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The Healing Power of Ink
I found the strength to face family judgment on the other side of a tattoo gun
“You’re going to feel a bit of a sting.”
I turned away as the tattoo artist leaned in, the needle humming like a dentist’s drill across my skin. It was my first tattoo, a declaration of freedom from my conservative family. They would disapprove of the permanent mark, just as they’d disapproved of my decision to break from the unhealthy relationship I shared with them.
The black ink seeped into my pale wrist, the same patch of skin I once opened with a paring knife in the bathroom when I was 17. The cuts were never deep enough to end my life, but deep enough to end the numbness I felt. Cutting gave me a sense of control, the small beads of blood that surfaced were a form of atonement for the sin of not becoming the person my family expected me to be.
I never mentioned my anxiety out of fear that exposing my Achilles heel would make me more vulnerable to criticism.
I was the youngest of four children and had been hardwired since birth to seek my parents’ approval. The impossibility of meeting their expectations created a sense of failure and anxiety that prevented me from feeling like a “normal”…
