Trying hard to stay afloat

Is there a link between self-harm and tattoos?

I was watching TV the other night, and something came up that really resonated with me. The programme featured a young woman who was covered in tattoos and body piercings, and questions were being asked about why it was she was covering her body in tattoos and what they meant to her. I know some people would consider tattoos a form of self-harm, and in some ways I agree, although I am not 100% convinced on the matter. I am somebody who self-harms and I also have tattoos and whilst the reasons why I self-harm and the reasons why I choose to have tattoos are very different, I do believe that there are similarities.  The young woman on this programme felt that the function of her tattoos was to regain ownership of her body because somebody else had damaged her body in a way that was out of her control. This I can relate to. Other people have done things to my body that I did not wish to happen and I was out of control of. Some people claim that tattoos do not hurt…I would claim that they do, however, it is a pain that is bearable. Why? Because it is a pain that you are choosing to inflict on yourself. This is the similarity I would draw with self-harm. Self-harm is often used to inflict physical pain on oneself when the emotional pain you are experiencing is impossible to express and impossible to control, so you take control of the situation by inflicting physical pain on yourself. People might say that I am not the sort of person to have tattoos, but, as far as I am concerned, if I feel the need to be in control of my body by marking it permanently, I would rather be marking my body with ink in a way that I consider beautiful, rather than cutting myself to shreds. 

I wish that I could bottle the feeling of relief that accompanies resisting the urges to self-harm. That way we could all take it when we are feeling strong destructive urges, to remind ourselves how good it feels NOT to self-harm.