#queer tattoos | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

creatur3creati0ns · 8 months

Text

My History with Self Harm and Self Tattooing

I think it goes without saying that this will be discussing both tattooing and self harm, so if that’s something you don’t want to read about, here’s your trigger warning. I won’t be getting into explicit descriptions about self harm but for the sake of the story I will be mentioning the main form of self harm I used to engage in, which is cutting. I myself can not read, hear, or watch any media that shows or describes cutting, and even writing or saying the world evokes a very bad physical reaction in me so trust me when I say I will try to tell this as best I can while attempting not to trigger anyone, especially myself. But I will be talking about it, maybe more than you’re comfortable with, so do be careful if needed. There will also be mentions of suicidal ideation, mental illness, and the struggles that come along with those, as well as brief mentions of childhood abuse and trauma. No specifics, but the acknowledgment of them. I also show a picture where I have mild hives on my skin, in the “My History with Tattooing” section, and I do warn before I show you. I briefly mention sexual themes, as well as BDSM.

My History with Self Harm

I started self harming around 13 years old, after I was in a car accident that gave me a traumatic brain injury and triggered a myriad of mental illnesses including social anxiety, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depersonalization/derealization. Along with this I was dealing with abuse from my parents and pressures around school. Everything accumulated in panic attacks and general feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. That brought on heavy thoughts of suicidal ideation. I did not have any control in my life, especially over what happened to my own body. The way that I regained a bit of control was by self harming. My usual go-to was cutting. This also helped with my dissociation disorder, because it was a very grounding experience that brought me back into reality and my body. I had a whole ritual surrounding it, and it was something that I did very often and was the main coping mechanism I used at the first sign of trouble. It got to the point where I would even do it at school, under my desk or hidden in the office.

When I started getting help for my struggles, one suggestion I found online to help with self harm urges was to draw on myself. This was something that I connected with instantly. Very quickly I found myself spending at least an hour each night drawing on the places I wanted to self harm. I would spend time each morning refreshing the drawings that might have smudged at night, and redrawing them after a shower. My marker of choice was any Sharpie, and I still have a very large collection of them. Black was my usual go to, and I had a black Sharpie on me at all times. Usually two, one with a pointed tip for details and one with a rounded tip for thicker lines or coloring things in. I tried different brands of skin safe markers and I did like them, but they didn’t last as long and they were expensive. At some point I was obsessed with “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers” and I still have two packages of those. I loved experimenting with different markers and I still do, but now it’s mainly for drawing or coloring on paper. I also experimented with different ways to make the drawings last longer, like covering them with baby powder and hairspray. I would draw on myself any chance I would get, and would always spend the car ride to school doing it.

Pictured above was the first photo I have of a drawing I did on myself. I’m using Snapchat screenshot for most of the pictures in this post because it has the date there. These were done with the good ol’ Mr. Sketch, and I specifically remember I would only listen to Emma Chamberlain’s “spring 2018” playlist while doing this in my mother’s bedroom. She has since changed the playlist name and added songs I never listened to, but the first 16 or so songs were the ones I would listen to every night for a few weeks. Why I was in my mother’s bedroom is also a long story, but when I was dealing with my suicidal ideation I was not allowed to sleep in a room by myself for around two years. During this time I had to sleep in her room, in her bed. About an hour before bed I would be able to have the room to myself to draw.

I was never much of an artist before I started doing this, so most of the things I did at the beginning of my skin drawing journey were doodles I thought of or simple designs I saw on Pinterest.

At some point I graduated from drawing only on my inner forearms and outer thighs to my hands and fingers and all over my legs and pretty much anywhere I could reach. I got pretty good at drawing with my non-dominant hand so that my right hand and arm was covered in marker as well. Here I was still doing some Pinterest drawings.

Those triangles on my left knee in the picture above was something I would do a lot. It was the first “design” I ever created myself, and was definitely the easiest to do. You can see X’s on my hand here, which is something I started to do a bit before this picture, like this. Easier to do with my non-dominant hand.

One of my favorite things to doodle were triangles, like the ones seen here.

I started getting a little funky with my triangles.

One of my favorite things to do after a few years was to black out my knuckles with boxes.

In my spare time I would look at other people’s tattoos online and try to imitate them on my own skin.

I started to like blacked out shapes. Try to get as much color on my body as possible.

That turned into blacking out a portion of my arm.

Or even blacking out my whole arm.

I even drew on my neck and face.

Funnily enough, I ended up getting my first piercing there, an eyebrow piercing.

Some extras I like:

Little hint of a blacked out arm there.

My mother wasn’t a fan of any of this at first until I told her it helped with my self harm urges. Of course it didn’t completely stop my self harming, but it definitely lessened how much I did it. She would often gift me markers for holidays, or even just on random days when she was at the store and found something that I might like. That’s what happened with the “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers.” If you read my “The First 20 Years” post, you know I have a lot of complicated feelings about my mother. She was heavily abusive and our relationship suffered because of it . But as every other human being on the planet, she had her good moments and there were things she was good at as a parent. She would stand up for me when others made negative comments about my drawings. My grandmother didn’t like the fact that I had Sharpie all over my hands, but the only time I heard her bring it up to my mother, my mother said that it really helped me and that it was important. The next day my grandmother complimented some of my drawings, and a few months later when a friend of hers was visiting, she pointed it out to her friend and mentioned that she thought I was getting good at it. My grandmother was also very abusive and a decently bad person, but again. People are not only one thing blah blah.

Once I was at a doctor’s appointment and had heavy black drawings all over my hands and a nurse asked if they were tattoos. I was maybe 16 at the time, and I told her no, it was just marker. She went on to say that that was good, because tattoos are bad and unprofessional and will kill your chance at being successful and I should especially not have them so young. I nodded along silently and then left to have a panic attack in the bathroom, and texted my mother telling her what happened because I didn’t know what else to do. It might seem like an extreme reaction, but in general I hated confrontation and any time any adult showed even an ounce of disappointment or anger over something I did or even just who I was, it destroyed me. My mother ended up calling the office to explain the importance of my drawings (this office already knew in depth about my self harm and mental health issues, as it was a small medical practice and my mother loved to talk) and say that what the nurse said was upsetting and inappropriate. A few minutes later the nurse came back into the exam room to apologize very sincerely and give me a hug, which was appreciated but also very awkward considering I thought it looked like I called my mommy to complain about the mean nurse to get her in trouble.

In October of 2020 I started taking drawing a little more seriously, and finally found my style. I was always doodling, literally any chance I could get. Every page in my school notebooks were filled with triangles and lines and dots. There was a drawing on some part of my body at all times. I found this artist, ihategreeneggs on Instagram and wanted to try my own version of something he did. This was his drawing that inspired me.

And this is what I ended up doing. My very first drawings of what would eventually become my style.

Here I drew my mushroom guy (who is my favorite, now) on my arm. A little hard to see but you get the picture. I plan on getting him tattooed on me for real. Probably by someone else, just so it’s as good as it can be.

I realized after a few years that I enjoy having marks on my skin. Whether it was self harm, Sharpies, scars, random scratches, or even hickeys and impact play marks later on in my life, any time I could see something on my skin out of the corner of my eye or in the mirror it would make me happy and present in myself. I’m still not totally sure why, but I think it has something to do with “my skin has changed or looks different than when I was born and that is proof that I am real.” This is still something I feel now, but I have developed healthier ways of getting those marks on my skin.

My History with Tattoos

I was around tattoos at a very young age. My dad has several pretty old tattoos, and two of them were decent sized pieces on both forearms. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I’m near positive that one was a traditional full body tiger, and the other was a traditional scorpion. He had some other ones on his shoulder and his chest. He has my mother’s name in a red heart. My mother’s only tattoo is a giant rose on her ass that spells my father’s name in the leaves. Yes, they are divorced.

My mother said early on in my life that she did not want me or my sister to get any tattoos or facial piercings. If we did get tattoos, they needed to be very easily hidden. When I was younger, I didn’t really have a desire for tattoos or piercings. I thought they were cool, but not for me. I did want to dye my hair, though, and my mother refused to let us do that either. As I entered middle school, I was exposed to emo culture, as are most young queer kids, and then I did want tattoos and piercings. I knew that as soon as I turned 18, I was gonna spend that day getting piercings and tattoos and dyeing my hair. That’s not what I did during my birthday, but a couple months after turning 18 I got my first facial piercing, and a couple months after that I ordered my first hand poke kit. At least I dyed my hair immediately.

If you’re familiar with tattoos, you know that hand poked tattoos are usually called stick and pokes. I personally say hand poke because of the stigma around “stick n pokes” and the fact that I did mine with an actual tattoo needle and tattoo ink, as opposed to the sewing needle and pen ink that most people think of when you say stick and poke. Nothing wrong with that, I personally am of the opinion that you can do whatever the hell you want with your body as long as you’re still advocating for others to do it as safely as they can. A lot of the tattoo artists I was learning from called it hand poked, or even hand pushed, and it stuck for me. I don’t care what others call it, but I think hand poked sounds cute and is more fitting for my personal process.

I had been learning about the tattooing process for years, but in the months following my 18th birthday I started learning more about the hand poke process as opposed to machine done tattoos. I saw hand poke as more approachable and accessible. I had known for years that some day I wanted to be a tattoo artist. After drawing on myself for years, developing my style, and drawing on anyone who would let me, I wanted to be able to do it permanently. I love the idea of providing people with little friends on their body that go with them everywhere. That’s exactly what I want in life! And I like creating, it’s the best thing for me to do.

I really wanted tattoos and the easiest way was for me to do it myself. I was a few hours away from my parents, in my own room I was paying rent for, with my partner and close friend in the rooms across the hall. I finally felt safe and grounded. I had my own space and I had the freedom to do what I wanted. Now was as good a time as any to try hand poke out.

I had decided that I wanted my first tattoo to be meaningful to me, and I didn’t care if the rest I got were. “Firsts” have always been important for me in my life. In September of 2021, I decided to tattoo “LET GO” on the top right of my right thigh, the words facing me. This, of course, has absolutely no meaning to me now, but at the time I thought this was a good reminder. I think it came out pretty damn good considering it was my first ever tattoo on skin.

My second tattoo was a creature I drew a long while ago, and I did it on the top right of my left shin, right below the knee. This was a horrible and painful decision, especially for my second tattoo ever. I did this tattoo the same day I did my first one, because the first one was so quick to do.

A little over a week later, I did my next tattoos. My third and fourth tattoos were also done the same day. An “X” on my left middle finger knuckle, something I’ve wanted for a while, and a little smiley face on the second knuckle of my left pointer finger.

I don’t know for sure why I did that fourth one, as I was never a huge fan of smiley faces. I just think I wanted another finger tattoo while I had the supplies out. I regretted it pretty quickly, but the very next day my sister came to visit me in the new city I moved to and she was wearing a smiley face ring on the same finger I had my tattoo on. So it was very much worth it for the sweet memory.

A little less than a week after those, I did a pretty ambitious tattoo, my fifth. About a four inch by four inch snail I drew with some of my signature, uh, squiggles? I don’t know what these are but I’ve been doing them forever. The ones I currently do in my drawings are a bit different, but this was an old drawing when I first started out with this style. Either way, it was a lot more than I could handle. I wanted the squiggles colored in and I had only done one pass through the whole thing, but I had already spent hours on it and I didn’t want to overwork my skin, so I decided to stop for the day and do it again after it healed. Long story story I developed chronic hives after this tattoo (not related) so it was left unfinished for a while. “A while” being two years. More about those hives in my “The First 20 Years” post if you’re interested. This is the only pic I have of that tattoo, so if looking at hives freaks you out, keep in mind I have mild hives in this picture.

I did a lot of research before tattooing myself. I bought a kit from a website that wasn’t Amazon, and I practiced on a lot of fake skin. I watched a lot of YouTube and Instagram videos by hand poke tattoo artists and read many articles. Yet when I did the tattoos, I still fucked up. It’s in the nature of the practice, when you’re first starting out. I was happy with what I did, though, and I was safe doing it, so that’s all that mattered. About a year passed by, and they faded pretty badly. The ink the kit came with wasn’t the greatest, and I definitely poked too shallow out of fear. I had a friend who expressed interest in stick and poke, and since I had a lot of supplies, I invited them over to use some and pretty much showed them how to hand poke. I wasn’t the best teacher considering the last time I had done it I barely knew what I was doing, but they knew it wasn’t going to turn out perfect and didn’t mind. I touched up my X on my middle finger while they did a smiley face on their middle finger. I just checked in with them a couple days ago, and about a year later, it still looks pretty good. Still quite dark, so clearly they poked deep enough. This time after my tattoo I actually did aftercare and treated it well. It was a good experience. We watched Adventure Time while doing it, and it’s a great memory for me. I think that’s what tattooing should be all about.

Why I’m Even Writing This

Last week, I was having a hard day. I was deep in relationship problems that I thought was going to end it, and leave me having to move two hours away from the city I call home, to move into my sister’s apartment with her and her boyfriend. That is, of course, better than being unhoused, but there were a number of reasons why this would be my last option. There were also a number of reasons why me being unhoused was a very real worry at the time if my relationship ended. This isn’t about that, though, so I digress.

The night prior, right as the relationship problem started, I had reached out to a friend to come pick me up and take me to their place. I can’t drive and I needed to get out of the apartment for a bit. We weren’t that close, never hung out outside of a group, but they were my only friend who lived near me and had their own place. We ended up talking about what was happening in my relationship, and as five hours passed, we talked about other things as well. Tattoos got brought up, as they inevitably do when I’m talking to, well, pretty much anyone.

This friend had a few tattoos on their arms. They had a stick and poke done with a sewing needle and pen ink that a friend did years and years ago, and a professionally done stick and poke with incredible detail. I say stick and poke because that’s the word they used. This is the first friend I have that has both hand poked tattoos and machine done tattoos, so I was pretty excited to ask about the difference, specifically with the pain. I don’t remember much of what they said because it was a week ago at this point and I had a lot on my mind, but some key things they said was that the hand poked ones hurt a lot less, and the machine done ones ended up feeling numb after a while because of all the buzzing.

I mentioned that eventually I want to be a tattoo artist, and it felt like they lit up. They said that they thought I would be a good one. I honestly think I give off tattoo artist wannabe vibes so it was very nice to hear someone else say it would fit me well. I said that I haven’t tattooed myself in a long time, at least a year at that point. I told them that what they said made me want to start up again, and now was as good a time as any considering I’m unemployed and quite literally have nothing better to do. Not to mention I really needed the distraction at the time. I said that I would spend the next day practicing or maybe even touching up one of my old tattoos that you can barely see now that it’s been two years since I’ve done them.

Without going into too much detail, the next day after talking with my friend, things got unimaginably worse. This was last Friday. I was experiencing thoughts of wanting to self harm, which was something that I hadn’t experienced in at least a month. The emotions I was feeling at the time were overwhelming. They were the kind of feelings that I knew self harm would immediately fix. Put me in control when I thought my whole existence was coming to an end. I thought that I had made my mind up while I was sitting in the bathroom having my second panic attack of the day. I don’t know what stopped me from doing it. Maybe it was because I was thinking about the therapy session I had that morning before everything went to shit. I had told my therapist that I was going to spend the day practicing tattooing while waiting for the inevitable conversation my partner and I would have to have. I didn’t expect the conversation to come so quickly after my session ended, which is one of the reasons I had such an extreme reaction. I guess I decided to go through with what I told her I was going to do, but now the urge had moved to tattooing myself instead of fake skin. Practice is practice, I suppose.

I got out my supplies and set everything up and decided to basically re-poke my second tattoo that was on my shin. I spent a few hours doing it while watching House M.D. and it made everything a lot better. Afterwards, I was writing everything that had happened the previous few days down for my next therapy appointment. I realized I had “urge to self harm” and “tattooed myself” in the same sentence. I was worried that it would come across like I had exchanged the razor for a tattoo needle in a way to cause myself harm. I decided to spend some time thinking about the difference in self tattooing and self harming for me and if they were related.

I looked online to see if people had written about a connection between self harm and tattoos. I wanted to hear others' thoughts, especially people in the mental health field. I, of course, found some people saying that body modifications were an extreme form of self harm or that body modifications were only done by people who were mentally ill. That’s definitely not what I was looking for. I found this article, though, which interested me. I decided to sit down and write through the process and intent of my self harm vs. my tattooing, and what the similarities were, if any.

The Difference Between My Self Harm and My Self Tattooing

I went through the feelings I have before, during, right after, and the following days after I self harm or tattoo.

Before I self harm, I look forward to it. I’m clear headed, sure, and confident. During it, my thoughts start to devolve. I get a little panicky and shaky, and no longer feel clear headed or confident. I try to make it quick. I do it without looking, and as fast and as much as possible. If it’s an especially painful one I pause for a second or so, usually let out a curse and try to calm myself with some quick rocking back and forth, then go back in before I lose my nerve and can’t continue any longer. Right after, I feel a lot of relief, and am nervous but smiley. Not happy, but I smile pretty much immediately. It’s not because I find it funny, either, but it has to do with the immense relief. I feel grounded again. I get rid of everything quickly, never clean myself up, and immediately go do something else. Then comes the shame. I used to be the kind of person to track my “clean” days, so every time I relapsed, there was deep sadness and frustration when it finally sinks in what I had done. The following days after I self harm, I will hit or slap the harmed area quickly when I experience something triggering or upsetting in any way. A hit of pain helps ground me and make me feel more in control, and reminds me of what I did to gain control. After a few days I can finally look at the area I harmed, and I look at it closely, running my fingers over it, and bringing it up to my face so it’s the only thing I can see and focus on. Self harm helps me in the moment, but immediately afterwards I feel so much worse. The days following, it helps me through other triggers, but instead of using my healthly coping mechanisms, I automatically re-injure myself.

Before I tattoo, I’m anxious but excited and prepared. During it, I am slow and careful and will look at the area I’m tattooing closely, taking my time with the piece until I feel like I’m done. I pause for a bit if there’s a lot of pain, and let myself take a rest and come back to it in a while if I need to. Right after, I’m happy and proud. I’m still learning tattooing, so it can be quite a hard and long process, but that just makes me more proud of myself for being able to do it. My focus is then on carefully wrapping up the tattoo and taking care of it, and then slowly putting everything away, being mindful of not hitting my tattoo accidentally. I spend time afterwards looking at it and appreciating my work. The following days after I tattoo myself, I am careful to not touch it, hit it, or scrape it. I leave the second skin on for a while, looking at it every so often, which makes me happy. After the second skin is off, I spend time taking care of it using tattoo ointment, then moisturizing when it’s ready, and am careful to not have any rough contact with it.

I realized that I don’t tattoo for the pain, but for the closeness it brings to my body. Tattooing myself is very grounding. I have to listen to my body and be aware of where my hand is and where I’m tattooing, how I’m stretching the skin, where the needle is going. It’s a ritual of caring for my body, in addition to putting something that makes me happy on my body using my own hand. The pain is just a byproduct of the tattoo, while the pain of self harm is one of the only things that matters.

Using Self Tattooing as a Substitute for Self Harm

The next morning when I had my therapy session, I brought this all up to my therapist. She made some great points that made me feel more secure in how I was feeling. She said that tattooing myself was a substitute for self harm. Pain is just a sensation, and it’s something that’s okay to endure or even seek out. Tattooing myself is a creative and regulated pain that doesn’t put me in harm's way or make me unsafe. Just because there is pain in an activity, doesn’t mean it’s a form of self harm. I have five facial piercings, which all hurt to get, but the purpose of getting them was to have cool metal in my face, which then connects me more to my body. Even people who do things like body suspension do it for reasons other than the pain. And if pain is the main reason why you’re doing something, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Speaking as a masochist and a sadist, pain can be enjoyable in many different ways. There’s a difference between self harm and being hurt. Safety has a big part to play in it, as does listening to your body when it tells you to stop.

Because I wanted marks on my skin at all times, I would self harm constantly. With a tattoo, it’s a one and done deal. I do it and then it’s there forever. There’s no need to constantly keep it up, causing more pain and injury each time. The fact that I designed my tattoos myself aids in the grounding and “I am real” feeling that skin drawings have given me in my life. When I tattoo I am clear headed and not overly emotional. When self harming, I am very vulnerable and on edge. Each time I leave a mark it's different than the last, and I couldn’t care less about how deep I’m going. It’s a very dangerous process that I would do very often. I stopped tracking my clean days, but I know it’s been a while since I self harmed. Having tattoos to look at instead makes me a lot happier.

Closing Thoughts

As of writing this, I re-poked my shin tattoo nine days ago.

I redid my thigh tattoo two days ago, using my tattoo machine for the first time. My partner bought me my machine for our one year anniversary in October of 2021, and I’ve practiced with it a few times. I definitely should have done more research considering most of my tattoo knowledge came through hand poke and my previous knowledge of machine tattooing is quite a few years old and I don’t remember some of it. I had to look up a few things. I spent around three hours on it, but mostly because I took 10 minute breaks very frequently. I’m going to be honest, machine tattooing sucked. I felt I had less control and it was so so so much more painful than handpoke. I definitely want to make a different post talking about my experience with hand poke vs machine. I think I’m going to stick with hand poke for the most part. But long story short, I stopped halfway-ish through because I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and I was having trouble with the needle I was using. Fucking magnums. I’m going to let it heal and then handpoke the snail and finish the squiggles with, unfortunately, my tattoo machine.

Art has been incredibly beneficial to me for a large portion of my life. It has helped me through very rough times. Even now, when something has happened and my nervous system is dysregulated, I end up grabbing my iPad and making some vent art. It instantly makes me feel better and provides an outlet for anger, sadness, and any other emotion I might have. It also helps me to process my feelings. Art and body modifications are one of the most important things in my life, and they both have helped me to connect with myself, in general and also in my trans identity. I’m going to be saying this phrase a lot, as you have seen so far, so get ready; this is something that I want to write about more in depth at some point.

I’d say that’s all. This only took, I don’t know, a little less than a week to write. Finding the pictures and placing them here correctly was the hardest part. So far the two things I have written have been very long, a little over 5,000 words. Hopefully soon I can write something a bit more simple. And hopefully soon I can figure out how to end something without outright saying “the end.” Anyway. Thanks for reading!

The End :D

#trans #queer #body mods #body modifications #tattoos #piercings #personal essay #tw: self harm #self harm and tattoos #self harm and body mods #personal writing #queer body mods #queer tattoos

1 note · View note