Pessoas revelam cicatrizes e suas histórias em projeto fotográfico poderoso

Quase todo mundo tem alguma cicatriz, ainda que não seja visível. Mesmo assim, estas marcas na pele são vistas como algo negativo por muita gente e costumam causar vergonha. Agora, um projeto fotográfico promete mostrar o que geralmente é deixado escondido.

O Behind The Scars (“Por trás das cicatrizes”, em inglês) foi idealizado pela fotógrafa londrina Sophie Mayenne. O projeto mostra pessoas e suas cicatrizes, contando a história de cada marca. Ao Bored Panda, a artista revelou que sempre se sentiu atraída por aquelas coisas que fazem de cada pessoa única – e as cicatrizes são exatamente isso.

“‘Behind the Scars é uma celebração da beleza, das imperfeições, das batalhas ganhas e dos obstáculos vencidos. É sobre sobrevivência, viver além disso e capturar memórias“, descreve o site do projeto. Algumas das fotos e resumos das histórias registradas por Sophie podem ser vistas abaixo.

Desde que tenho 18 meses fui diagnosticada com epidermólise bolhosa e até o começo deste ano eu pude viver uma vida quase normal, apesar da minha pele. Era fácil de esconder e de gerenciar. Mas no início deste ano eu comecei a piorar e agora eu consigo fazer menos coisas do que já pude.

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#behindthescars Abi “I was diagnosed with a rare and extremely aggressive form of cancer called Osteosarcoma when I was 27 years old. Doctor’s think that I had the tumour since I was 26. My right arm was aching whilst I was sleeping – everyone I would chop vegetables, and get dressed. I went to see a chiropractor – he moved my arm around and I screamed very loudly. He just said that I had damaged my muscle and said I was very dramatic. Unknown to him, what lay behind my “dramatic” scream was something quite sinister. I was living in South Africa, Cape Town and had recently received my visa to live there. I was working with ant-sex trafficking victims and supporting abused women and children. I had just started helping out at a support group, when one of the girls approached me and said “Hey, you don't know me very well, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve had 3 vivid dreams about you in a row now. In them you come to my house, and when I wake up I feel God’s presence, so I really feel that you need to come to my house.” I’m quite a spiritual person, and had dreams in my childhood that had come true, so I thought I'd go and see her. The day I went to her house she wasn’t actually in. as I was walking out of her courtyard, I had a sense that her dog was going to go for me. The dog looked chilled, so I just shut the gate and as I put my hand through the gate to lock it, I heart the dog bark, and jump up to bite m, so I gently jumped back and my arm completely snapped as I landed. My friend took me to the Doctors. I was sent for a scar and it showed that I had a very clean break. The Doctor’s face dropped when she saw my scan. she booked me in to see another Doctor the next morning. I was in so much pain I didn’t really question why I was seeing another Doctor. When I saw him the following morning he asked me a lot of the typical cancer questions – Have you lost weight, have you passed blood, and so on. He said something had been eroding my bone- my heart was pounding thinking of all the things it could possibly be. He then said those dreaded words that literally took my breath away – you most probably have cancer. Continued in comments

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Jan 5, 2018 at 11:44am PST

Fui diagnosticada com um tipo raro e extremamente agressivo de câncer chamado Osteossarcoma quando tinha 27 anos. Os médicos acham que eu tinha o tumor desde os 26.

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#behindthescars Aimee “In December 2014 I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Later in 2015 I was also diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Both conditions didn’t agree well with my passion for dancing – as my joints and muscles were badly affected. As my condition got worse, my IT band tightened and no longer supported my hip joint properly. Everytime I walked I could easily dislocated my hip as the socket wasn’t closed. Eventually on the 1st February 2017 I had an operation to lengthen the IT band which allowed me to walk and dance again pain free. I have gathered many other scars over the years, including injections – but my hip scar is the one I show with pride!” @imnotaimee

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Jan 2, 2018 at 1:17pm PST

Em dezembro de 2014 eu fui diagnosticada com fibromialgia, uma condição que causa dor crônica. Depois em 2015 em fui diagnosticada com síndrome de fadiga crônica. Ambas condições não combinam bem com minha paixão pela dança – e minhas articulações e músculos foram afetados. À medida que minha condição piorou, meu trato Íliotibial apertou e não suportava mais minha articulação do quadril corretamente. Sempre que eu caminhava, eu podia facilmente deslocar meu quadril. […] Eventualmente em 1º de fevereiro de 2017, eu fiz uma operação que me permitiu caminhar e dançar novamente sem dor.

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#behindthescars Nell “My scars were made whilst I was in a coma for 90 days. The scars on my face, neck and groin are there because I was on life support known as ECMO – my lungs had been devastated by a necrotising pneumonia and they had to stop me breathing – the ECMO oxygenated my blood and kept me alive for 66 days. The other round scars on my body are from chest drains because both my lungs had collapsed and infection and air was trapped in my chest cavity. The scar on my back is from surgery I had because my chest had filled with so much blood that it was impacting my heart. All this began when I went on a school trip to the Ardeche in France. I left on the 26th June with the school and came home on the 24th October. I was in a French hospital in Montpellier, in Intensive care all that time. They never gave up on me and fought with me. My scars are the map of my survival and I’m very proud of them. They give me strength and individuality. It’s very rare for people to survive this infection – and in actual fact I survived two, because after the first pneumonia, I suffered a second infection – hospital born MRSA and went into multiple organ failure. We all fought on. I have a small scar on my throat where I had a tracheostomy – it was strange to have no voice when I woke up, but I wasn’t afraid – I only believed.” @nelly.may.joan

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Dec 27, 2017 at 9:55am PST

Minhas cicatrizes foram feitas enquanto eu estava em coma por 90 dias. As cicatrizes no meu rosto, pescoço e virilha estão lá porque eu sobrevivi com a ajuda de aparelhos – meus pulmões foram devastados por uma complicação decorrente da pneumonia e tiveram que me fazer parar de respirar – os aparelhos oxigenaram meu sangue e me mantiveram viva por 66 dias.

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#behindthescars Tracey “My name’s Tracey. I’m a 45 year old mother of two. In 2012, my GP diagnosed me with a common cold which drastically got worse. I was given cold medication which made me feel awful. I called 999 and someone came out to see me. They said everything was fine. Everything was fine for 40 minutes or so. I asked my daughter to make dinner, and then I went upstairs to lay down – and didn’t wake up. My daughter called 999 and her and my friend Chyle got in an ambulance to Kings College Hospital. When I awoke, I was confused. I did not recognise my daughter or friend. They ran a CT scan and found out I had two types of meningitis. I was put in an induced coma for a month. When I was awoken, I could not speak. My daughter came to see me daily – I could hear her but couldn’t reply which annoyed me. I later found they’d put feeding tubes down my throat – I was told that I kept trying to pull all of the tubes out. I was kept in intensive care for a further two months before having a heart attack. Whilst I had my heart attack, Doctors found a growth on my heart valve and a whole in my heart. They replaced my valve with a titanium one – which ticks like a little clock. After the operation they moved me back to the ICU, but this time I was in an isolated room because of the meningitis and recovery. After a month I was given a tracheostomy which allowed me to talk and communicate with Doctors, nurses and my family. For a while, I couldn’t speak properly and could only manage basic communication and small talk. I found it hard to understand others, but tried through one word answers. In April I was moved to Lewisham hospital’s neuro ward where the Doctors taught me the basics of counting, talking, walking, eating, drinking, washing and dressing. For the first month I could not walk properly so I was given a wheelchair – and then a zimmer frame to walk around the ward called “Frank Cooksey”. The cooks on the ward kept feeding me as I was a size 2-4 at the time – after weeks of walking around the ward, they let me walk around the hospital with family, friends and hospital staff. Story Continued in comments!

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Dec 20, 2017 at 12:57pm PST

Eu pedi para minha filha fazer o jantar e fui me deitar – e não acordei. […] Quando acordei eu estava confusa. Eu não reconhecia minha filha ou minha amiga. Eles descobriram que eu tive dois tipos de meningite e eu fui posta em coma induzido por um mês. Quando acordei, eu não conseguia falar. […] Descobri mais tarde que haviam posto tubos de alimentação em minha garganta.

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#behindthescars Carmela “I have experienced mental health problems since my early teens. I have used unhealthy coping strategies including self harm, but I do not feel ashamed of the marks I have been left with anymore. They are not ugly or beautiful, they are just part of my body and should be able to exist, and move around the world without intrusive stares or questions. I know I have reached my lowest, and I guess my scars are a reminder of that, but they don’t make me feel sad. I don’t think I am damaged, I don’t want people to see me as damaged. I hope to fully recover and live a happy life. One day I want to be a Mum.”

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Dec 12, 2017 at 2:24pm PST

Tenho convivido com problemas psicológicos desde o início da adolescência. Usei estratégias não saudáveis para lidar com isso, incluindo automutilação, mas eu não sinto mais vergonha das marcas que ficaram em mim. Elas não são feias ou bonitas, elas são apenas parte do meu corpo.

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#behindthescars Yasmin “My tumour changed my life in so many ways. A life changing operation to remove the tumour, the size of a grapefruit gave me self acceptance on a level that was truly unconditional. In 2012 I was diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cancer wasn’t an issue, what was was the discovery of a huge tumour. It was benign, but sizeable. Attached to my liver, a bunch of nerves and my main artery to my leg. Five hours of surgery, a deflated hung, my diaphragm put on halt, a bypass with my insides out on a table. My fear going into surgery was the long term affects and how my body would recover. Will my boyfriend still love me, will he still find me attractive, will any man find me acceptable to look at? The truth was, it taught me to love myself hard, without compromise. Inside and out, there was a journey of total acceptance. My amazing body had not failed me yet, so who was I to not love it back for keeping me alive? The message is simple – we are provided with a beautiful vessel to carry our soul. It works so hard to support us daily – the love I have for my body is insurmountable. It allows me to be my glorious self – I am a very lucky girl.” @missyasminibrahim

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Dec 9, 2017 at 5:08am PST

Meu tumor mudou minha vida de tantas maneiras. Uma operação de remoção do tumor, do tamanho de uma toranja, mudou minha vida e me deu autoconfiança em um nível verdadeiramente incondicional.

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#behindthescars Chloe “I started self harming when I was 13 and have struggled with it ever since. The issue with self harming is it gets progressively worse and you end up doing more and more damage to yourself than you think is possible when you first start. It truly is an addiction and you get to a point where surgeons tell you that plastic surgery can’t fix the appearance of the scars, so the only thing you can do is love your scars so much that all the negative connections that come along with self harm slowly disappear – along with all the pain attached to the scars. My scars tell my story, and I’m never going to let anyone else’s thoughts or opinions change that. “ @_chl.o shot on Huawei P10 @huaweimobileuk for @dazed #RevealTheRealYou

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Nov 29, 2017 at 9:14am PST

Eu comecei a me automutilar quando tinha 13 anos e lutei muito desde então. O problema com a automutilação é que ela se torna pior progressivamente e você acaba fazendo mais e mais danos a si mesmo do que imaginou ser possível quando começou.

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#behindthescars Lucia “I was born with five holes in my heart and have been wearing my zipper since I was 2 weeks old. I had my second lot of open heart surgery at 2 years old and my third lot at 26 (6 months ago!) because my heart was too big. Oh the irony of having a big heart – physically and metaphorically! I have truly been on a heart journey my whole life, and my scars are a reminder that I am strong and can do anything. When I was little my parents did the worrying for me, but having my 3rd lot of surgery this year, I have really understood the strength and beauty of my scar. It’s me! To have an open heart is a true gift in life, and I’m lucky enough to have been opened 3 times. I used to not even be able to say the word scar- as if it was something evil and ugly, but now I see it as a beautiful word. The older I get, the more honoured I feel to be a part of the exclusive “zipper club” and yes, as a woman, it has been hard wearing a scar down the middle of my chest, by my breasts. (one of the sexiest parts of your body!) – but the way I see it is that I’m so abstract, Picasso would want to paint me!” @luccidarling

A post shared by SOPHIE MAYANNE (@sophiemayanne) on Oct 15, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT

Nasci com quatro buracos no meu coração e tenho usado meu zíper desde que tenho duas semanas de vida. Tive minha segunda cirurgia no coração aos 2 anos e minha terceira aos 26 (6 meses atrás) porque meu coração era grande demais.

Para acompanhar mais histórias, siga Sophie no Instagram e não deixe de conferir o Tumblr do projeto.