This is verbatim. My story is just like everyone else's. I got a tattoo less than a month ago and I hate it. So I'll start with the details; my grandmother passed away in feb and we all were having a hard time dealing with it. Since I love tattoos, have others that I love, and don't really have anything stopping me from getting them (ex work, day to day life, etc.) I figured this next one would be my coming out parade! My first visible tattoo! Yay right?!....WRONG. The reason I loved all my other tattoos, was because they were all mostly hidden. All on my back and small ones in places you wouldn't pay attention to unless staring hard at my whole body for a long period of time. So I did my research, looked for the artist that specializes in the design I wanted (sunflower, my grandmother loved subflowers) , and booked my appt a month out. I had a whole month to think about this and still ended up with regret! It happens!! Don't think you're alone in this. She told me she usually sends out the design a day before for approval, well the day before rolled around and I still hadn't gotten an email from her, cool no problem. The day of the appt about 3 hours before, I finally got the email with the design included. I opened it and thought, ok not exactly what I had in mind but when I go in I can tell her to change a couple things. She even had a cancellation and asked me to come in earlier. Which then I knew I had some time to make the changes. Even after making the changes, I still wasn't happy with it. This should have been my queue to walk out! Sorry not walk, RUN! I should have known better right. Well as I'm sitting in the room, my mind playing all kinds of tricks on me, I tell myself maybe this is how it should be since she's the professional artist and knows what tattoos look best. I had even been told repeatedly by other professionals that the best tattoos are "bold and bright, thick outlines, etc." My idea of the sunflower was more delicate and less color, less bold outline. But since I'm not the "pro" I sat in the waiting room, convincing myself. Even the placement of the tattoo I wanted to play around with. I even stated that in my email to her, "I'd like to place the stencil in different places on my arm to figure out where I'd like it." Well she first placed it on my forearm and I thought "well ok, looks good here" (mostly because I didn't want to bother her with trying a different spot). Notice a trend yet ?...I'm a bit of a doormat. Well after the stencil was on, she went straight to tattooing. Loud music playing, her husband tattooing another gal, and them all talking back and forth. All while I sat there, already regretting my decision. I understand this is no where near her fault and it's all me. I just want to share my part of the regret phase. Once it was all said and done, I paid and left. I looked down at my arm in the car and immediately had the "what have I done!!!!" moment. I kept my cool in front of my husband and told him I loved it. The next day though, I panicked, I felt like I couldn't breathe and my whole world was collapsing. My beautiful bare arm, what did i do!!? That's when all the feelings everyone on here described, started. I was anxious, nervous, sad, everything! I wondered what my parents were going to say since they always told me, "never tattoo your arms!" Yes they specifically said "arms". They have tattoos and knew that when it comes to your arms, it's over. My awesome parents were right. And I know what some you are thinking, " you're 30, what you do with your body is your choice now!" Yes, yes, I get that. I'm very close to my parents though, so I do care about their opinion and should have listened to their advice. So back to my regret phase, I didn't tell my husband right away, instead I looked up laser removal and found a derm MD in the city that had every laser and gave them a call. I set up the appt in th next 3 days. That gave me time to tell him. I was worried he would be upset since he all he heard for the past 3 months how bad I wanted this tattoo and how I was ready for a "half sleeve". Again my anxiety took over and I couldn't eat or sleep. I broke it to him that night and he reacted the complete opposite of what I though. He basically said "if you don't like it, you don't like." Plain and simple, I'm so thankful for him. I'm lucky to have a great support system(hopefully it stays that way during the whole process :P ) I also told my mom, she was also very sympathetic and said the same. I went to the appt a couple days later and couldn't stop crying, finally when I did stop enough to get words out, she reassured me that I could get it removed with a combination of all the lasers she has and stop being so hard on myself as this happens all the time. She even put me on a cream and antibiotic because part of the tattoo looked a bit infected. Probably got a bit too much water on it in the shower and even though I dried it immediately, since it's so large and on my arm. So here I am, waiting for it to fully heal. My next appt will be July 11 and I have to go from there. Also want to note, I started one removal back in 2012 for a stretched out belly tattoo after 2 pregnancies. Only did one session with q switch and it was with the now closed Dr. Tatt off so I still have it there all ugly looking and it doesn't really bother me anymore. Also started removal of a lower back tribal tramp stamp with one of those strip mall places and had one q switched (had planned on fading it enough to do a nice cover up, but now my priorities have changed) this arm tattoo has to go first! No more tattoos for a while, as you can read my luck hasn't been that great with them. Updated on 21 Jun 2017: Day of
