My tattoo story: How music has helped me on my journey battling mental health
For me, I knew I wanted my first tattoo to be special and to hold meaning. For a long time, I knew I wanted it on my left inner forearm because for the majority of my teenage years, I would self-harm here. I wanted my first tattoo to be one that would acknowledge how far I had come with my mental health battle and serve as a permanent reminder that things get better.
For my birthday in 2019, some friends bought me tickets for Rip It Up: The 60s showing at the Garrick Theatre in London. Aston Merrygold of JLS was performing in the show and anyone who knows me knows just how special a place in my heart they hold. And, of course, Aston was my favourite.
I was fortunate enough to meet him twice, the first was surreal, and I cried a lot.
It was a few weeks later that another friend asked if I wanted to see it with her and I decided that I would ask Aston to write lyrics to a JLS song that meant a lot to me. I came prepared with my notebook and pen and asked - the worst he could do was say no.
But he said yes.
This tattoo means everything to me. It’s my permanent reminder of how far I’ve come and that no matter what happens in life, it can’t hold me down. It is my favourite tattoo. I listened to JLS a lot through my teenage years, even after they split up. So to have a reminder from them that I can get back up and continue fighting means more than I can describe.
I’m not the only person with a tattoo that holds such meaning for their mental health.
Attending an album signing for his favourite band, Architects, Matt Morris, 23, got his tattoo at the start of 2019.
He asked lead singer Sam Carter to write a line from his favourite song: Gravity.
“I got my tattoo because it reminds me to stay grounded,” he says. “Architects’ music has played a very important part in my personal growth.”
Matt has battled his mental health since the age of 16.
“My tattoo is just my personal reminder of how far I have come,” he says.
One of the most famous examples of a mental health inspired tattoo is a semicolon. In a similar way to how an author can use a semicolon to continue a sentence, rather than end it, many battling their mental health get a semicolon tattoo to show they could have ended their life, but chose to continue it.
Lia Gaglio, 19, says her tattoo is like her own version of a semicolon tattoo.
A huge fan of Harry Styles, Lia says that Fine Line was a song that stood out to her, particularly while she was in a “super dark” period of her life.
“I felt connected with every lyric, but especially the part where he says ‘we’ll be alright’,” she says. “When I would feel a panic attack coming on, I would fast forward the song right to the part where he starts screaming that line because I just connected with it so much."
Similar to my own tattoo, Lia’s is in Harry Styles’ handwriting, with his signature underneath.
It is not just particular lyrics that people use to mark their mental health journey.
Jason Eilers, from Michigan, has had a rollercoaster of a mental health journey but says that music has always been a constant and that is reflected in his tattoo.
This was Jason’s first tattoo and he says it represents how “music has always been there for me and will always be there”. It depicts the bar many of us are familiar with that controls whether we pause, play, skip or rewind a song and is on his wrist too.
He says when he was 17, he found people around him tried to control his life, especially the music aspect, and alongside this he was battling feelings of anxiety and depression.
“They wouldn’t understand how much music meant to me and how it helps me,” he says. “All the anxious thoughts, feelings, the unstable moods that I’d be in; music would be there to relieve me.
“Playing music brought that relief to an even higher degree.”
Having previously attempted to take his own life, and getting a formal diagnosis of severe anxiety and bipolar depression, Jason’s mental health plummeted again with the start of the pandemic.
in and out of work, Jason’s love of music began to dwindle and after admitting himself to a mental health facility for a week, he took a break from music for about a month.
“But then I got an opportunity to play full time in a pop-punk band about five hours from where I lived at the time,” he says. “I took the plunge. I was determined to make it as a musician and no person, pandemic or mental health disorder was going to stop me.
“I decided to get this tattoo to remind myself that music will always be in my blood. Music is always going to be there for me. Music is what I’m alive for and it will be the reason why I’m still alive.”
Tattoos are a strength to many, their tribute to their past self and a constant reminder of how far they’ve come. They can appear unrelated to mental health but sometimes, that is the intention. Music can be there as a light during a dark period when nobody else is, and acts as a permanent reminder that we’ll be okay.
