How My Tattoo Helped Me Live My Most Authentic Life
Trigger warning: This post contains sensitive topics such as self-harm.
I have three tattoos. They’re small and meaningful, and I appreciate being able to permanently display art on my body, whether or not people understand what said art represents. For reference, I have a small outline of a dove on my wrist, which symbolizes a retreat I went on twice in high school. I also have the German word for “wanderlust” (fernweh) with a small paper airplane on my foot, which is for my love of travel. But my most significant tattoo is a small butterfly on my right hipbone.
Typically, people think of butterfly tattoos as meaningless and “white trash.” I’ve certainly received a few looks from people when I tell them I have a butterfly on my hip. But for those people, and for everyone else who’s wondering, let me tell you exactly why I decided to put an outline of a small insect on my body for the rest of eternity: because this tattoo, in reality, saved my life.
It’s all because of an Internet campaign known as “The Butterfly Project.” Basically, what The Butterfly Project strives to do is help people who are dealing with self-harm. You’re supposed to draw a butterfly in ink on the spot where you would typically hurt yourself. For as long as the butterfly is still visible on your skin, you cannot do anything to yourself. Otherwise, you are cutting the butterfly’s wings. If you cut a butterfly’s wings, it dies.
My tattoo exists on my body because I self-harmed for three-and-a-half years. My hip was the go-to spot because it was easily hidden and only I would ever know that I was marked up.
The first time I etched was October of 2010. I was a sophomore in high school, and I was growing increasingly and inexplicably bereaved. I didn’t — and still don’t — fully understand why. I chalked it up to a few bogus reasons, but I still felt like I was collapsing, floating through a void. I was merely existing rather than living. At that time, I would etch in more obvious places: arms, wrists, thighs. I didn’t care about what people would think if they saw. I knew that I probably already thought less of myself than they ever would think of me.
This obvious etching continued for around two months… until one day my mom came downstairs and insisted on seeing my arms. I begrudgingly showed her, and she cried. I cried. She called my dad and told him. He cried. I cried. Apparently, my best friend had become so concerned with my well-being that she had texted my mom and told her to check on me. For that, I’m forever grateful to her. It opened my eyes and became a starting point for me — even if I secretly kept doing it for another three-and-a-half years.
Anything could trigger me. If something went wrong, my immediate coping method was to etch. It could have been an argument with a friend, a bad grade on a test or the most common one: just looking at myself in a mirror. I was utterly repulsed by even just looking at myself, let alone with who I was as a person. And the thing is, I wasn’t a bad person — I just thought that I was because of infantile, insignificant and ultimately nitpicky reasons that didn’t matter in the slightest.
After my family found out, when I felt the urge, I focused exclusively on my hips. I would take the blue scissors that I kept in my desk drawer and carve words like “fat” or “perfect” or “shit” into my skin. If I wasn’t feeling too terrible, but still had the urge, I would usually just mark myself with an “X”. Strikes one, two and three, if you will. When I finished, I felt the relief I had sought at the beginning; except now I had to deal with walking around for a few days with burning hip bones as the raw skin rubbed against the fabric of my clothes. When they’d heal, I’d still be left with scarred etchings of whatever word I had written that time. I was like my very own tattoo artist.
When I was a senior in high school, I made a list on my phone of tattoos that I’d eventually want to get. As I made the list, I typed out: “Butterfly on hip (reminder of self-harm).” I had heard about The Butterfly Project about two years prior. If I were to ever get clean, that would be the catalyst. The question was, would I ever have the courage to actually do it?
I went off to college a few months later, and I was the happiest I’d ever been. There were a few hiccups at the beginning that I ultimately “punished” myself for, but they were growing increasingly few and far between. I was shocked and extremely proud of myself. Compared to high school, it was essentially nothing.
That February, I noticed a billboard near campus saying that The Philadelphia Tattoo Convention would be happening one upcoming weekend. I had already got my first tattoo and had such an intense appreciation for the artistry, so I decided to go downtown that Sunday afternoon. On the train ride in, I looked at my tattoo list on my phone. Of all the potential tattoos I could get, there was one that kept jumping out at me: the butterfly. I knew that my mental state had improved greatly since I started college, and I made the decision right then and there: I was going to do it. It was time to officially “get clean.”
At the convention, I found an artist from Florida who was able to give me a beautifully simple outline of a butterfly. But within its simplicity, I knew the meaning that was ultimately behind it would trump all else. To the artist, it was merely a flash tattoo. To me, it was the world. I got the tattoo and sat through the pain that was, ironically, a similar feeling to that of when I would etch.
I’ve been clean ever since.
Of course, it’s probably entirely a placebo effect, but it’s continued to work for me. Over the past year and a half, I’ve made a complete turnaround. Now, I do things for myself that make me feel good instead of worrying about anything or anybody else. I try to avoid overthinking minuscule details as much as I possibly can. I eat healthier, go to the gym a few days a week and do things that make me feel happiest. I appreciate my life now for what it is instead of hating it for what it isn’t.
Since I’ve gotten my tattoo, I have grown. I have flourished. I have gained my wings. I currently have zero desire to do anything that will negatively affect my well-being. My mentality is now one of positivity, love and good vibes. I am living and existing in the most genuine, enlightened way, and I have never felt better.
