Stories Plus

Throughout a large portion of my life, I struggled with my mental health. I hated myself, I hurt myself, and I planned ways to leave the world. It was a long and painful journey to get to where I am today. After moving out, I was able to properly face my problems and find ways to healthily cope with them. It’s still an ongoing battle, but it’s gotten so much better and I haven’t lost the will to live yet. In memory of finding my will to live, I got a tattoo covering my old scars.

This art piece started as a painting in high school. The teacher had assigned a project to paint something trapped or hidden and it needed to contain some sort of pattern and a metallic color. So, I painted this. The pattern and metallic colors are easy to spot on the sea serpent, but the object that is trapped is a little more metaphorical. The girl in the image is trapped underwater in a dark place with this serpent keeping her from leaving. It wraps itself around her pulling her deeper into the endless void. Yet, she manages to hold onto a single ray of hope which shines bright in the darkness.

Almost four years later, I decided to redraw this old painting on my laptop. Its always been one of my favorite pieces and the symbolism of the piece perfectly mirrored what I was going through at the time as well as finding my will to live. I had been wanting to redraw this piece for a while and with me wanting to get a new tattoo, it was the perfect time for me to make a new adaptation of this painting. It took me around a week to recreate and I had to change a few things when sending it to the tattoo parlor so they could see everything.

Overall, I have to say I am thrilled with the results of my tattoo. It took two 3-hour sessions but I absolutely love the variety of rich colors and the detailing! The girl in the tattoo looks more hopeful looking up to the sky while holding onto her ray of hope and the dragon is far more menacing than I could ever dream. The tattoo perfectly covers all of my old scars and secretly tells my story to the world. I am not ashamed of my past or what I went through and I hope that hearing my story will help others who are in that same place I was only a year ago. Never give up. It does get better.