It was early evening and I was sitting in my room with my boyfriend talking about piercings, and how my mother had made me close up most of my past ear self piercings that I did when I was 14. Now however, I'm 16 and have moved in with my dad and it's his point of view that I am old enough to make my own decisions about what I want to do with my life - also TONS of his friends have all sorts of piercings, he's very in with the alternative community / scene. Seeing as I no longer have to be under the control of my mother, on the spur of the moment I decided to do a piercing on my right ear, making a total of one piercing in my left lobe and three up my right.
At A Glance Author Rolo Contact Rolo@bme.anon When A week ago I really enjoy ear piercings, as I think they are really pretty, especially when they are filled with different styles of little hoop earrings. I haven't been brave enough to get a piercing anywhere but ears yet, but in the future I am hoping to get the left side of my lower lip pierced, and also my belly button. My friend has her belly button done and it is really pretty, but of course you need a flat belly so I will be doing some sit ups before I decide to get that done!
All my past piercings had been done with either a gun at Claire's Accessories, or with a safety pin. This time I couldn't find a safety pin and so took the pin of a brooch I had, effectively making a long needle. I found a big lump of blu-tack to place behind my ear and push against, and went through my jewellery box, picking out a simple large round silver stud.
I undressed down to my underwear because I knew from past experience that the pain would make my body feel inexplicably high temperatured and I wanted as little distractions as possible. I put on a playlist of Murderdolls and Slipknot because when I'm piercing I need music to first of all motivate me to not chicken out, and second to sing along to when pushing the needle through the ear - I find it makes the pain a lot more bearable.
Sitting on the floor, I then got my poor squeamish boyfriend to hold a mirror in front of me. I held the needle in a lighter flame for a while to burn off the germs, marked the spot I wanted pierced with a black marker, took a deep breath and started to push.
It took quite a while to push completely through and hurt a fair bit, but not intolerably. Most of the time I was staring straight ahead into my own eyes in the mirror, pushing it through and mouthing along to Slipknot lyrics. I had a few brief breaks to catch my breath and calm down but finally I felt the needle go all the way through my ear. There was a tiny bit of blood on the blu-tack when I took it off the back of my ear, then I yanked the needle out and put my earring through. After a brief moment of panic (and a lot of swearing) when I couldn't find the exit hole, I finally got the earring in place and put the back of it on.
I looked at my new piercing in the mirror and felt pleased with myself, then gave my boyfriend (who was looking slightly shaken from watching) a hug. He is really nervy about needles and piercings, I don't know why!
My piercing is healing nicely. It still aches a little when touched, but not too much. I have to be careful not to lie on my ear when I'm sleeping though! I rotate my earring a few times a day and make sure there's no gunk on it but I generally have quite good luck with my piercings as they never seem to get infected APART from the ones I got done at Claire's Accessories when I was 12.
I'm very pleased with my new piercing and when it doesn't hurt to touch anymore I will probably add another piercing to my right lobe. Having only one piercing in my left ear but numerous ones in my right is sort of 'my thing', a little bit of difference to everyone else, however I'm hoping some time this summer to get the left side of my lip pierced to balance it out a bit. I won't be self piercing that though - it's professional or nothing!
My boyfriend wants me to pierce his ears soon but I'm probably going to say no. I can cope with inflicting minor pain on myself but I don't want to hurt him even a tiny bit, plus I'm scared to mess up!
I wouldn't recommend self-piercing to anybody as it is so much better to get it professionally done, but if you do decide to do it yourself, just use your judgment and be careful.