I guess you could say that I was your stereotypical rebellious teen just looking for something different to do. I am 16, a junior at an art school and it isn't uncommon to come across tattooed and heavily pierced students. I would approach them and ask "did it hurt?" and all the usual questions just so I could get a closer look. There was something oddly alluring about metal through the skin.
At A Glance Author anonymous When A month ago Artist Self I have always loved lip piercings. Specifically, rings, but I knew that I'd have to start smaller. One night, as I was browsing through the pages here at BME I decided to pierce my lip. Just like that, I always wanted some sort of piercing, but had always been turned off by the idea of pain. For some reason, at 3 am it excited me.
What I had planned on doing, was taking a sewing pin, putting it through and then inserting a lip stud I had laying around. I got the pin, the stud, ice, and rubbing alcohol. I was vehement about sterilizing everything. I sat down in front of the floor length mirror and took the pin to edge of my lip. I chose a spot that was in a snake-bite area and was very close to the pink part of the lip (later, i thought it was too close and had wanted it to be lower).
I iced it, and waited, and started poking at my skin. It was incredibly frustrating because it hurt, and I naturally didn't want to press as hard. I kept thinking of a boy I met in freshman year who pierced his lip in the middle of class with a safety pin. If he could do that, I could manage this.
The most disconcerting part was the popping sound my skin made as I went through the external layer. Once past this, it burned but the inside felt softer. Kind of like sausage. I kept pushing, and I found that twisting and pushing it helped rip through the skin. Finally, I got through the layer on the other side with a little rip.
"Holy crap," I thought. Did I just put a pin through my face?". Yes, Yes I did. And it suddenly felt amazing. I pushed it around a little bit and then realized there was no way I had the heart to push jewelry through it. So then I took a pair of nail clippers and trimmed down the inside part of the pin. I then took a little plastic tube used to put on the back of earrings (it was nice and squishy, and felt comfortable against my mouth). What I had ended up being like a stud but with a very thin rod.
On reflection, nothing I did was even kind of a good idea.
I layed back down in bed with the ice and just thought about how amazing this felt and how cool it was to have metal through my flesh. It was a foreign object and for some reason this felt so good.
I woke up a few hours later and I had to go to school. I got mixed reactions. Some people said it looked like I had a crumb in my mouth. Others loved it and felt the need to try and touch it. No. I wouldn't even touch it.
It was swollen, but it went down during the day. Eventually, at the end of the day I realized that I wanted to do a better placement and maybe get it professionally done. This was just a trial run, to see if I liked it. Also, my parents would kill me if I saw it.
Now, about a month later there is no scar and it never got infected. I don't regret it at all because it gave me a lot of courage, confidence and power over my own body. One of my biggest fears is pain. I'm overcoming that, and am now in the process of a scarification on my hand. A little heart.
I don't recommend anyone doing what I did because it was probably stupid, but it was an experience that I loved.
I think if I were to do it again, I would be careful about proper materials...creating my own little jewelry was not the best idea. Also, I could have hit a vein, I could have gotten some kind of poisoning, I could have done so many damaging things to my body.
It's dangerous, but isn't that a little bit of the allure?
I'm proud that I was able to do it myself. I know a lot of people who have problems having someone else do it, but the sense of control helped. Sort of like picking at a cuticle slowly doesn't hurt as much if you do it as opposed to someone else. I don't know if it would have meant as much to me if someone else did it, or if I did it quickly. I feel like I proved something to myself, that I could do it. It felt great.