Tattoo Regret | “What have I done?!”
Illustration by DEMIRKUT
Do you regret any of your tattoos?
How many of us have heard this question before? I certainly have, and I’d be willing to bet most people in the tattoo community have had to field it at one point or another. For a long time, my answer was always no. And while this was true, it didn’t tell the whole story. It wasn’t until my friend told me about the intense panic she experienced after a new tattoo that I began to wonder if tattoo regret was more widespread than I’d thought.
My friend already had several tattoos when she got the tattoo that triggered a panic attack. It’s a fine line image of a palm leaf coming in through a window, with a small, yellow moon in the background. It’s very pretty, but right after she got it, she hated it. Not just hated it, but wanted it off her, and even had thoughts of cutting it out of her.
“My body looked wrong,” she told me recently, when I asked her again about her experience for this blog post. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about how this tattoo would outlive me; how people would see it when I was lying in my coffin. It brought up an intense awareness of and fear of death.”
For a few days, she was depressed and anxious, barely able to look at herself in a mirror. And then, as suddenly as the regret had come, it vanished. It is now one of her favorite tattoos and the one she gets the most compliments on.
“But for a few days,” she says, “I felt insane.”
My friend’s story got me reflecting on my own experience with tattoo regret, especially this initial feeling of regret that we can experience, sometimes also called “tattoo shock”. I’d thought I was the only one who’d had it. No one ever talks about regret in the tattoo community. It’s a bit taboo, considering how often we have to justify our choices to people who think we’ve made a mistake. It puts us on the defensive, I think, and then we don’t want to admit we’ve had moments of doubt. But as I began speaking with my clients about regret, I realized how common it actually is.
Many of my clients, and other tattoo professionals I spoke to, had felt tattoo regret, and their stories were very similar to my friend’s: feelings of intense panic right after their first or first few tattoos. This was certainly my own experience.
I got my first tattoo when I was 19 years old during a visit back to my home state of Colorado. It was a fun day: I gathered a group of friends from high school and we all went together to a walk-in shop, where I got fine- line stag antlers on my back, right below my neck. Immediately afterwards, I was ecstatic. It was exactly what I’d wanted. Later, however, once my friends had gone home and the excitement had faded, the panic set in.
I was sure I’d made a mistake; not just any mistake, but a permanent one. I kept thinking, what am I going to do with the judgment others will have of my tattoo? This was especially concerning because I knew my boyfriend at the time would be upset; he was very against tattoos. My family would also disapprove, and I hid it from them for as long as I could. The regret was acute; I even lost several nights’ sleep over it.
This feeling lasted three or four days. And then, just like my friend would experience years later, it disappeared. Again, I was happy with the tattoo and absolutely loved it. I also wanted another one. The next time, I was sure, there would be no regret.
“But that’s not what happened. Right after the second tattoo, the panic gripped me again.”
But that’s not what happened. Right after the second tattoo, the panic gripped me again. This happened several more times. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth tattoos that I stopped feeling all-consuming regret and sadness. This was also when I realized that I wanted to be covered. Maybe that realization is what helped dispel the regret, or maybe, by then, I was used to flexing the muscle of seeing and accepting a rapid and drastic change to my body.
A lot of people—especially those getting their first tattoo—are not prepared for the gravity of physically and permanently altering one’s body. A lot of baggage can come with it and it may force you to confront deep seeded worries and insecurities. For my friend, it brought up unprocessed fears about death and what “permanence” really means—for her, until you decompose. For another client of mine, the issues it raised were related to trauma.
Although she is covered now, when this client first began her bodysuit, she panicked. Tattoos were a way for her to reclaim her relationship with her body, but once she’d begun this therapeutic process, she was seized by the fear that she was wearing her trauma on her skin. She grappled with the idea that anyone who looked at her would make assumptions about what she had been through in her past, whereas before she could at least attempt to fake having had an innocent and carefree childhood.
My client is no longer worried about this, but her initial panic was another reminder that tattoo regret feels heavy, but is normal. I wish we in the tattoo community talked about it more, and normalized it, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write this blog post. Maybe if more people talked about it, others would feel more comfortable sharing their stories and the doubts that have, and maybe still do, plague them.
Long-term regret, I have found, tends to be less common than an initial tattoo shock freakout. Most people I know have at least one tattoo they think is “bad” or don’t like anymore. But most approach this with an attitude of, “Well, it is what it is.” Many even wear them with pride. It’s all part of the story of their life and their body. For others, they are so used to their tattoos that they become almost invisible. This was my experience, as well. I went from feeling intense regret with the first few to scribbling all my own legs when I was teaching myself to tattoo.
Of course, if you really hate a tattoo, or if the regret and panic never goes away, there are options. I would never want someone to think they have to accept a tattoo that is giving them anxiety or discomfort. There are ways to get rid of tattoos. Not only is the tattoo removal industry huge—it was estimated at $0.5 billion in 2023 and is predicted to reach $4.0 billion by 2035¹—but artists can do incredible cover-ups and blastovers these days. A lot of my current tattoos have done exactly that.
However, it isn’t always true that those who get blackouts, blastovers or coverups regret their earlier tattoos. While I have covered up all my smaller pieces, many using the blackout style, I don’t regret or dislike any of them. I enjoyed each one when I enjoyed that style. My taste simply changed, and I wanted to commit to a timeless, bigger and more cohesive look. Most importantly, each tattoo was a stepping stone in becoming a tattoo artist. I know I wouldn’t have been able to pursue this career if I hadn’t taken knowledge from those smaller tattoos and the artists who did them. And on a practical level, there was no way I was mentally or financially ready to get a full bodysuit when I was younger and still puzzle-piecing small tattoos onto my body.
“Exercising the muscle of accepting radical changes to my body has made me better equipped to handle the changes life inevitably brings.”
Even if I did regret my earlier tattoos, that would be okay. Regret, after all, is something everyone has about something. If mine are only on my skin, I’m doing okay. And I find that exercising the muscle of accepting radical changes to my body has made me better equipped to handle the changes life inevitably brings. Recently, I have noticed my body beginning to show signs of aging. I’ve stopped dying my hair, and as it’s grown out, I’ve found grays. And that’s okay! It’s even beautiful. As easy as it would be to dye my hair, or get botox, or fight the signs of aging, I’m actually kind of content with them. I’m also certain that that contentment comes from learning to get tattoos without panicking. Unlike tattoos, aging comes for us all, so it’s best to learn how to sit with and accept it.
And of course, if you are having a hard time accepting the huge transformation you’ve made to your body, I want you to know you’re not alone. Whether that feeling fades and you continue to get covered, or you decide to blast over or remove your tattoos, both responses are valid. Talking about regret, sharing our stories, and going into the experience acknowledging there might be difficult feelings can better equip us to deal with the reality of tattooing. And that makes the experience better for everyone.
Works cited
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tattoo-removal-market-reach-4-072600584.html
