(TW Self harm) Without getting into the nitty gritty, I have struggled with depression my whole life. After being diagnosed at 11 my parents did everything within their power to get me help. Sometime in middle school I found an escape in light self harm, allowed me a place to have control and to feel a pain that was explainable. Through out my early high school career this got more intense until a friend found out and just the idea of someone knowing turned me off to the idea entirely. I stopped and eventually the scars healed and through my early adulthood have completely faded. Although, about four months ago I found myself cutting again for the first time in like five years. This time I have quite a bit more incentive to hurt myself seeing as my mental health has honestly only gotten worse with age. When I turned eighteen my parents checked me into a psych ward for three months and they truly believe I came out a healed individual. I most definitely perfected my mask during my stay and have allowed very little of my struggles to be seen by those around me. The point of this post is with summer around the corner and my family pool, which we all often hang around on summer evenings, there is an impending doom of someday soon my family will see me in a bikini. My scars are exclusively on my hips and thighs, these are bad scars not to romanticize them but they are bad. How do I go about allowing someone to see them? My family will not understand, I am 21 now so they can not lock me up or anything but they have a lot of influence in my life. I’ve thought about this in-depth and to be totally honest I have no clue what to do. If you have any advice at all it is welcomed and greatly appreciated.