The thought, “If I just get another tattoo, everything will be fine” entered my mind and that is…
By: Arrowyn Ambrose
Tags: Tattoos, Love, Breakups, Cutting, Pain

The thought, “If I just get another tattoo, everything will be fine” entered my mind and that is probably a sign that something is off. Tattoos can be a form of cutting. This is my personal theory based on decades of research of my own body and what I do to it when I am feeling “off.”

What does “off” feel like? It can feel many different ways. This morning it is heaviness. Deep exhaustion. My eyes feel heavy. My stomach feels heavy. My heart feels heavy. My thighs. It is difficult to take a deep breath. It requires extra effort. A conscious thought. Immediately following breath my nose tickles and warm salt water begins flowing out of my eyes and down my face. Grief. Ragged breaths while crying. Not even sure what I am crying about. So many things. So many things swirling around my head. Like little finches dive bombing, piercing the blood-brain membrane and crashing into my psyche. Over and over again. Small Deaths.

I tried tremoring. Nothing moved. Frozen.

This is freeze.

With small dips into Fight/Flight.

Stomach hurts. Can’t eat. Not even feeling hunger.

But I like that. I want to lose another three pounds. “If I lose another three pounds then I will be okay’ is the next thought. Maybe I can ride this grief? Milk it for all it is worth. Trauma Trim has never let me down.

What is NOT okay in my life?

THAT is the million dollar question.

Everything IS okay.

Stable even. I have an income. I can eat. I can drive places. I have safe housing. My car works. I have meaningful work that inspires me and helps others. I can walk and run and do yoga. I have free time. I fill it up pretty quickly, but I have it. I can choose to eat fucking vegan if I wanted to! Local and farm fresh. There is no violence in my nice quiet white neighborhood. I have resources and community. Friends and family that love me. I am privileged as fuck and always have been. White. Symmetrical. Able-bodied. Heterosexual. Cisgendered.

And the goddamn trauma persists.

I am covered in tattoos. I have a lot. I lost count.

“Miss, you BLASTED!” The young women in the probation camp like to say. It is my “red badge of courage” I proudly display so they know this “middle-aged white woman” is for real. Is okay. Is safe.

You don’t get this many tattoos unless you are working something out. Something deep. Primal. Physical. Some of them tell a long-winded story. Some stories are short. Some are simple, “I need a tattoo NOW and I don’t give a fuck what it is. I want to hear the gun. I want to feel the pain. I want to know I am alive.”

That is the kind of tattoo I want today. There is no design. No artist picked. No studio appointment. I wouldn’t even care if the gun had no ink in it. I want the ritual. The care. The quick sharp sometimes dull and enduring pain to course through my body and release natural opiates and endorphins. THAT is what I want.

Because I am sober. And I don’t get high off of narcotics or alcohol anymore. But those aren’t the only ways to get high. I have found many other creative ways to leave my body. Because my body feels edgy sometimes. Like it is all peaks and no valleys. No soft meadow to land in and watch the stars. No dandelions to make wishes on. Yellow daisy’s littering the landscape. Just crags and crevices, vertical cliffs, handholds, I am not strong enough, I can’t climb this alone.

Alone.

Perpetually alone.

Serial singleness punctuated by brief coupledom resulting in retraumatization repeatedly.

I am not worthy of being loved.

period.

IS the trauma. Belief. Abandonment wound. Fear. Whatever.

The thing that drives MOST of my thoughts, beliefs, and actions into and outside of my body.

There is an 8 week “Heal Your Abandonment Wound” workshop retreat thing that makes me laugh ruefully.

8 weeks and POOF it’s gone! I love it. I wish. I wish. I wish so hard that was true.

We love a quick fix in this imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy slowly killing us all.

This long weekend is killing me too.

My daughter is with her father until Monday night. That means I have had three full days, alone, to sit and write and read and do yoga and basically ruminate on WHY DOESN’T HE WANT ME. My ex-boyfriend of two years. It ended about six months ago. Quickly. I may add. Too quickly. He didn’t even have the balls to end it. I suggested it based on his tail between the legs behavior and he jumped at the chance, practically running for the door. We have been trying to be friends.

Friends.

I keep checking his IG. Nothing. I posted an IG story, a repost from Spirit Daughter saying SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO BE DONE. NOT UPSET. NOT ANGRY. JUST DONE.

I keep checking to see if he has seen it.

I want to be done. I have moments of being done. I feel good. Complete.

Then completely undone. And a mess. My ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) is fucked. No tools help it. I can’t stabilize (meaning get stable and resource) I can’t do anything. I am in stage 3 possibly 4 of Trauma Symptoms. I finished a book on the Vagus Nerve and healing trauma. I watched a video on ANS that said to get better you have to get worse first. I pray this is the worst first and the better is next.

I walked my dog a lot. I threw up a lot. I can’t digest food.

I drove by the tattoo shop on the way to Trader Joe’s where I spent way too much money on food I’ll never eat because I did what I always tell myself not to do.

Don’t go grocery shopping when you are hungry.

It was the metaphor given to me when I was destroyed after the last dinner date with my ex. I thought he wanted what I wanted but he didn’t. He just wanted dinner.

That was over a month ago.

And I KNOW this is not about HIM. On SO MANY LEVELS. He is a little gay man. For reals. I think. Or I want to think. Maybe just to feel better. He is quite stylish. I asked him if he was gay once, he told me he craved the affection of a man, but not the sex. I told him if he got the affection, he might want the sex. He should try it out. He should tinder that shit.

I don’t think he did. As he went on a date recently with a woman a mutual friend set him up on. I felt punched in the gut. I wasn’t ready for that. A bi-racial woman too. When I am the one doing anti-racist work and he is a privileged white male who still thinks to be Irish means being oppressed in this country. I tried to teach him, I’m sorry buddy, you are white. That ship sailed long ago. Maybe he’s just honest. And likes clothes. And not gay at all. Maybe I simply wish I was gay. But he is short. I get to keep that one.

If I had the money right now I would get that tattoo. On my chest. Or my ribcage. That hurts. I want it to hurt. I want to hurt. Tangibly. Sometimes physical pain is more endurable than emotional.

I guess I could also always get pierced. Through the nose. Nipples. Clitoris. Fuck it. I did that all in my twenties. For the same reason. To feel.

Something.

Besides the sadness.

But I won’t. Do any of the above. Or contact him. Or watch TV. Or do drugs. Or drink alcohol. Or even try to feel better.

I’m forty-six years old. I help people stabilize their nervous systems so they can do trauma healing. I help people come together to connect compassionately. I work in prisons and probation camps. Education and social justice organizations. I am very good at what I do.

I am an amazing mother. Maybe too good. I fear enmeshment. But one thing is for sure, my daughter never wonders whether or not she is loved. Whether she is enough or not. She knows she is lovable as fuck and worthy of all the love in the world. My prayer is she never settles for less. Because all I ever did was settle for crumbs.

No. I won’t distract or abuse myself.

I’ll simply Pennebaker (emotional writing) the shit out of this and keep writing till I don’t know what to say anymore. and that could be a very very long time.