Behind-the-Song: If I Showed You My Scars... pt.1 (Patreon)

As you (probably) know, this was the first full-length song I ever wrote. I spent years convinced and adamant that I couldn't write a song to save my life. Certainly not a song people would want to listen to! Truthfully, even after the first 15+ songs, I very much felt like I didn't really write "typical" pop songs. They were still pop, but they didn't sound like anything I listened to. So even after writing a bunch of songs, I still had a hard time reconciling in my brain that people actually liked them and weren't just being polite 😅

I started writing this song about an hour and a half before my first ever charity stream. I was in my first raid train to raise money for the American Suicide Pevention Foundation, and before my stream, I was lurking in the stream before mine and heard something that gave my brain the jumpstart it needed to write a melody. I was suddenly motivated by a desire to write about some of my own experiences with mental health struggles. I wanted to share some of my story for the raid train, but I wasn't comfortable talking about it.

Thus began "If I Showed You My Scars, Would You Still Want to Know Me?"

I never really wanted to be seen / I never really wanted to be heard / 'Cause I'm afraid they'll see what's underneath / I'm afraid they'll see all of my hurt

As I think we all know, I have never been very comfortable with being perceived 😅🫣 I think a lot of that comes from the same things that caused me to be a perfectionist and people pleaser: I'm terrified of disappointing people and I have a deeply engrained belief that if I am not perfect/exactly what people want, I am not good enough. And like...that sets completely unachievable standards, but that's genuinely how I felt for a long time, and am still working on convincing myself isn't true 🙃👍

I wrote this from the perspective (and unfortunately tightly held belief) that if I am perceived as broken; if people see the mess that hides beneath the smile, they'll realize how inadequate I am. If I am broken, I am not worthy. The little rat brain likes to lie 🤷‍♀️

At the time that I wrote this, I still held that belief pretty close to my heart. These days, I am slowly working on letting it go. But because I wasn't at that point yet, sharing this song was probably the scariest thing I had ever done. At least putting it in a song felt easier than talking about it outright 😅

I'm not okay, though I pretend to be / 'Cause I was never really comfortable with my vulnerabilities

It took me almost two full decades to ever really open up to anyone about anything. The first time I really broke down was months into the battle with my gallbladder that ended up being surgically removed. Because to me, it was always easier to grin and bear it, no matter what "it" was, than to risk being perceived as weak or vulnerable...or less than... and unworthy 🙃

I do feel like worrying about being perceived as "weak" is considered more of a male concern. But I always felt like because woman have been socially "allowed" (I hate this phrasing 🙄🤦‍♀️ But for the sake of illustration...) to be emotional, it starts to feel the opposite. Because women are just inherently perceived as weak because they express their emotions...which genuinely is so much harder than just pretending to be fine because like... at the very least, are you not still afraid of being judged? But I digress... because woman are expected to be more emotional, it's easier to assume we're exaggerating. It's easier to dismiss those emotions.

So for me, being a woman made showing emotions seem harder than hiding them. Showing "weakness" was expected. And I was taught I had to be "the best". Which in this case meant pretending I could handle everything on my own always 😅👍