On Saturday, I had the great pleasure of getting my 5th tattoo and it has to be the most meaningful tattoo I have gotten so far. Granted, I love all of my tattoos and wouldn’t have gotten them if they didn’t mean a lot to me, but this one felt a bit different.
The semicolon.
For some people this has huge significance and as for the other people, you are probably wondering why the heck I would get this tattoooed on my body. To give you a little bit of background check out this great website. In case you are in a rush, let me help a brotha out: A semicolon is a writers choice not to end a sentence. If you take that idea and apply it to people, it means a person is choosing not to end his or her life. The semicolon has become quite the movement to raise awareness for mental health, which is very important to me.
I don’t want to make this post about sadness. I want to make it about awareness. Many people in my family have tried or seriously thought about taking their lives. My nana. My uncle. My mother. My great Uncle Timmy was 18 or 19 years old when he successfully took his life. It’s important to me that when people hear this they don’t feel pity or feel weird. It’s a part of my life that I don’t try to hide because I’m not embarrassed. Mental health isn’t something to be afraid of, but it’s also not something to brush off as an excuse people give for their actions. We need to be more supportive of those who suffer from mental illness.
My family knows I support them, of course. But for me, getting this semicolon tattoo was a way to give even more support and not only to my family. It’s a way for me to support everyone I cross paths with who secretly suffer. To support those who feel there is no one out there who understands what living with mental illness is like because while I may not suffer personally, growing up with a mother who does suffer is close enough to knowing what mental health can do to a person.
So while I know there are a ton of people getting this tattoo…I’ve never been more happy to join the crowd! The more the world knows about mental health, the better!
But if you do need help and don’t know who to turn to, here are a few sites that might be helpful:
Please do remember, if you know someone who has told you to keep their suicidal considerations to yourself…don’t! It’s always better to tell someone in the end so your loved one can get the help they need.
To end this blog post on the lighter side (of course, not to down play the importance of the post), I want to bring back the fun idea of getting a new tattoo and I want to leave these funny videos here for your watching pleasure!
Hogwash: 