Why I Get Tattooed

I grew up in a regular home, went to a regular school and have lived a lucky life. When many people meet me for the first time the conversation inevitably turns to my tattoos and why I have them. It’s always a complicated question to approach because the answer has changed as I have changed and grown older.

My First Tattoo

I sat for my first tattoo when I was about 15.

It was the only thing that I could think to do that would help me feel unique at the age of 15. I attended an all-boys Catholic school with strict rules, a specific dress code and many cookie-cut human beings. I needed to feel alive.

I don’t know what made me do it. I didn’t tell anyone. I went alone and I left alone. My parents thought that I was going to the mall with friends and just dropped me off. Little did they know.

It didn’t hurt very much and was over in about 30 minutes. It cost me a month of my allowance but a lifetime of satisfaction. I was overwhelmed and fearful, intimidated but surprised at how easy it was for a 15 year old to get a tattoo. I walked in and picked it off the wall (that’s what you do for your first tattoo when you’re 15), sat down, listened to Aerosmith over the sound system and then it was over.

Two weeks later the tattoo parlour was shut down due to its apparently unhygienic state. This little fact set off months and months of concern around what disease I had contracted. Obviously being 15 I wasn’t able to walk into the doctor and get all the tests or tell my parents. That experience stayed with me for years.

I kept that first tattoo a secret for 3 years while I pushed through high school. In hindsight I believe that tattoo helped me through a lot of shit. It helped me to have something that was mine alone. When I was feeling academic, social or sporting pressures (the three major pressures that exist in high school) I would push through knowing that I could make it because I was my own person and had proof. I sat for hours on end planning my next tattoo while my parents were going through their divorce in my final year of high school.

It would be another 8 years before I would start to get tattoos that were visible to the world.

The Slow Ascent Towards Addiction

I am now 30 and undeniably addicted to the act of being tattooed. I like having art on my arms and back. I like spending time planning what’s next and I like that I can now afford to buy the pieces of art that I choose to have tattooed on my skin.

It was a very gradual addiction that started young and is ongoing. I am not addicted to the actual artworks that I have etched into the layers of my skin. I am addicted to choosing the right piece of art for the right part of my body and the act of being tattooed.

My body reacts differently to every tattoo. With the most recent one my arm swelled up to almost triple the size. I nearly checked in to the hospital but after a couple of days I started to see the veins and bones in my hand again.

Prior to that, I didn’t bleed at all in a 2 hour sitting. Before that I had the most excruciating experience of my life (and I’ve had kidney stones twice) when I received an inner arm tattoo on my left upper arm. I don’t know why I keep going back but I do and when I do, I push through. You always push through.

Once you’re sitting and the first line is drawn it doesn’t matter how intense the pain becomes, you’re committed and there’s no going back. Well, there is always a choice but you’d have to sit with an incomplete blotch on your body for the rest of your life.

Nevertheless, my ascent to addiction was slow, steady and never wavered. I knew that I was going to continue to build my tattoo collection after the very first drop of ink penetrated my skin.

Mental State

I have never chosen to be tattooed out of anger. I’ve done it as a response to confusion which helped me clarify my thinking in the 3 hour sitting. I’ve done it as a reaction to loss which resulted in me gaining back what I had lost. I’ve been tattooed out of love and friendship but never in an angry state of mind.

I’ve become angry while being tattooed.

But I find the entire experience cathartic. I not only allow, but sit and watch, another person willingly harm me, make me bleed and change me. I go into a sitting being one person and come out of a sitting a slightly different person.

This is a uniquely liberating experience. Knowing that you can change the way you’re made up by choice is an interesting mental experiment. If I can change physically then I often believe I can change mentally or change my circumstances.

Being tattooed is often a manifestation of my mental state. The piece I choose, the artist I select, the time, the venue, the date. It all adds something to the experience.

It wasn’t always that way. Tattoos are tricky things. There are social circumstances that make me regret getting my first tattoo and continuing on. The major change in society that irritates me at present is how socially acceptable it is to have tattoos. It feels like every guy out there has a Chinese symbol on his lower back and every mom or dad has their kids name poked into their right shoulder.

People often ask me why I need to get so many tattoos. The answer is increasingly simple: To stand out. Initially, as a 15 year old boy at a Catholic school, one tattoo was enough to make me feel different. As Tattoos have become more acceptable the boundaries need to be pushed further and further by people like me. One becomes five becomes ten and ends in a full sleeve.

Old and Ugly

“But what’s going to happen when you get really old and have grandchildren?” This is the number one push back that I get when people talk to me about my tattoos. They think that for some reason I’m going to wake up one day when I hit 60 and regret a life lived in tattoo.

I wont.

I might regret not getting enough tattoos. I will look at you and think that you haven’t pushed your body far enough, tried to bend the rules or break the conventions thrust upon you by a society that you’ve tried to fit into for your entire life.

If you’re going to be so bold as to assume that I’ll magically regret choices I’ve made and evaluated throughout my life, then grant me the same arrogance so that I can judge your lack of enthusiasm towards your life.

The truth is, it isn’t like that.

It’s not a competition so don’t try to make it one.

We’re different and have pushed ourselves in different ways. My way is permanent, it ages with me and it tells my story.