Surface

No worries, it's just info to chew on, so I appreciate your candor. 🙂

Well, I appreciate your honesty, at least, but we'll see where life takes me, haha. Decision is still mine, in the end. 🙂

Thanks for your reply, @AgitProp! It puts me a bit more at ease. I heard back from the doctor today and they said I should be okay, so I communicated that to my artist and said bruising and healing is still a very big concern and to let me know how he feels working under those conditions and we'd go from there. I do very much swing between being very calm and mellow to feeling terrified and sick still, but clearly something made me want it, so I think I will go forward with it (I remember looking at shops way back when I was 19--almost ten years ago!). Is regret a concern? Absolutely, but in the end, I tell myself if something happens later on down the road, at least I'll have pretty art and a story that I can make big changes and decisions on my own (not the main reason I'm getting the tattoo per say, but looking forward into the future). How'd you feel the day after and days leading up? Lots of intrusive thoughts on mine for sure, and something I'm discussing with a professional about, but it's been hard for me to find and talk to people who have GAD and going through that first tattoo experience (and that's the thing about anxiety—it obscures what you want, how you feel, and how you're supposed to feel).

Yup yup. I've always been very go big or go home. The stress isn't necessarily from the idea of pain or size so much as it is different, and different is always scary. I've had things like henna or other semi-permanent body art (won't go into detail here, but one I thought was going to wind up being permanent after it didn't disappear for six months and the design was super embarrassing and I strangely just went "meh" about it), without too much freak out, so I swing between "okay this will happen, it's cool" and "oh my god this is happening." Definitely taking time to sit on it a little longer and see how I feel, though the doctor may just solve the problem in the first place and say no altogether! I have GAD, so that probably doesn't help much either. I get super anxious on big, life changing decisions in general. 🙂 I appreciate all your responses and I'll see how I feel in the next handful of months.

Hi there! I've been a long time admirer of tattoos, have wanted one since college, walked in and out of shops since then, and just recently had a consult for my first one (a half sleeve). I was initially SUPER excited, but as the days to my consultation ticked down I got more and more anxious. Went to the consult, felt better, didn't lay down a deposit as my artist suggested I needed to check with my doctor first since I have a bleeding disorder, but I'm thinking sometime late November/early December. But as I'm waiting further, the anxiety is still there, eating away at my stomach and I feel sick. I love the look of tattoos, I've always wanted one, but now that I'm close and it's getting real, I'm freaking out. Every step of this process has been super anxiety inducing to me. Is this normal? Am I overthinking? Anyways, hi! Look forward to talking body art with you all! :)