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!
I Miss You
11 Mar 2012 5 Comments
in Emergency, Life Events Tags: loss, pets, psychiatry, stress, the life of erin, writing
I must admit that things are pretty crappy right now. I can count my current woes on my fingers but I still feel some secret hope that I can’t quite identify. Perhaps it is spring. Today we’re back into daylight savings time, thank God. That is a sure sign of spring, isn’t it? It’s something we can trust.
I keep waiting to feel stronger before posting here so that I can bring more good to the world and feel sure of it. Deep down, however, I know that writing itself helps me feel stronger. So here I am, writing.
My psychiatrist keeps asking me about my plans for the future and I feel like yelling at him. I feel like he should know me better than to ask me that. I feel like my life is one big ball of unpredictability, and planning for the future is like planning to win the lottery.
One of my family’s cats died a week ago yesterday. He was fourteen and had a good life but his death caught my family by surprise. Oliver was such happy and healthy kitty that we expected to have for a few more years at least. It prompted the unofficial silence on my blog. Death humbles us all, makes us feel powerless.
Two nights ago I crashed into my dresser in my sleep. Yes, I was sleep walking, something I thought I’d stopped doing since being put on sleep medication years ago. I know I was sleep walking because I didn’t have a clue that I was even out of bed until I was on the floor, my kneecaps and my forehead throbbing with pain, blood gushing from my forehead. I stumbled around in the dark, all over the apartment, until finally grabbing a rag and making my way into the bathroom to see the damage done. I kind of screamed when I saw what I did to my head and then shortly after I started laughing.
The next morning I was pissed because I needed to get stitches instead of heading right to the Indie Media Fair as planned, to sell my buttons and zines. I didn’t have to wait long at the hospital, however, and so I did end up making it to the craft sale after I put stickers of a pug, scissors, and a cat on my forehead bandage.
I haven’t been to the hospital for something non-mental health related since I was five years old and sprained my arm. It’s a relief to be shame free when I talk about getting stitches. Imagine that! Well, I am a little ashamed because it was a really stupid accident but my ego isn’t too damaged. That said, I can’t help but feel like my sleep walking was somewhat related to my mental health and stress levels. Friday was a stressful day with therapy and last-minute craft show preparation. I am thankful, however, that I didn’t hurt myself any worse. A few inches lower and I could have lost my eye. I’m going to have an ugly scar but I can handle looking a little tougher.
I have a lot more to tell you about. Hopefully this post will break my silence and get my words flowing again. I miss you a lot.
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.
Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 3 – I Have No Gift to Bring
26 Dec 2011 12 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: coping, death, stigma, twelve days of christmas, writing
Welcome to day three of Daisies and Bruises’ Twelve Days of Christmas! Having fun yet?!
No, I’m not really having fun yet either, but thanks for coming back nonetheless. In fact, with the exception of some puggy/puppy goodness and some freebies here and there, this blog isn’t ever going to be about fun. Plus, it’s difficult to depict depression as it truly is without depressing people so much that they don’t want to revisit my blog.
My dad commented on how “heavy” my recent post, The Saddest of the Sad, is and it got under my skin. I think my Twelve Days of Christmas is a subconscious attempt to give you something to make up for my depression. That’s pretty backwards considering that my blog is about depression! I need to own up to the fact that sad things can make people uncomfortable. I don’t think that post of mine was especially depressing. Sometimes I wonder what people think depression is if it’s not painful.
Anyway, moving on. Today’s message for you is simple: YOU ARE APPRECIATED.
I have never felt like I matter to people and lately I’ve felt so depressed that my self-talk is especially brutal:
“Any difference I make to anyone’s life is only negative.”
“I am the scum of the earth.”
“I am poison…etc etc”
When I feel the most depressed I feel like I am only depression and nothing more. Therefore I think that everyone must experience me that way too. NOT TRUE!
Today I went to my friend’s father’s visitation. I’d never met her father but today I saw evidence of what a full life he led, the people he had touched, and the lives he had changed. His family was there to honour all the goodness in his life. Yes, his death has caused a lot of pain but that pain did not deter his loved ones from celebrating the joy he brought to all while he was alive.
We are more than pain, but pain is a language we all know. While we must speak this language – and some of us must more often than others – we can still comfort each other and that makes us strong.
I believe that my presence at today’s visitation was appreciated, and I am choosing to believe now that my presence online is also appreciated. Even if I talk more about pain than I’d like to, it still makes a difference to those who speak the language. And so I’ll keep on speaking and you should too.
We Aren’t Broken
06 Nov 2011 6 Comments
in The Big Picture Tags: coping, depression, fear, hospital, psychiatry, therapy, tips, writing
We can FEEL broken, flawed, or even crazy but it does not mean that we ARE those things.
For a while there I felt like the diagnosis of being mentally ill meant that there was something wrong with ME. I thought that I’d screwed up and failed at life. In reality, there was something wrong with the chemical balances in my brain. There was something wrong with my coping methods to deal with stress. There was nothing wrong with me as a person.
It’s super important to get help when you are depressed or are having trouble functioning in everyday life. You might see a counselor or a therapist or a psychiatrist, and they are trained to help you in the ways that they know how. Trust them, work with them. But guess what? You still have a hand in your recovery.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: YOU are the expert on yourself and your life. So even though people helping you with your illness are great, they can’t help you 100% because they don’t know you 100%. You are the only person who does.
This means two things. The first one is that everything your doctor or therapist or even your friend recommends for you to do to help yourself has to feel right for you. If it doesn’t, tell them. Ask for clarification about why they think it would help and if you still don’t agree, then say no. There will be times when your treatment team can still do things even when you say no, like if they think you are going to harm yourself or someone else, but most of the time they have to listen to you.
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Never Let Books Go
09 Sep 2011 3 Comments
in Book Reviews Tags: books, coping, writing
It’s been less than a year since I last read Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, but upon re-watching the film adaption of the novel the other night I had to pick up the book again. Ishiguro has such a tight rein on the English language that he doesn’t waste a word in his stories, building a tension alongside his ability to both capture and let go of time as it passes. My inner author faints in his work’s presence.
I realize I write a lot about books in this blog as well as mental health, but for me the two go hand-in-hand. I have always felt separate and alone in the world, not always in a bad way, but in a contemplative and passionate way. Mental health is about being real with your emotions and accepting that everyone is dealing with a similar roller coaster of trying to understand life while living it. There is no better way to try on another’s mind, as if it were a hat, than by reading. It is my ultimate comfort.
I have a pull towards literature that merges innocence with darkness. is a great example of this, telling the story of Baby, a girl who has to survive abuse on the streets of Montreal. Never Let Me Go tells the story of children who grow up to learn that their fate has already been decided for them, and that their lives will be unjustly cut short. They have no say in the matter, yet these children carry on because they have to.
I could have called this blog “Innocence and Darkness” instead of “Daisies and Bruises.” Anne Sexton used the latter in her poem titled , explaining that “words are both daisies and bruises.” For me words equal life and literature can both enrich your life and help you escape it.
Never Let Me Go does not have a happy ending, but there is little despair involved. Sometimes the greatest reward a book can give you is confirmation that your story matters too, even if it is not a happy story. After all, no one’s story is one hundred percent happy. It’s time that story is told. Share yours or if you can’t do that yet, read, read, read and gain courage from books.
More Questions Than Answers
06 Sep 2011 4 Comments
in Hindsight Tags: anxiety, fear, growth, writing
Last night I dreamed that captors were going to cut out my tongue and sew my lips shut. I covered my mouth with my hands but then worried about the fate of my fingers, as if by showing them my captors would remember my ability to write and thwart that too. I woke up exhausted but frantically fought against tumbling back into my nightmare.
I decided that writing would be the best antidote to the fear and panic delivered to me in my dreams but find myself equally paralyzed. Or rather, I am writing but feel overexposed and unsure of my footing. Do you ever suddenly question what you know you can do? I know I can write and use my voice and deep down I know there are things that I do want to tell you, but then something in my life messes that up. Something scares me or makes me hold back and then I get bitter when other people are reaching their dreams but I am not.
Have you ever been threatened not to tell something? I have. That threat shapes your days and your nights and makes you feel as if someone has cut off your tongue. But your heart screams that it is your story to tell. It happened to you and it’s real. That threat makes me feel like my urge to write is a curse, but I will not give in. Not yet.
As you can see, my life is composed of more questions than answers. Life will answer them for me in time.
More Grains, Less You?
29 Aug 2011 13 Comments
in Hindsight Tags: eating disorders, media, rant, the life of erin, writing
I am Sam was on tv last night and never having seen it before I decided that I needed to put an end to the outrageous exclamations of, “OMFG THAT’S THE BEST MOVIE EVER, YOU HAVE TO SEE IT!!!” So I watched it, and even though I think some parts were cut out to make it tv-length appropriate, it was a great movie and I got a lot out of watching it.
The message that stayed on my mind until this morning, however, was one expressed in a Multi-grain Cheerios ad during one of the commercial breaks.
“MORE GRAINS, LESS YOU.”
At first I was pissed off, thinking that it’s yet another diet commercial out there in which a person of healthy weight to compares herself to her underweight friend, asking how she lost the weight, insinuating that we all have to be underweight to be considered healthy or attractive. Then I realized that the final slogan of the commercial is not about weight at all. The writers of the commercial think that they summed up weight loss in a nice pretty package but they don’t say, “More grains, less fat” or “More grains, less body mass.” They said, “Less you.”
Therein lies the concept that fuels eating disorders, the one that says we are too much. Not our bodies – though our bodies suffer the consequences of that line of thinking – but we as people, individuals taking up too much room.
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