Self-harm & Tattoos
30 Apr 2012 12 Comments
in Life Events Tags: art, cutting, rite of passage, self harm, self-injury, tattoos, the life of erin, tips, writing
(This post talks about self-injury. Though I never write about what I find to be triggering, I do advise self-harmers to read this post with caution. If it is triggering you, stop reading or sit with someone who helps you feel safe. )
I have a consultation for a new tattoo on Thursday and I’m super excited. This will be my third tattoo. On my left forearm, I have a typewriter with cherry blossoms bursting out of it, designed for me personally by Cassandra Warren. Another of her designs is on my right shoulder: a birdcage with a burst of light coming from within, indicating that the bird has disappeared. My upcoming tattoo is my own design, and it will be the smallest. It has a very special and secret meaning for me. It’s going to be on my left wrist. Maybe I’ll share its meaning with you someday.
As a kid and younger teen, I never ever thought I’d get a tattoo. After I started self-injuring, however, the idea of permanence no longer scared me. One of the reasons I cut myself was to mark myself permanently, to tell my story, the pain of that day or week or moment. I have hundreds of scars and I can still remember the stories behind some of them. If you could wave a magic wand and make all of my scars disappear, I wouldn’t want you to do it. They are part of me and my history. Tattoos cover the scars so they aren’t the first thing people notice, but they don’t erase them. I like that. Getting tattoos marked a new chapter in my life. I chose to love my body instead of hate it.
There are some people who argue that getting tattoos or piercings are a form of self-harm. When it comes down to it, these things do harm the body physically, so the argument is a valid one, but I believe it’s the reasoning behind the acts of “harm” that make body modification different. That said, I know I can handle the pain of a tattoo because of my experience with self-harm. Maybe that’s why tattoos mean so much to me.You can’t separate or define some things. That argument doesn’t matter much to me.
So, my typewriter tattoo spans over 50-100 scars on my one arm. At first when people asked me whether it hurt more to be tattooed over my scars, I couldn’t give them an answer because I only had one tattoo. Now that my shoulder is tattooed, I can say that getting tattooed over my scars didn’t hurt more than getting normal skin tattooed. Most of my scars were at least five years old, however. The minimum healing time before getting a tattoo over a scar is six months so that your skin is properly healed first. I think my scarred skin is tougher than unscarred skin. Overall, your body feels pain differently all over, so it really depends on the location, the detail of the tattoo, and the tattoo artist when it comes to pain.
No one has ever looked at my scars with less judgement than the tattoo artists at True Love Tattoo. It was as if we talked about me getting tattooed over a single scar from an accident. I felt no shame when I saw how little my scars affected those tattoo artists. So my advice is, if you are worried about the reaction you’ll get from tattoo artists when it comes to your scars, DON’T WORRY! These people alter skin for a living. They don’t care why your skin is a certain way, they just want you to love your tattoo(s). They go to tattoo conventions where there are people with the most extreme forms of body modification. Google it! I swear it’ll make you feel like your scars aren’t shameful.
So being a self-injurer made me consider getting tattoos, whereas if I’d never self-harmed I might not have considered tattoos as easily. But now that I have tattoos, I know they are 100% for me. As a writer and artist, symbols mean a lot to me. , but also the work behind writing. to grow out of that typewriter because of the meaning that flower holds and its tie-in with a favourite book of mine. My birdcage tattoo has many meanings that I expect to change as I grow. The tattoo primarily symbolizes escape, but the birdcage can represent so many things.
Take the time to come up with an idea you love. Then find a tattoo artist who is skilled and be prepared to pay them as much as they ask for, plus a tip. It’s worth every penny! They are giving you art that you’ll have the rest of your life.
If you want tattoos but are scared of their permanence and whether you’ll get sick of them, do what I did. I printed out a picture of each of my tattoos and hung it on my wall as I saved up my money. After six months, if you aren’t sick of seeing the design every day, then it’s a safe bet as a tattoo. Also consider getting your tattoo(s) in a spot you can’t see all the time. My shoulder tattoo is more visible to others than to me and so it’s always a delight when I glimpse it in a mirror or in a photograph.
Tattoos celebrate life. They help define who you are without you ever saying a word. They remind you of your beauty. Take the time and then take the risk. Life is worth living, however you do it. Go ahead and do it!
Links of Love
11 Apr 2012 4 Comments
in Fun Tags: art, creativity, frank warren, gaslighting, life direction, links, postsecret, psychology today, self-sabotage, TED, video
So, I’m still feeling sick as hell. Great! Anyway, I haven’t been up to any genius writing these past few days but I have found some great mental health stuff online that’s informative and inspiring. Worth every…click!
First of all, my new awesome friend Claire wrote about Happy Lists after reading my Happy List post from February. Her blog is brand new and I am in love already!
Next, , complete with a list that branches out into several related articles as sub-categories:
Number three reminds me of what I believe to be the original Gaslighting article, A Message to Women from a Man: You Are Not Crazy. If you’re only going to click on one link from this post, the latter is the best. I feel like my entire life is explained by it.
Moving on, TED (my new favourite site) has a brand new video of Frank Warren of PostSecret. It’s phenomenal. Check it out:
Speaking of TED, this is my most favourite talk on there, one that I make sure to rewatch every few weeks. It’s Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of on Nuturing Creativity. It’s a great example of how to weaken your negative self-talk and keep your channels of creativity flowing and open.
*okay, that video isn’t working for some people, so click this link to watch it instead. :)
(If you know me in “real life” I’ve probably talked to you about this. Now you have the link so you have no excuse for not watching it! I’ll be checking. Yeah, you!)
I just learned about assistance dogs for people with seizures. Apparently we emit an odour right before having a seizure and certain dogs can smell it. Once trained, a seizure dog can save lives. HONESTLY, GREATEST THING EVER.
Lastly, read about this . The header photo alone just makes me feel peaceful and wonderful:
Be well!! ♥♥♥
My Art and Writing Published!
28 Jan 2012 8 Comments
in The Big Picture, Uncategorized Tags: art, goals, mindyourmind.ca, the life of erin, writing
Picture an eighteen-year-old me, hiding in the basement of my family’s house. I have magazine clippings surrounding me and a blank piece of black paper on the floor in front of me. I feel overwhelmed, misunderstood, passionate, and angry. I feel smothered and silenced to the point of eruption. I am terrified.
I don’t know what the catalyst was but that day I grew braver in my art. I found an image of a man holding a sign saying, “What am I hiding?” in a magazine. It grabbed my attention and soon I uncovered a blonde girl whose body fit with his sign after I cropped it out. I glued without thinking, letting my heart guide me.
My collage needed something more, but before abandoning it for more materials I turned my piece upside-down on the carpet so no one in my family would see it. Then I flew upstairs, typed out a few phrases that came to mind and printed them out in different fonts. I grabbed a bottle of red acrylic paint and a paintbrush and ran back downstairs.
As the red paint dried I felt that the girl wasn’t as silenced as I felt. I snuck into my dad’s workshop and grabbed his duct tape. A final X over her mouth did the trick. Lastly I added my fingerprints on either side of the girl’s body.
I didn’t even look at my collage for years after doing it. I just added it to my folder of collages and continued creating for no one but myself.
It wasn’t until working with mindyourmind that I showed my art to anyone. They liked my work and have some of it on their website (). I didn’t reveal this piece, however, until the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health contacted mindyourmind in seach of stories from youth growing up in Canada’s mental health system.
I forget which came first, sharing my story with CAMH or sharing my artwork, but before I knew it, Hema Zbogar, the editor of CAMH’s journal, CrossCurrents, was telling me that my art had been chosen for the cover of the upcoming issue on teens transitioning to adulthood. She worked with me on my article as well. For the first time in my life I worked with an editor! It was really awesome. And it was also my first time getting paid for my art and writing, which is a huge milestone for me.
Getting paid was more significant to me than just making money. It was indication that my story is valuable to the world. I could have spent that money on many things but I choose to spend it on something that would give me joy, the complete opposite of my pain. With that money I bought my puppy, Digby.
It’s really hard for me to give myself credit or feel proud of myself, but I’m trying hard to acknowledge this success. It is a small achievement in the grand scheme of things but it’s big in my little life. Most days I feel like I have no clue where I’m headed in life but I can look at the cover of the CrossCurrents latest issue and feel like I’m making a difference. That’s the direction that I want to go.
My First Webcam
22 Oct 2011 7 Comments
in Video Tags: art, collages, iphone, safety, self-esteem, video, youtube
If you’ve been following my twitter you know that I’ve been working on my first webcam for you. After much confusion and shenanigans on my end it is now ready for your viewing. Please forgive how shaky my hands are. I will use a tripod for my next video for sure.
Also, I’ve uploaded a clip from the outtakes. It turns out Windows Live movie maker makes it super easy to flip a video the right side up.
Click “more” below to access links.
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Glue for the Soul
20 Jul 2011 5 Comments
in Day-to-Day Life, Therapy Tags: art, childhood, coping
There is something calming in creating something myself. I make buttons and hair clips, I embroider and decoupage. I paint and art journal and customize everything. I took art in high school but always felt stifled with the amount of rules that were enforced. I never connected with art until I let myself create freely.
Collages were my first medium. My sister and I got into cutting up magazines and decoupaging (collaging over another object like a box) one summer and quickly turned it into a daily ritual. I love taking something like a magazine clipping and reworking it into something else entirely, a new piece of art from my point of view.
When I finished high school I planned to take a year off and during that down time my mom, a talented artist, encouraged me to continue making art. I started looking at art online and saw that a lot of young people were pouring their feelings into their work. When I was feeling very depressed, I secretly and tentatively started pouring my darker feelings into my art. As a result I felt a freedom I had never felt before. It was a new way to communicate what words can’t always capture.
Clothing, Dark and Bright.
06 Jul 2011 2 Comments
in Day-to-Day Life Tags: anxiety, art, art therapy, clothing, coping, growth, school, the life of erin, younger self
The other day I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I completely loved as a younger teenager. Okay maybe I still do love it. Anyway, I was watching it and looking at the styles from 1997 made me giggle but they also made me nostalgic. When I was really into the show I was about fourteen and it was very important to me to wear only what was “cool,” style my hair the right way, and talk as wittily as characters on tv. It was so simple! I just had to pay attention and copy what I saw around me. My parents were pretty cool in letting me wear what I wanted and I loved going out to buy clothes.
Fast forward to age sixteen: I flew across the ocean and live in France for three months. All of my “cool” clothes were so far from what was in over there that I was truly embarrassed. That said, everyone knew I was from Canada so they didn’t judge my wardrobe as harshly as they would have otherwise. By the time I flew home to Canada I had a bunch of cool French clothes to mix into my wardrobe. Unfortunately, my depression really took hold around that time and upon returning to my high school after the exchange, I realized just how small minded everyone around me was. No one understood my new clothes and I could no longer relate to what was “cool” here in Ontario. It seemed so ridiculous to care about what was “cool” when cool changes constantly.
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