I've Decided to Stop Punishing Myself...You Should Too

 It's been a minute since I've blogged. Life has been busy and full, which I'm grateful for. Sure, some days, my job doesn't feel like I'm doing what I should be doing in life. Human resources can be a grind, dealing with emotional situations and people all day can be exhausting, especially for an introvert. But at the end of the day, I'm grateful for it for many different reasons. Today was a good day at work. Some days, not so much. But part of being an adult and a human being is growing and learning and figuring out what fits and what doesn't. At least that's the stage I find myself in, as a sober, getting-healthier, educated woman who also happens to be a wife and mom and seeks flexibility in my career while still earning a decent living. 

Today was a not so great day in the pain department. You see, dear friends, I've decided to get laser tattoo removal on my fairly large chest pieces, roses with a quote from Buffy the Vampire Slayer underneath one of the roses. It is the most pain I have felt in my life. I've given birth, I've had surgeries, I've had gall stones. And this laser tattoo removal is the most pain I've ever experienced. It doesn't last long (trust me, I count my way through and each side takes about 90 seconds give or take) but it is so painful that my whole body is tense for about an hour afterwards, and then I'm exhausted. The adrenaline is pumping so much because of the pain, then my body basically crashes afterwards. 

I was texting a friend today, who also happens to be sober (our sober-versaries are days apart which is pretty cool), and I told her that I think some of my commitment to this process of laser tattoo removal is because I'm punishing myself for some of the bad choices I made when I chose to try to escape my life and reality versus living in it and working through the hard feelings. I know for a fact that alcohol provided that escape for many, many years, and for a good chunk of time in my late twenties and early thirties, tattoos also provided that escape. The same adrenaline rush that I describe with the laser removal process can be said of getting a tattoo (just on a less intense level than the removal). 

I don't think I've ever really admitted that to myself before. That my commitment to reversing some of the choices I made is an effort to punish myself, to make myself pay consequences for my bad choices. I would have never come to that realization if I wasn't sober. 

I told my husband about this when I got home from my laser appointment today. That I had come to this realization earlier, and I think as a result of my impulsive decisions in the past, and an effort to always mask sadness or boredom or unfulfillment with SOMETHING (alcohol, tattoos, attention from boys when I was a teenager, whatever), I have now turned that into a way to cause myself pain. 

I'm not sure what to do with this, other than to recognize it, accept it, and decide to stop doing it to myself. Who cares if I have tattoos I don't love? A lot of people deal with things on their body that they don't love, right? I can wear long-sleeves and high-collar shirts during work meetings, and otherwise, I can just live my life with half-lasered tattoos. It won't kill me. And maybe in 10 years there will be another solution to getting these things removed that doesn't hurt so damn bad. Photo below so you can see I'm not being a baby, people. These little bubbles are blood blisters, and I can literally smell my skin burning and hear it popping when the laser hits the ink. 

So for now, I'm deciding to put this laser tattoo removal process on hold. Why? Because I don't deserve to continue to be punished for choices I made when I was influenced by an addictive, toxic substance and wasn't processing my feelings. I deserve to be able to say, I'm done with this process, and I'm ok with what that brings in terms of ugly tattoos on my chest. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few months and want to pick it back up (right now, I say definitely not but the pain is still very fresh today!). 

If you've been using something or someone to punish yourself for mistakes in your past, stop. You don't deserve that pain either. We are all capable of changing, becoming better versions of ourselves, and we deserve grace from ourselves when things don't fit or don't serve us anymore.