of another member of our shop to help me destroy the evidence and drive me to the base hospital to get stitches.
- vnv_23
Lessons Learned
I was 7, mum said "don't use that knife to cut that orange"
I used that knife to cut that orange.
Things I learned: orange juice in a wound stings - but not as much as the knowledge that you can't go crying to your mum.
Ah yes. I also have a "sliced finger along with orange" scar. I had a strangely lucid moment where I stared at it and thought, "This is going to really hurt in a second."
A second later it started really hurting.
Tough Rubber
I have one on the back of my hand from rubbing the skin off with a pencil eraser longer than the other kid did. I was 13 and did it just to prove I was "tough"
We did this in primary school, i must have been 8 or 9, but we used coins. Every boy and some of the girls had horrific gashes on the backs of our hands. We called it 'chicken scratches'.
I hated it, but at the time it didn't feel like I had a choice!
Family Resemblance
My brother, sister and I all have the same kind of scar in our left eyebrow and got them at the same age. My brother opened an empty dresser drawer and smacked himself in the face, my sister ran into a brick wall and I fell off the couch onto a coffee table.
Coach Carter
I was in middle school and we were going to see Coach Carter in theaters with the boys b-ball team. Middle school me was PUMPED.
While in the shower I thought "Coach Carter eh, I bet they do push ups in that movie. Imma do push ups right now"
Tried to do a wall push up. Slipped, smacked my face on the edge of the tub, and split my upper lip open from mouth to nose. Needless to say, did not make it to the movie.
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Party GIFGiphyFor my 8th birthday, a classmate got me something like a "grow your own stalagmite" kit you could buy at educational stores. Apparently, the purpose was to add water to some powder material, and use a funnel in the kit to drip it down to make your own cave features. Exciting, I know.
Anyway, I kept it and the other birthday presents I got in a cardboard box in my room. Evidently, at some point, moisture got into the box and the plastic the powder was in, and it began expanding. Having nowhere else to go, the "stalagmite" material oozed its way out through the narrow slits in its box, and hardened into razor sharp edges.
I found this out quite bloodily when I put my hand into my birthday box to grab another toy, and pulled it out with permanently altered fingerprints on my thumb, index, and middle fingers.
The Big Boy Potty
I got hit on the bridge of my nose by a ceramic toilet seat when I was learning to pee like a big boy.
I was just learning to wee in the grown up toilet, and I thought I was clever. Went to my grandparents old clanker of a toilet without a step or anything. Tippy-toes to get any sort of bead on the target.
The lid was one of those that you think is going to stay up, but actually needs holding or it falls down. I didn't know this - it fell down.
Now I think about it - that's probably the best outcome there.
Ninja
When I deliberately cut myself.
Not seriously, I just wanted the word "Ninja" on my hand. So I carved it in there. Don't ask me why...
It was a long time ago, so you can't see much anymore. Now there's just one line of the first N.
A Penny Sized Hole
So, I broke my right arm when I was a kid and had a cast put on me.
My skin under that cast was so itchy, its like my skin was alive. After 2 month have passed, I couldn't take it any more and decided to scratch my skin under the cast using a pen.
While doing so, I accidentally put the pen further inside than I could reach. I didn't want to tell my parents since they would be mad. So I ignored it. For 2 months.
When it was time to remove my cast my mom noticed that my arm smelled rotten. When they removed at the hospital, they figured out why. The pen was penetrating my skin for months. The hole was now about the size of a penny and full of pus.
I didn't even feel a thing. The hole eventually became a penny-sized scar in my skin.
The Reason For The Warning Label
Lazy me liked to iron clothes while wearing them when I was twenty years old. Pulled the shirt away from my body and ironed under tension. I failed Haha
My left arm can testify.
So YOU are the reason for that ridiculous warning label! Lol!
You are me. I am you. I have a scar above my crotch from ironing my skirt while wearing it.
Same, I was ironing a T-shirt while wearing it and for some reason my brain didn't equate that steam = scalding hot and I hit the steam button. My stomach can testify.
- lilac925
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A yes, toddlers. AKA, tiny demons.
"I have a scar on my eyebrow from when I was an a**hole 4 year old. I threw a tantrum and tried to pick up a small plastic kids table to throw it over my head. Instead I dropped it, the leg hit me with a sharp broken edge on the eyebrow/eye, I started bleeding, and I had a black eye for Christmas."
"I was a terrible toddler."
What a bad influence.
Giphy"My brother and I were playing WWF in the house (even though we weren't supposed to!). He grabbed the back of my head and slammed my forehead into the "turn buckle" which was the wooden corner of the arm rest on our couch. Blood started running down my face, he ran and hid under his bed. I got 7 stitches in my R eyebrow."
"He didn't mean to hurt me, just got a little too into the game. Lol."
Oof.
"When I was 15 I had keyhole surgery for appendicitis. Three barely noticeable scars, one of which is in my belly button. Unfortunately, something was left inside me and the morning after being discharged I woke with a fist-sized cyst on my abdomen."
"I had gone septic and had to have whatever was left inside of me removed via non-keyhole surgery which left me with a neat straight line scar about 12cm long. Also had to have a drain into my lower abdomen so I've got a big ol' hole about 6cm below my belly button. Unsightly as hell."
That sounds horrifying.
"I have a big scar down the center of my chest, and 2 little "star scars" right under it."
"I had just turned 3 and I was at my grandparents' house with my family. My older cousin was spinning me around in a swivel chair. I fell off of the chair and landed on my side, on top of my grandmother's knitting stuff that was sitting in a basket by the chair. A knitting needle went through my side and pierced my heart. My aunt thought the needle was just caught in my shirt, and ripped it out of me. I went unconscious almost immediately. By time I got to the hospital, I had lost a lot of blood and the doctors basically told my parents to prepare for the worst. Luckily, there was a badass heart surgeon there that performed emergency open heart surgery and saved my life! The star scars are from feeding tubes that were hooked up to me post surgery."
"Very thankful!!"
Cat scratch fever, what does that mean?
Giphy"I have a pretty noticeable scar on the right side of my neck that often gets mistaken for a really bad hickey. The story I tell everyone because I'm sick of explaining is that I was stabbed in the neck with a knife. The real story is that when I was 5, I had been scratched in my eye from one of our house cats while I was asleep. The scratch had infected lymph nodes in my neck, causing it to become extremely swollen, where it was difficult for me to even breathe."
"Doctors were baffled by what it was, where I spent several weeks/months in and out of the hospital. They speculated it was lymphoma at the time. I had my neck drained from the fluid from massive syringes that I still have nightmares over, and also have a paralyzing fear of needles."
"The scar ultimately came from me undergoing 3 separate surgeries where they removed infected lymph nodes from my neck, and late discovered I suffered from a very severe case of cat scratch fever. Yes it's a Ted Nugent song, and yes it also my anthem."
That's kind of bad*ss.
"I got shot in the face during a car-jacking. Bullet went in about an inch in front of my ear, through my cheekbone, through my sinus and maxilla bone, then hit the mass of bone in the roof of my mouth and stopped. The ballistic energy from the round caused it to blow about a 50 cent piece coin-sized hole through the roof of my mouth, and a combination of the blood pouring out and gravity caused the bullet to fall into my mouth from where it came to a stop in the bone right above it."
"I ended up spitting it out on the ground thinking it was a tooth. Didn't realize it was the bullet until a doctor at the hospital told me it wasn't a tooth I spit out because I didn't lose any teeth. Wish I had that bullet now though tbh."
IspitoutabulletonceBad pupper.
"I got windmilled by a panicking shiba inu before I could clip her nails."
"I've worked with perhaps dozens of pitbulls, and my one dog-related scar came from a shiba inu small enough to be carried with one arm."
"I've forgiven her, though. She's a sweetheart in her own way (shiba inu can be like the weird antisocial cats of the dog world), except when it's time to clip nails or have a bath."
Bad kitty.
Giphy"I was forced to be in a room full of people and clutching my cat for comfort. What I forgot was that my cat also has social anxiety and she bolted from my arms. Caught her back claws down my chest."
"It was two years ago and I still have a long scar (it's a good four or five inches) running from my collarbone halfway down my breast."
Sweet little Axl.
"My favorite one is from my husband's cat."
"My husband (we were only dating at the time) and I had just moved in together a couple of days prior and he warned me that his cat was going to be difficult. He was right. I had burnt the piss out of myself making dinner the night before and had a blister on the side of my hand, near my wrist."
"The cat, who I'll call Axl, was being sweet and rubbing up against me while I sat on the floor getting ready to put my clean, folded laundry away. Axl had not even so much as acknowledged me in the two days we had lived together, so I was happy at the sudden attention. I decided to take a picture to send to my husband and got up to grab my phone."
"I was petting Axl and took a couple of pictures when he presented his belly to me. In cat speak, that means he feels comfortable enough to be vulnerable around you. Only this was a trap and as I went to pet the belly, I was immediately caught in the Feline Four Claw Death Trap. As I attempted to free my hand, Axl decided it was time for a full attack and he ripped open my freshly burnt skin."
"As an added bonus, during the time I was gone in order to clean the wound and stop the bleeding, Axl pissed on all of my clean, folded laundry. He also pissed on my dirty laundry and all further laundry he found that didn't smell of my husband for the first week and a half we lived together."
"Less than a year later he passed away. I was the only one with him and I stayed with him as he drew his last breath. He had eventually come around and would often cuddle with me rather than my husband. I miss that cat. I'm crying now just thinking about him. I'm happy to have a reminder of him permanently on my body."
It can be a hard thing to quit.
"Probably a darker answer than OP was expecting/looking for, but I have quite a few self-harm scars."
"I'm two months clean. Almost three. Not that long in most people's eyes, but to me it's one of my biggest accomplishments yet. It had gotten to the point where I would hide razor blades in my phone case and cut myself in public bathrooms if something happened. My thighs, legs, arms, and stomach are covered in scars of various sizes."
"I think what hurts the most is looking at certain ones and remembering the painful event that triggered me to cut myself in the first place. I have a scar that says "dad" carved in my left arm and some pretty deep marks that are actually from scratching myself on my left shin/closer to my ankle after a friend back-stabbed me."
"So, yeah. I'm recovering now and hopefully this helps someone out there know that they can do it too."
This are some harrowing stories!
Do you have similar scar stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/