One thing you should know about me is that I’ve always hated my body and how I look. There wasn’t a moment in my childhood when I wasn’t made to feel bad for the simple act of having non-White skin. This eventually led me down my body modification journey, although a lack of money hampered this for a while.
So far, tattoo-wise, I have a full sleeve tattoo on my left arm, a kind of tattoo sleeve on my right arm, a tattoo on my chest, a tattoo on my outer right calf, and a tattoo on both my ears. As for piercings, I have an eyebrow piercing, a lip piercing, three lobe piercings, one tragus piercing, one daith piercing, and a helix piercing.
Stretching my ears
At first, I didn’t want to stretch my ears as part of my body modification journey so that I could have a fresh tunnel or a plug, as I didn’t find the state that it left people’s earlobes appealing. I was happy to just have my ears pierced. However, that started to change over time. I would eventually come to like the idea of people being able to see through me as part of my body modification journey.
This led to me stretching two of my earlobe piercings so they could accommodate flesh tunnels for this purpose. However, I would never put in plugs, because that doesn’t allow people to see through me, and that was kind of the point. I want people to be able to see through me. I’m also considering getting a small tattoo that people would be able to see behind my ear if they looked through my flesh tunnel.
Covid
When covid came, it took my desire to not be seen to a new level. At first, my social anxiety disorder made it hard for me to wear a mask, because I didn’t want people to laugh at me for taking this seriously. Plus, other social anxiety baggage that I had was also a factor. But once the mask mandate came in, it freed me from my social anxiety, and I could wear my mask. However, then came the issue of not wanting to stop wearing it.
I fell in love with the fact that I could hide almost my entire self when I added wearing a mask to what I already wore. I even found myself jealous of not being allowed to wear a niqāb. All I wanted was to be able to live my life covered up all the time. I just found it so freeing from my body image issues, which can often drive my anxiety and trigger my psychosis.
I’ve always preferred covering up because of the comments my bullies, family, and friends would make about me. I would be told my legs were skinny, but when measured, I’d have bigger legs than the people telling me they were skinny. But that still stayed with me because you can look skinnier than you are, which was the case here.
So I’d go for 3/4 shorts, so it’d hide most of my legs with a double layer of socks, and I’d wear either super baggy t-shirts if they had long enough arms or wear a long-sleeved t-shirt under my shirt-sleeved t-shirt, no matter how absolutely boiling it is outside. This was just how bad my body image was, and that’s neglecting a lot of the damaging comments and racism that affected my body image.
But alas, all good things had to come to an end (the mask-wearing, not covid. Covid was a bad thing that came to an end). It was no longer common to wear a mask, and it became harder for me to wear one in public because of my lingering social anxiety. So eventually, I stopped.
Additional ear piercings
The more unhappy I become in general and with my body, the more I want to try to distract from it by adding decorations as part of my body modification journey. I decided I wanted to get some further ear piercings and get my ears tattooed, so I tried to find places I could get both done at the same time, which likely isn’t a good idea. It’s probably a good thing that most places I asked said they couldn’t do them both at the same time, most.
I got my ears tattooed first, as I thought that would be the best way to avoid issues. I then got tragus, daith, and helix piercings done at the same time for a total of three piercings at once. This was all in an effort to get me to show more of my body because after covid, all I wanted to do was cover every inch of my body more than ever.
When I wear a durag or any kind of head covering, I always cover as much of my ears as I can because I fear people seeing my earwax. So I got the tattoos and piercings so I’d have a reason to show my ears off, and it worked.
However, my helix grew a lump near it and that resulted in me covering up my ears again. I’m hoping this will reverse yet again once the lump has gone. I keep meaning to book a GP appointment to see if I can get it sorted out. But I’ve failed to do that so far.
Scars
Surprisingly, one of the things that bothers me about getting tattoos is that I don’t want them to make my self-harm scars disappear. They’re an important part of who I am. But at the same time, I want to get a hand tattoo to cover the scars on my hand because I feel people will judge me as being a thug.
A Black guy with scars on their hands equals being seen as a thug in my mind. I’ve already checked with my place of employment to see if this would be an issue, and they were fine with me getting a hand tattoo. Now I just need to earn it.
To add further context, I have what are called keloid scars. I also have one scar on my hand that I got stitches for, which added extra dot scars as well. I have a similar sequence of dot scars on my arm because I required 10 stitches.
Rewards
This is another thing I’m trying to do with getting tattoos. I’m trying to make them rewards for something. My current tattoo reward is if I don’t buy chocolate from my local shop. Each day I don’t do it, I add £3 ($3.89) to my tattoo fund. I’ve recently changed that to any day I don’t eat chocolate at all, but that adjustment has gone poorly. Really poor.
My fat belly
The other scars I want to cover are the scars caused by my increased weight, resulting in new stretch marks that, to me, shine like a lighthouse in the night.
Although I had a range of stretch marks from my growth spurt, which have greatly affected my dissatisfaction with my body, since gaining a fat belly, this has got worse. The new stretch marks I’ve developed as a result of my eating disorders and my poor relationship with food still not being good enough, specifically my binge eating, have caused me to develop a whole host of new stretch marks around my belly and lower back.
All I want to do is cover them up, and one way I want to do that is by getting tattoos. I already have an idea in mind of what the tattoos will look like. It’s just a matter of when, not if, I get the tattoos to cover them.
That’s a look into my body modification journey. If you haven’t already, then check out my companion article on my main blog by clicking here.