How Tattoos Helped Me Recover From Self-Injury

It’s proof that I’m alive, that I have control over my body.

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By next weekend I will have a new tattoo, bringing me up to a total of three — and it certainly won’t be the last.

Like many people's ink, my tattoos will represent artful expressions of my personality.

But mine also serve a larger purpose. I have struggled with mental illness and self-injury for more than a decade.

RELATED: 4 Tips For What To Do When You Discover Your Child Is Self-Injuring

By the time I got to high school, I was being sexually abused by a teacher, at constant loggerheads with my parents, and feeling suicidal from the stress and pressure. At a low moment, I impulsively sliced my arm open to prove my body was my own — to prove I still controlled something.

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Self-injury became my secret refuge from a world that no longer belonged to me.

It soothed my chaotic thoughts and gave me brief respites from the horrible reality in which I found myself. I was at the end of my emotional rope, and this was the only coping skill that worked.

And once I started self-injuring, I couldn’t stop.

Now I have hundreds of scars. Some are prominent; others are faint lines that linger.

While I’m not ashamed of my scars or what they represent, they are very personal. I don’t want to discuss my scars over a casual dinner conversation, because I don’t want to reveal large swaths of my history. It’s not something I share with everybody.

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At the same time, it’s important to me to be able to see my own scars. When I feel like an invisible shadow, self-injury takes the inexpressible and makes it tangible.

I realized tattoos could replace my scars. I could reinterpret what my scars stand for and transform them into something beautiful, something worth remembering.

It’s proof that I’m alive, that I have control over my body.

It means I have something to say, even though I can’t always express it outside of self-harm yet.

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My pain matters. It’s written all over my arms. Scars help tether my feet to the ground and keep me from floating away.

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As I work toward healing, I don’t want to romanticize an unhealthy coping strategy.

But I struggle with the need to have physical, visible proof of my inner world. That’s when I realized tattoos can replace my scars.

I got my first tattoo with a co-worker after I had been inspired by the mental health awareness campaign Project Semicolon. “A semicolon is used when an author could’ve ended a sentence but chose not to,” the Project's website explains. “You are the author and the sentence is your life.”

It could not have a more fitting meaning. I encased my semicolon in a butterfly and put it right over my wrist.

This placement intentionally makes my vulnerable wrist area off-limits for self-injury. My second tattoo, a cat, I placed on my inner forearm to protect even more real estate.

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Now, every time I look at my arms, I remember the meaning of the semicolon and think of the love I have for my cats.

As a result, my tattoos have become a protective buffer against self-injury and an important step in my journey toward wellness.

A couple of months ago, I went through a rough patch. I was feeling overwhelmed and out of control. I dissociated. A dark voice kept daring me to cut deeper, to cut closer to my wrist — the one without a tattoo.

I had no concern for my well-being. My cuts were superficial at first until a haphazard slice opened up a deeper wound.

I jolted out of my trance-like state, immediately panicking. What had I done?

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The cut wasn’t terrible, but its placement freaked me out. What if it had been a little deeper, a little more centered over a vein? I could have killed myself, and it would have been a stupid accident.

I immediately left a message for my therapist and made an appointment with my doctor to get the cut cleaned. I threw away all my knives — for the third time — and vowed to do everything I could to prevent an accident like this from ever happening again.

That was the night I decided on my third tattoo, a larger one that will start at my now-scarred wrist and cover my entire inner forearm. I asked my brother to design it for me — it’s beautiful. A feather quill flows from the symbol Lady Gaga had tattooed with other sexual abuse victims after the Academy Awards this year.

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The vibrant blues and purples of the feather will transform my scars into a piece of art. And I’ll be safer.

My tattoos are protecting me from serious harm — but more importantly, they’re turning my scarred arms into beautiful reminders that I am alive, strong, and resilient. My tattoos provide powerful reasons to keep working toward a world where I don’t feel the need to self-injure at all.

I survived. Through my tattoos, I can find beauty in even the darkest places.

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Renee Fabian is a Los Angeles-based journalist and editor, You can find her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneeyfabian/.

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