BPD. Tattoos. BP.

I've reading with interest about self harm and wonder if any of the ones that practices feels that tatoos are a form of self harm.

Back in the day when left was right and right was wrong, I had my left ear pierced. Tremendous pain for someone who pampers himself to the hilt.
I know tattoos are art. Only I think art goes on a canvas.

Is there any pleasure in the act itself of getting a tattoo?.

I recently got my first tattoo and was under the impression that it would be a nice burning pain. Instead it felt as if I had a scrape and it was a doctors needle poking around it. No pain just minor annoyance. Disappointment on that end. I was hoping for the slight burning pain. The tattoo came out great though.

I don't have any tattoos, but I don't think tattoos are a form of self harm. They are a work of art and they typically have a meaning behind them. Self harm creates "battle scars"; tattoos create messages.

But honestly, I wouldn't get a tattoo for the purpose of inflicting pain on myself or for the purpose of mutilating my body. I think people get tattoos partly because of the art, but mostly because of the meaning/symbolism. But also, I wouldn't pay someone to hurt me. I would rather hurt myself, since that's free. (Can I say that? Is that triggering??)

I think you can get pleasure in getting a tattoo. Like, let's say your best friend died and you wanted to get a tattoo of him. Getting the tattoo will give you pleasure because you're "doing it for him".

Hey Omega, can you transfer your posts? You have gifted more than 10,000 hearts.

True that. My lion tattoo represents fierceness and resilence. My next tattoo is Phoenix rising like me rising above depression and getting my life together. Except instead of a bird it's the Incredible Hulk.

I read you loud and clear. We have the same image of what a tattoo signifies.
But no tattoos. Even if your remark of "battle scars" is quite interesting.

I have nine tattooes and admit I've gotten some for the pain and high that comes from getting one but I don't think it's self harm

There is a certain pleasure in the process of being tattooed.
The anticipation of the finished product is one thing that gives
you pleasure but also as the brain releases endorphins it tends
to become almost euphoric at some points.

You know something, when I was getting a bunch of piercings and tattoos in my mid 20s and early 30s I wondered if they weren't a socially acceptable way to self harm. That's not the reason that I got them though. I got them to commemorate certain events and because I wanted a different aesthetic than what's crammed down our throats by the media. But I think that you do have a point there, even if it is subconscious. Like the people that drink themselves silly or party all the time but look down on us for taking the meds that we are prescribed.

I don't have (or want) any tattoos (they're just not "me"), but have read that excessive (probably a lot of gray area there(!)) tattooing and piercing ARE considered to be self-harm. Though I strongly suspect it to mostly be a subconscious sort.

I have over 25 tattoos...I've lost count as to how many hours I've actually been tattooed...I also have 12 piercings....I actually love the feeling of getting tattooed. To me it relaxing. I've even fallen asleep while getting tattooed.

I love tattooing as an art form. Some of my tattoos I got for specific reasons and they have meaning...others I just got because I loved the art work. I have a lot of tattoo artist friends and my ex was a tattoo artist. I wouldn't say that most people get tattoos because they have meaning. You'd be astounded how many people will walk into a tattoo shop and say things like 'I have $30 what can I get for that'. It's shocking. A lot of people get them because they think they're cool if they get them, some get them because they have some sort of significance to the wearer and others get them because they see it as an art form. (Which IMO it is). But id say a large majority of tattoos on people out there don't really have any meaning attached to them. I think the million girls who turned 18 in the early 2000s that all have the same tribal lower back tattoo prove my point.

Looking back I've always gotten a large piece of art after all of my manic episodes. I didn't make that correlation until just recently when I got diagnosed. There is definitely a high that comes with tattooing because of the release of endorphins and adrenaline that occurs as a result of the pain. A lot of heavily tattooed people like myself often say they get addicted to getting tattoos....some of them like the pain, others hate it but get tattooed anyways. I think even though some people like the pain this 'addiction' is more about collecting art than experiencing pain. Now, I am a masochist. I like pain. I'm in a BDSM relationship with my husband where pain play is a regular occurrence, so the pain part for me is a plus.

I started getting tattooed as a reaction to body dysmorphic disorder. It was my way of reclaiming my body and turning into something I found beautiful. It was a sort of therapy for me. Maybe there's a reason I ended up getting large tattoos after my manias, maybe it was an unconscious reaction to having lived through something so horrible. I'll probably never know.

I had more thoughts on this but my brain is running so fast I can't keep up enough to write it down.

I very much disagree with the thought that excessive tattooing is a form of self harm. I think tattooing has become so mainstream now that even well respected and tradionally conservative members of society such as doctors, lawyers, heads of corporations ect now sport full sleeves and heavily tattooed torsos under their lab coats and suits. Identifying tattooing as self harm in a clinical sense is an outdated label IMO.

It's not so much about my opinion, as something I have read about. I think it's fair to say that it cannot be ruled out entirely as having a negative psychological basis for some people. And for those, likely subconscious.

Like you point out, not everyone gets them for the same reason, and most don't have meaning(!) You brought up the example of the lower back tribal one. Though I'm not personally into tattooing (so don't know much about many patterns), one immediately came to mind(!) Lol, that's probably the very one!

Alright, break over. Bleh, back to chores.

It can be used during mania to release endorphins. I have 8 tattoos and 10 piercings.

I don't self-harm, but I imagine it releases endorphins as well.

(SELF HARM TRIGGER WARNING)
I once gave myself a tattoo for the purpose of self harm. I was feeling very numb and wanted that pain and rush that cutting gives me but didn't want to cut myself as I was doing very well with not doing that so I gave myself a tattoo instead to feel the pain. It worked pretty well although that was two years ago so it's pretty faded now.
I don't know if you've ever seen the show House of Cards but one of the characters (Jackie Sharp) gets a tattoo (a big one done in multiple sessions) because she was in the army and the pain of the tattoo makes her feel better about having killed so many people. I guess that could be a form of self harm.

That said, I don't think that having a lot of tattoos/piercings is inherently self harm. I have tons of piercings and never did I do that to hurt myself, I did it because I liked it. It's all in the intent behind it

I've self harmed for years. I have also had several piercings and tattoos. For me the piercing was just because they looked cool, not the pain. And all my tattoos have special meaning to them. So for me tattoo g/piercing was not and is not an extension of self harm.