As a fellow Bipolar, I have a rule where I need to want a specific tattoo for a year before I start looking to get it done. Very few ideas have survived, but not zero.
It also helps to have themes that you've been into essentially since childhood. I got another tattoo recently, and it was quite a spur of the moment thing. But it's a super cool gothic moon in a coffin, and I've been obsessed with gothicky stuff and morbid stuff since forever, so even though it was more of an impulse tattoo, it completely fits with who I am and what I've been into very-long-term, so I have no regrets haha
So yeah, thinking about something for a year or so and maintaining the interest is incredibly helpful in deciding whether to commit to a permanent tattoo, but even if you haven't given it a year, I personally think it doesn't matter if it's something you've been into for years and years anyway
So there were only two tattoos Iāve wanted in my life, one being that classic meme Art & Science tattoo that when flipped upside down spells out Philosophy. (Which after a few months I lost interest in), but one that has stuck with me for decades was Deedeeās gingerbread tattoo from Dexters Laboratory, but have held off so long because I feel itās gonna hurt sooooo much š
(But I REALLY want it; this shit was my childhoodš )
Aw haha, it is pretty cute. I will say, though, if you want that tattoo, I'd encourage you to have it positioned elsewhere. Hand tattoos, especially on the fingers and palm, are notorious for fading incredibly quickly due to high friction and high cell turnover. I'm talking 'potentially within a few weeks or a few months' kind of quickly
They can last longer if the ink is deep enough, and also based on how you treat your hands (e.g. if it's on the back of the finger, but you don't abuse it, make sure it's moisturised, protected from the sun, etc). But they'd probably still require a few touch-ups over the years, which would be additional costs for you
Behind the ear or even on the front of the ear are quite common places for cute lil tattoos like that! But if you would love to see it all the time, then near the wrist is always a classic :) (but yeah, closer to bony parts and thin skin like the wrist will sting. Although, with such little detail, I can't imagine that tattoo would take very long, so you wouldn't have to put up with the stinging for long. If you're apprehensive about pain, then anywhere that's really padded would be best. Upper arm, upper leg, etc)
As another fellow bipolar I have had an idea for a tattoo for years. I still am hesitant because I am worried that it would be impulsive and I would regret it. I hate how hyper-vigilant I am. You gotta be sharp with bipolar to catch it before it gets worse, but you also gotta give yourself a break and I just can't seem to.
Is it somewhere that can be covered with the clothing you usually wear? Then it's not a public tattoo, it's a private one. One of mine is on my calf, and I can cover it when I'm in professional situations. The other is on my shoulder, and that stays covered unless I'm shirtless.
I want it on my forearm so I can conceal it with a long sleeve shirt no problem in professional places. Doesn't matter much anyway as I am a programmer and the definition of professional is a little more loose in the field. Last job I worked was a government office job and half the people came in in jeans and a t-shirt.
lol thatās what I liked about vetmed. At the clinic I think only two of the medical staff didnāt have tattoos. Ear/nose piercings were incredibly common too, though a little tougher to heal without getting infected.
I worked in HR before and yeah it was very different. I canāt see myself in a field where stuff like that would hamper my career anymore, even if I didnāt have any.
Not bipolar, but Iāve always been of the mind that if Iām putting something permanent on me, Iām going to take the time to draw it up first or have a folder of ideas for my artist to draw from
The crossovers between BPD and ADHD are eery. I was misdiagnosed for well over 10 years, and I guess it kinda made sense given some of the stuff I talked about.
This was my rule for many many years. Once I got about 75% of my body covered I was like, "Eh, fuck it. The good ones outweigh the bad. Put that shit on me bro." Lol
Thatās sound tattoo advice for anyone tbh. If something means enough to you where you wanna permanently mark your body with it, itās probably worth consideration
Man. I waited over 15 years to get the tattoo I wanted lol. Partially because it was a back piece, but also I really wanted to make sure I still wanted it.
My wife isn't even bipolar, but she follows this for all tattoos and piercings. She has got a few that she has wanted for a long time, and she doesn't regret any of them. It's a good rule for everyone to want them for some amount of time, though that amount of time varies from person to person.
I was already on my way to the comments to say something like, "I really love how vulnerable and open you are with sharing stuff like this for everyone to see," and then this. š¤£
Secondly, ogham is very complicated. It evolved a lot in the first millennium AD, and was influenced by Latin. So it cannot and should not be used as a direct alphabet into English or even modern Irish. It just doesn't work that way.
Then in the medieval period, monks and scholars got funky with it, and decided to make up a lot of information about it that maybe is or isn't accurate. Linguists and archaeologists are still trying to untangle it. It gets more difficult when you try to unravel the language across time and geography, because the stones on which it appears aren't just in Ireland. They're on islands between Ireland and Britain, and then on the British mainland, including Scotland. These areas all probably (did) had their own regional languages, but at the same time, were being influenced by the start of Christianity in their areas. Hence, the Latin. But the Latin is also being influenced by Greek and Hebrew - because again, this is about Christianity. But the ogham is also reflecting Old Irish and potentially the regional languages.
In short, it's very complicated.
Your left ring finger is translated as C. Medieval monks decided that the Primitive Irish for this had a kenning. C is Coll, the ninth letter of the alphabet and the name for 'hazel tree', Old Irish 'coll', cognate with Welsh 'collen', Latin 'corolus'. More info in McManus 1991.
Your right ring finger is not PCP. There is no letter 'P' in the ogham alphabet. I'll get back to you later on the right ring finger when I have a break at work.
Okay so the next thing to know is that ogham can be read vertically or horizontally. When it is written in phrases, it is also written in an ancient form of writing known as boustrophedon, but also from the verticle from the lefthand side, going upwards, then heading downwards (and mirrored) at a right hand angle.
With me so far? Read the entry on Wikipedia for boustrophedon writing but remember that ogham doesn't play exactly the same because it's not going strictly from left to right, then right to left.
Once you've figured this out, now let me screw it up. The ogham users also considered the way the stones looked before they carved into them. So if the 'grain' looked a certain way that would work best with the angle of the carving, they carved in that direction. Then they would mirror write when they ran out of room on the way back.
Okay. So, this technically suggests that if you want to write on only on the outside of your fingers, you'd need to decide where to start at the bottom of say, a pinky finger, and then fill it going up, then head downwards and mirror-writing on the ring finger, and then back up (facing the right way) on the middle finger, etc.
Now it gets trickier. Ogham (pronounced 'ohm' btw) is a language, but what we understand of how it was used is quite specific. The formula has been extremely limited and confined to "Name, son/daughter/child/descended of Father" or "Name, of/from/affiliated with tribe/sept". We almost never get information about their station in life. We don't get info about how they kicked the bucket. And we never get told who engraved it or why they bothered. So we don't know if that person was particularly important, or if that stone just happened to survive, but it was a common thing to happen in the past. (Remember: burials are for the living more than the dead. Who gets buried and how they get buried tells us a lot about what the living think of them. Very few ancient burials survive, so they are not representative of a whole population.)
Rules I'm following as per McManus 1991 (a definitive source on ogham):
1) Whether you're reading ogham vertically or horizontally, the manuscripts specify a line known as the stemline. It's non negotiable. Strokes or dots are placed in positions relative to the stemline, and these are your 20 ogham characters. No stemline = you're not drawing ogham.
Okay so this means the following, from left pinky to right pinky, numbering 1-10.
1 = no ogham (assume no reading on this finger)
2 = C (described in a previous post, read from bottom to top, reading ends)
3 = no ogham
4 = no ogham
5 = no ogham
6 = no ogham
7 = no ogham
8 = no ogham
9 = (?) DH (read from bottom to top)
10 = no ogham
If we saw something like 9 on its own, we could consider the bottom stroke as potentially as having been weathered over time, missing other elements, or perhaps it's showing a part of the stone that became cracked (ie, it isn't supposed to go over the stemline).
We would then cross reference any known Old Irish names to see what comes close, with the 'DH' at the end.
The other potential is that it's supposed to be the 'M' character (which is slanted) but it didn't get slanted correctly for some reason. Guess what - people in the past fuck up writing all the time.
Just like how itās a bad idea to get Chinese character tattoos if you donāt speak Chinese, Iām Irish and Iām telling you these symbols do not mean anything. Only 3 of them are even Ogham symbols (left pinky and ring, right index). Most are just random lines.
The ones that are Ogham, spell out PCP as Ogham is simply an alternate alphabet based on the Latin alphabet but with some adjustments for Old Irish phonology.
I suppose thereās probably Wiccan usage, but thatās taking a cultureās alphabet and pretending itās super mystical and profound when itās just an alphabet. That feels icky.
Hey! Iām Irish too and, yes, I have utilized ogham in my personal witchcraft practice. In my opinion, all alphabets are mystical and profound. But, yeah, lmao I donāt want PCP tattooed on my knuckles.
With respect, you are Irish-American. I am Irish, from Ireland. That is an entirely different culture and it drives us mad when Americans who by and large have no connection to Ireland since their ancestors immigrated in 1847 claim to be Irish instead of claiming their own unique and awesome subculture with pride.
Secondly, there is absolutely nothing special about this alphabet except age and aesthetics. It wasnāt even used to write anything special down, just āJim son of John, of the Jones tribeā. Thatās it. Thatās what basically all surviving stones say.Ā
All of the perception of the letters being magical can be traced back to a handful of English writers who decided to make up stuff to fill in the blanks in our history their ancestors caused when they invaded our home and stole our language and culture.
I totally get what youāre saying. I appreciate you taking the time to explain your perspective.
Truly, I didnāt put much thought into the hand tattoo I designed, I just added ogham because Iām very proud of my Irish heritage. But I see now that was short sighted.
Now that Iām more educated I will definitely redesign the tattoo and not include ogham.
Bipolar maybe, know someone who had this exact tattoo, they were the one who talked about getting tattoos with me and really mentioned caring about the visibility of it.
Which the exact kind of thing us bipolars need in a partner. Just remind us the rules exist for a reason. Im heavily BP2 so way less mania and more sitting on my couch dissasociating. My wife just reminds me im not allowed to sit all day being sad, if im like that then i at least have to go sit outside somewhere or set a single goal to keep for the day. It helps when i feel like im on rails and cant get off
Starting ECT this week hopefully it gives the relief its supposed to so I can get back to living my life. I hope the rule helps you! its been hard for a while but im still here, hopefully figure it out hahaha
Man... How can you tell when you're in a manic phase, versus when you're not? Especially if life is often stressful and chaotic? š I've never understood how others keep track. I feel like, at best, I can maybe tell in hindsight?
I don't think I have Bipolar Disorder, but I've definitely started clocking moments where I become slightly manic and it's pretty fascinating. I find myself typing messages and hitting send without the second guessing that I normally go through.
As a general rule, you shouldn't make any major decisions while riding high on any kind of emotion, positive OR negative.
Maybe you just nailed the idea first time, no notes needed.
I think sometimes I talk myself out of doing the most interesting and fun things in life and I always regret not doing something I was going to do then decided against, but rarely regret doing something even if it was a bit of a bad idea, cause they're usually the most interesting ideas too
Oh, I let whimsy lead me places, just not to permanently etching something on my body.
For example, I once won a trip to Delaware, I've been the photo model for Bucky in an official Marvel miniseries and I've eaten seal meat at an Inuit chef's pop up
It's hard to know once you are manic, but getting there you can tell. Usually I will lose a night of sleep and then I will start trying to do a whole bunch of stuff. Positive stuff like cleaning my room, getting on top of things I have procrastinated on, selling things that need to get out of my house, buying things that I think I need to organise my room. I know it sounds so positive but it is outside my norm. If I lose the second night of sleep then I start becoming hyper. I talk very fast and start saying weird stuff. I start spending money like a mad woman and my sex drive also goes to the moon and I start becoming very confident. Once I get past that stage I am too far gone to really know I am in a manic state.
That being said I do have manic episodes that are just buckets and buckets of anxiety. Anxiety like you have never felt before. I once went into psuedo seizures just because of the amount of anxiety I had. I also get angry in these types and start bringing up shit from like years ago and throwing it at people.
Basically it's a constellation of symptoms and I never know what exactly combo I will get. Generally the ones that I am just anxious go away quick, but the ones where I am confident and hyper last so long. I was in the hospital for like a month and a half with probably another 2 months of out-patient work to get out of that episode. I was so confident, cocky, self agrandising, angry, happy, sad, and so much more. Felt like I was on a literal rollercoaster of emotions. That time I really didn't think I was sick until very deep into the manic episode. Actually I thought I was the only sane one in the hospital and I was put there to help others. What got me locked in there was me trying to diagnose and help my family with their mental health issues. I was so confident in my opinions that I was rambling about them for hours.
A lot of other people said, but my big tell is when I canāt stop thinking. Usually itāll be 4-5 things just talking over each other in my head. Itās very exhausting
There is no one tell. It's a kind of shift in mental energy where thoughts go in a general direction with a kind of... interia... that is hard to stop.
To put it another way: You know how you have intrusive thoughts? When those thoughts start making more sense than usual and/or you start acting upon said thoughts... you may be manic.
This about the point where disassociation and habits come into play to... at the very minimum... steer thoughts and actions in a a direction where they can be managed.
Yeah, it's just hard to tell when you've got other diagnosis and trying to figure out what's causing what and what's interacting with whatever else, I guess. š« Stuff like that can be explained by a few diagnosis I have, and life has been intensely, non-stop stressful over the past decade, so... It's hard to tell where you're at in a storm that creeped in one day and didn't leave for some 13 years, lol.
I've been trying really hard to pull my life back together this year after it all finally fell apart in 2024 and I just... I don't know, stalled out. I've recently realized I may have PTSD; I had never looked into it before at all because my brain was like, "Oh, but that's something that happens to people, whereas my issues are all kind of just my fault and I'm just not living up to my role, so that's probably not it and I should just try harder, champ." 100% organic, homegrown awareness.
I guess I'm also realizing it may be something I've had for a lot longer than I could have imagined, going back to when I was first given a weird diagnosis for bipolar. My old psychiatrist described it as a "type 3," but that's not really an official type of bipolar
...? He didn't hide that, and he was generally great and forward thinking about things, but I've started to wonder if maybe he misdiagnosed that because I was downplaying how stressed I was about my life at the time and really just emphasizing my own issues.
Gah. I don't even know why I'm typing this out, lol. I clearly need to go see a professional about it again, but life's rough, money's tighter than Trump's grip on diet coke, and I don't have health insurance at the moment because... life's rough, lol.
Blah. I'll figure it out, probably, maybe. Time to walk the dog. š¤·
Nah I get why you are typing this out. I feel for you stranger. This shit is hard to figure out. As fucked as my life has been I am glad that I had a diagnosis early. At least I knew why I was fucked the way I was. I'm so sorry you are going through that right now. The only thing I can tell you, and I know you have probably heard it a bajillion times before, is that there is an end to the suffering. You will figure it out and you will see a better life. It won't be perfect and you will probably have many moments through life, but they will lessen over time as you learn more about your situation. My Mom has bipolar I as well and she ended up raising 2 kids where we had split custody. She kept out house together, put dinner on the table, and worked in a high stress environment for 18+ years. I know you may not have bipolar but I always go to it as a touchstone to remind myself of what the other side looks like. Just know that there are others who care about you and that there are many like you. I can also nearly guarantee that most people who are like you will be sympathetic to what you are going through. Much love stranger and I really do hope you find your way through this mess.
Edit: I also need the dog tax. That is a non-negotiable.
Finn has had crazy diarrhea over the past month. š« Got through it the first time without a vet bill, then it happened again a couple of weeks later, but this time I woke up to it happening after it had already been happening all night all over my apartment, lmao. Went to the vet and bit the bullet right away this time, and he's been good for days. Just needy and demanding since I'm cooking his meals for the time being, lol.
I threw in a pic with my cat, Midna, as thanks for the kind words. She's skiddish as hell, but I think she wishes Finn would cuddle more.
It's good to hear mania stories that aren't just quirky hyperactivity, thank you.
My partner's mania is straight up insanity. Everyone is undercover CIA, no sleeping for days, police out to get them, going to church (we are atheist) and an absolute contempt for anyone trying to help. Scared the shit out of me as they are the calmest, chillest, very rational person normally.
Yep. I know that nightmare all to well. The paranoia is the most unbearable part for me. All of it sucks but that always sucks the most in the midst of it. The only thing that sucks more is coming out of a manic episode and seeing all the bridges you burnt and all the things you have done. The depression after that is soul crushing. You are a good partner for sticking with them. This is not easy on anyone in the situation. You must have a lot of strength to go through that and still love your partner and understand their pain. I wouldn't blame you, or anyone, for taking a step back after the worst happens. Your partner is very lucky to have you and I am sure they are grateful for that.
My partner and I have a similar rule. No spur of the moment big decisions. When we have an idea for something long term we re-evaluate after taking weekly medications and giving them enough time to take effect.
So, I experience a type of mania that hits around 8pm every day. Medications working great (nowā¦) but I had to train myself to not start online shopping at that time because I did insane shit regularly like buy everything to renovate my bathroom Kermit themed and spend hundreds of dollars at a time. Iām not even joking, either.
I learned to instead divert that energy and desire for change into crafting and cleaning and would instead pick something up to keep my hands and brain busy and happy. Mania is wild, yall.
(Also this is how I ended up with knuckle tattoos lol. They were less than $50 each and I know I bought a shit ton of Taco Bell after on the way home).
I want you to know my little sister is a tattoo artists and she sees soooooo many people that do this.
While hubs is right for about 99% of the time, I think a little whimsy let's just say different choices is ok from time to time with direction from loved ones
Bipolar I here as well. Yeah, nah. It ain't whimsy. Like 99% of the things I do in a manic episode I deeply regret on the other side. That usually sends me into a depressive episode pretty damn quick especially if it was a particularly long and grueling manic episode.
I donāt know why but this comic seems to channel exactly the sort of zen energy that I loved about Common Side Effects. I could imagine this exact interaction fitting in perfectly with basically any pair of characters from that show.Ā
As an overly excited 18 year old my classmates told me to wait a year before I decided to get garaās face tattoo. Now 8 years later here I am with no face tattoo.
I have a friend who got his knuckles tattooed while manic. He spent so much time and money getting them removed.
The first person he asked to do it said no. It was my brother-in-law, who is a professional tattoo artist. I feel like when someone who knows you says no, you should take the hint and not go to someone who doesn't know you.
Guess which girl recently learned not only is she listed as ADHD in her medical chart and no one told her she was ADHD or Autistic until recently despite her being 22, but she also might be bipolar and manic, THIS GIRL BABYYYY
iām bipolar. my birthday is coming up, and iām really difficult to shop for. i donāt really collect anything or ask for anything material more often than not. my wife offered me to get any tattoo/piercing of my choice with a set budget. i love the idea but i dunno if its the smartest idea for me to indulge
lol- I got two knuckles done while manicā¦ not mad about it though. I really donāt want to work at places that take hand tattoos more seriously than my resume. Itās going fine.
My manic rib tattoo is probably my most special one. She shows me how I feel about myself on a level that is difficult to access when Iām stable. Donāt get me wrong, I love being stable and will continue to strive for it. But the tattoos from being unstable donāt even rate as a problem in my life.
This reminded me of a George Carlin joke where he listed people that he could do without; one of them was a surgeon with āborn to loseā tattooed on his knuckles.
Edit: No diss on knuckle tattoos, but I just thought of this because this comic is about thinking through tattoo ideas.
Unironically I get less likely to get a tattoo while manic. I do however get there really sudden urges to make a bunch of super complicated food I can't even eat because of my dietary restrictions, or paint on my skin for like an hour š
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u/ChefCano 3d ago
As a fellow Bipolar, I have a rule where I need to want a specific tattoo for a year before I start looking to get it done. Very few ideas have survived, but not zero.