Nervous about showing self harm scars on holiday

Hey, I hope it’s ok for me to put this on here. Feel free to delete if not appropriate. I am a 30 y/o woman who has overcome pretty awful mental health problems. I used to self harm in my teens/early 20s and thankfully I have since recovered and no longer use it as a coping mechanism.

However it’s left me with some pretty bad scars. I’ve got a beautiful sunflower cover up tattoo which has helped me to feel a bit more confident wearing short sleeves. My tattoo artist did an amazing job but you can still see the scars through the tattoo as the scars are quite raised and there are a lot of them. I do find it helps to distract the focus from the scars and people usually comment on the tattoo itself. Occasionally someone will ask me about the scars but not very often.

I am going on holiday this week with my partner and his parents to a tropical destination where the temperature will be quite hot. I live in England so I’m really looking forward to feeling the sun on my skin as it’s currently freezing here! But I’m really nervous about how his family will react to my scars/tattoos. I met them earlier in the year when they came to visit and it was super hot in the UK but I hid behind long sleeves because of the fear of being judged. But now I’m going on holiday and want to swim etc I just want to be free and wear cute outfits.

I have a lot of regret about my scars but I recognise that they are battle wounds and now I have overcome a tough period in life. But there’s also some shame in being a black person with self harm scars because I feel like people because I feel mental health is still stigmatised in our community. Sometimes I feel more confident and empowered to wear short sleeves and other times I feel like covering up and hiding my true self from people out of vulnerability. If I could go back in time and not hurt myself I would 1000000% do so but honestly my teenage self didn’t think I’d make it this far in life so for me to still be here today is something to be proud of.

I’m just so worried about what his parents will think because they are of an older generation and are also quite religious. I really don’t want them to look at my scars and think I am crazy or part of a cult or anything like that. I know I am probably overthinking it and I should really have a conversation with my partner about it but honestly I find it hard to talk about this because I carry so much shame about these scars, which is crazy because I don’t feel the same way if I see other people with sh scars too.

I plan on packing a combination of short sleeve and long sleeves for safety. I honestly feel like I am going out of my comfort zone by going on this holiday. I almost backed out of the holiday out of the fear of having to a) have to awkwardly hide behind long sleeves in hot weather or b) be brave and show my scars. I think I’d feel different if we weren’t going with family because I’ve been on holiday on my own before and not really cared.

All I want is to feel comfortable in my own skin! Has anyone else been through something similar? Sorry for the long post but this is the only time I’ve been bottling up my feelings about this for a while.