Nobody would deny that making it through adolescence is a challenge in itself.
In addition to dealing with social pressure and the need to get good grades, your body also goes through tons of changes as well. While emotions are flaring, many people also develop struggle accepting themselves as they are or may even begin to develop mental issues. One common one among teens is depression and anxiety, which in turn can lead to self-harming behaviors.
For 19-year-old Aoife Lovett, those past pains were difficult to outgrow.
Though Lovett dealt with self-harm and still made it through, the path was not easy.
Because self-harm is a habitual behavior, it can be a hard one to change. Even harder, though, is living with the reminder of those behaviors in the form of the scars they cause:
“It’s very hard when you’re a couple of years clean from doing it and every day your’e constantly reminded of what you did. It brings back memories of how you felt then. There’s a lot of shame that comes with it and guilt, especially when you’re around your family.”
To solve the problem, she decided to get a tattoo to cover up the lingering scars.
Though the idea was a good one, it was harder than Lovett thought to find a tattoo artist that would be able to do the job. As it turns out, tattooing over scarred skin presents a challenge to tattoo artists because it’s not as easy a canvas as smooth flesh. Finally, she found someone who was willing to help her.
After talking to tattoo artist Ryan Kelly, she was on her way to completing the project.
As it turns out, Kelly was sympathetic to Lovett’s problem.
Kelly’s mentor and best friend to suicide the year before and had also had anxiety issues throughout his life. Beyond being supportive, however, he had also done a similar job recently for another girl who wanted to cover scars—a job he had done for free. As a result of his experience, he founded the Scars Behind Beauty non-profit which provides these tattoo jobs free of charge.
After working with Kelly, Lovett’s arm was covered in a beautiful tattoo and was as good as new.
Though we all go through challenges, we should be able to let the past go when we want to. Thanks to artists like Kelly, those who struggled with self-harm in the past don’t have to let it define them.
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