Four of us went to a local tattoo parlor yesterday to fulfill our commitment to one another to get semicolon tattoos. The Semicolon Project is a faith-based initiative to raise the awareness and reduce the stigma of mental health issues. Three of us got the tattoos. One came along for moral support and to be the official photographer.
The three of us have had mental health issues. We’ve all had depression and anxiety. One was a cutter. One had a brother who died by suicide. One had overdosed and nearly died herself. Yet here we were, on a hot summer Friday afternoon…gathered together to permanently make a statement that says “Talk about it. It’s ok to get help. You aren’t evil or a bad person. You are loved. Your story isn’t over.” It was ironic that as we sat there getting inked up, we were listening to the verdict being read live for the sentencing phase of the Aurora shooter’s trial. It was decided his life would be spared because even though he was not legally insane at the time of the shooting, he is mentally ill. Too many severely mentally ill people fall through the cracks in the system and are not given the proper mental health care. Too many people are hurting themselves by cutting or starving themselves. Too many are finding permanent solutions to temporary problems.
Mental illness can be as simple as mild depression or as complicated as paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar illness, or psychosis. I’ll never forget the first time I was referred to as being “mentally ill” because I had anxiety and situational depression. I was deeply offended because I had my own bias as to what that meant. To me, it meant I was a social outcast, a leper of sorts. I had a “diagnosis” with a code that classified me as mentally ill. I was mortified. Heck, back in the day, it was somewhat fashionable to say someone had a “nervous breakdown” because it inferred they had a busy and stressful life and they deserved a little rest in the hospital for a few days. That sounded a lot nicer than mentally ill. If you only knew how many of the world’s population actually qualify for a mental health diagnosis, you would be hard pressed to go anywhere where there wasn’t someone affected in some way. The Semicolon Project brings us out of the darkness and into the light…into life. Into the freedom from discrimination. It opens up the avenue of conversation.
As you can see, mine (the one on the right) ended up a little different than the choices of A or B that I gave last week. One of my readers suggested I turn the feather into a quill pen to indicate becoming a writer and to make the semicolon look as though the pen just wrote it. I loved that. It indicates the process. We are always somewhere in the process of becoming the final version of ourselves. The semicolon tells us to pause…take a breath. Our story isn’t over.
❤️
“Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you— for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.”
Ecclesiastes 7:21-22