At A Glance
Author	Sophie
Contact	Sophie@bme.anon
When	It just happened
Artist	Me.
Studio	In Front Of The Living Room Mirror.
Location	My House (London, UK)

Okay, well my experience is a very unorthodox one. I'll start by saying that self-piercing is extremely dangerous and really quite stupid. My self-piercing was only done today so I have yet to wait on whether it will get infected/rejected although I have a self-done cartilage and it's never given me any trouble.

Anyway, well for some time I had been debating a tragus piercing, they looked cute and I loved the fact that not many people had their tragi pierced. I had just come back from the dentist and as usual half my face was numb from the numerous injections to my gums. This gave me an idea. I touched my tragus but could not feel a thing. A light bulb pinged on the top of my head and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to pierce it with minimal pain. Somehow the numbness had travelled all the way to the side of my head and although I do not have a low pain tolerance, I knew if I didn't pierce it at that moment I never would.

Now here comes my big mistake that I'm feeling very, very guilty about. I didn't sterilize any of my "equipment" let alone have the right needles and whatnot. I grabbed a sewing pin from my mum's sewing draw and began to poke it through my tragus. I did hear those satisfying pops that BME writers so often refer to and yes, at this point I was grinning. Obviously I didn't feel any pain but by the time the pin had gone through I was panicking about what jewellery I was going to put in.

I at last found some nose studs I had bought a while ago. I decided they would be okay as they were small and a similar gauge to the pin I had used. So I took the pin out and shoved the nose stud through. I got it through almost all the layers but the last one was being a f*****. The end of the nose stud is blunt and would not pierce through the last layer which had closed up. I was so pissed I ran into the kitchen and cut up a carrot and stuck it behind my tragus. I then shoved the nose stud with so much force I didn't realise it had gone straight through the carrot in one go a long while ago. Well I got up and examined it. It looked pretty sexy.

The guilt caught up with me so I decided to put some ear care solution onto the piercing just to make me feel a little less worried I suppose. I had my nose pierced with an ear piercing gun 3 days prior to this piercing and bizarrely the woman at the shop gave me the ear care solution to use on my nose (don't ask).

I fell asleep after piercing my tragus and when I woke up my jaw was killing me. I was freaking out because I remembered friends telling me that if a tragus is not pierced properly it can break your jawbone. I told them it was crap but now I was panicking. I ran to the mirror and it looked fine, it didn't even hurt when I touched it so I put my jaw pain down to the injections from the dentist. I calmed down and took some ibuprofen to ease the pain and after an hour or so felt loads better.

I haven't told any of my friends yet but I'm looking forward to showing them it at school tomorrow. It's been about 6 or 7 hours since I pierced it and it feels okay, a little sore but that's what fresh piercings always feel like to me. I really hope it doesn't get infected but if it does and I have to take it out, I'm definitely going to get it done professionally. My mum hasn't seen it but I don't think she'll freak out because it's on my ears.

I'm quite proud of my new tragus piercing because surprisingly it's not crooked or wrongly placed. I don't think the nose stud is a good idea because I'm sure tragus bars are a much thicker gauge and I don't see how I'm going to be able to switch. Writing this story is now making me see all the negatives of why I shouldn't have pierced it myself.

So I want to reiterate the fact that self-piercing is very stupid unless you know what you're doing and have all the necessary equipment. I had the "piercing bug" after getting my nose pierced a few days ago and well at least now I can safely say my piercing "itch" has been satisfyingly scratched.

Happy piercing everyone, and remember, professional piercing at a reputable studio is always the safest way to go!

P.S - Here are some rough pictures i just took. I sadly just realized the piercing is kind of misplaced!