Good evening!

Since I had to cancel my dressage training this week I decided to go for some aqua exercising instead. It's one of the few forms of exercise I can do without throwing my back out completely. That and regular swimming.

I'm fortunate in the sense that my scars are relatively faded and eight times out of ten nobody bothers me. On the occasions that people do comment and stare I'm nowadays strong enough not to let it get to me. A few years back ( I think i've written about it in another post ) I stopped going to the gym because two women kept staring at me and later asked me to leave. 

Anyway, today there were some kids playing in the pool just before the session was about to start. One of the participants told them to leave but since one of them didn't speak Swedish I translated, telling him that he was welcome back in an hours time. While I was talking to the boy, I noticed how the participant kept looking at me. "Here we go", I thought and sure enough, the kid had no sooner left the pool before she  told me that she thought I was disrespectful for letting my scars show, that I should be more considerate to others. 

What really got to me wasn't the comments in themselves, I'm used to dealing with that. No, what got to me was the fact that not even a year ago, she dropped the exact same comment! I know that I never should have started self harming, but unless someone invents a time machine there's nothing I can do to change the fact. Last time I got so angry at her that I was actually thinking about leaving. This time I looked her straight in the eye and told her that we had already had this discussion once before. I also told her that no matter what she thought I have to same right as her to be there and that she was the one being disrespectful. 

For me, this is a great step forward. Who knows, soon I might even be able to apply for a new membership at the gym.