What My Scars Taught Me

I used to keep a razor in my bag at work. Not because I needed it for anything normal, but because sometimes the smallest thing — a student talking back, an administrator’s offhand comment, a lesson that fell flat — could split me open inside. I’d excuse myself, lock the bathroom stall, and cut just to make the buzzing in my head quiet down. Then I’d wash my hands, fix my makeup, and walk back into the classroom like nothing happened.

No one ever knew. Or at least, I thought no one knew. Teachers are supposed to be steady. Role models. If you’re falling apart, you do it in private and show up again at 8:00 a.m. with your “professional” face on.

Fast forward years later. I’d made it through the worst of it — not without scars, but with more honesty about what I’d been through. I ended up volunteering in a peer program. It wasn’t about being perfect or having answers; it was about sitting with people in their own mess because I’d sat in mine.

That’s where I met her — a student, younger than I was when I first started teaching. She admitted she was cutting when things felt unbearable. And the second she said it, I felt that old bathroom tile under me again, cold against my back.

But this time, I wasn’t hiding in a stall. I was across from someone who thought they were alone in it, just like I used to think. And I got to say: “I know that place. I’ve been there too.”

Her eyes widened. Not shocked, not judging — just relief. Like maybe she didn’t have to carry it by herself anymore.

In that moment, everything I used to hate about my own story — the shame, the secrecy, the scars — turned into something else. A bridge. A way for me to reach her.

I don’t cut anymore. But I don’t pretend those years didn’t happen. They happened. And now, weirdly enough, they’re the reason I can sit with someone else in their darkest hour and say: You’re not broken. You’re not alone. You’re still here, and that matters.