Tattoos do not mean I'm "sick"

Seriously, for one: being masochistic is not a mental disease, it is a fetish. Pain is stimulation of nerve endings, just like pleasure.

I'm not saying I find the process at all pleasant (except for the aftercare because I LOVE the smell of my anti-bac soap). I think some people do, whether or not pain is a sexual preference for them. The stimulation may be such that their brian simply interprets it differently than others.

Now, I came close to a "pleasurable" sensation when I recently got 8 values tattooed on my feet (get it? i r sooo smartzzz zlolz). It was a very brief moment, to say the least, and was perhaps only because I was repeating the words mentally as a mantra and hitting a less-sensitive area).

It should be mentioned I only have one tattoo other than my feet: most of my left side, from my hipbone up to breast-level with a portrait for my father (it still needs touched up, and I will, of course, do it all over again on the other side for my mother someday. Er, well, I hope I'll get to O.e )

But anyway, the rest of my time under the needle is spent gritting my teeth and clenching my fists, trying to remember to breathe. It is utter f****** torture, yes.

But y'know what, there's a lot of s*** that "completely normal" people do that's just as f****** tortuous as a tattoo. Medical students?! Takes 12 f****** years to become a doctor. If you spend that amount of time under the needle, you've probably been tattooed at least twice over, so stop getting drunk and going down to the shop with your latest 2-week fling (and really, why don't they ask about all those slightly-off naked lady silhouettes when you obviously can't be a trucker if you can get and keep a gal for 2 weeks without the police hunting your ass.

The true point of a tattoo, to me, is truly metaphorical of the experiences I had that are represented with such.

Yes, it's painful.

But you f****** deal.

Isn't that life?

Unfortunately, clenching my teeth and fists doesn't help you with college :/ If anyone actually read this and can answer this for me, please do: how the F*** does a life-long depressed cynic 20-yr-old get to a mindset that can get me through college?