Choose Your Own Scars
by Carl Waggett
I’ll admit it—I don’t really like needles. Or anything sharp that has been designed to pierce my skin. I’m not a fan of it at all. Yet, for whatever reason, tattoos have always fallen into a different category. They still hurt, of course, but I’m drawn to them. I’m not even sure I could tell you how many I have.
When I was growing up, tattoos still carried a stigma, and the stereotypes that anyone with a tattoo was either a sailor or a felon were all too common. But now, it seems like tattoos are everywhere. They aren’t just for carnies and drifters and those on the fringes of society. Go to any tattoo parlour today and you’ll see people from all walks of life—artists and accountants, salespeople and stay-at-home moms, your friends and neighbours, and firefighters too. I don’t really know how to explain it. But for me, I think tattoos started to take on a different meaning. They went from being taboo to being a way for people to express themselves, to show those on the outside what they felt on the inside, to wear their hearts and souls on their sleeves, if you know what I mean. At least, that’s how it is for me.
I’ve spent years acquiring my lifelong decals. Over that time, I’ve come to learn just how much tattoos have helped me express the inexpressible. But since I can’t just put a tattoo here, let me try to explain.
I’ve lived, by all measures, a fairly simple life. I have no real desire to swim with the sharks or chase after markers of status or success. I am deeply passionate about the things that I am deeply passionate about. I know what I want to do, and I’ve tried to do it the best that I can. I like to help people.
I became a firefighter in 2002. I saved lives, put out fires, and I helped people during some of their most difficult moments. In 2017, I was diagnosed with PTSD Depression and Anxiety. I’ll be honest, at that time I didn’t believe in any of it. I thought mental health issues were for other people, not me. But it catches up with you whether you believe in it or not. I could not deny the fact that my life was falling apart. To most people, I was a hero helping people and setting a great example in my community. What they didn’t see, though, was that I was drinking until I passed out and arguing with anyone about anything, just to win. This mental health thing—man, it was destroying me.
But I couldn’t tell anyone about it. One thing that made me a good firefighter is that I can talk to people. I’ve always loved meeting new people, hearing their stories, and just shooting the shit. When you arrive at an emergency, the conversations are much different, but you need to be able to talk to people who are in their worst state, to figure out what is happening, to help calm them down, to learn their names and talk them through their shock, or fear, or anger. But trauma changes all that. PTSD made my brain so foggy. I felt like I couldn’t explain anything to anyone, I couldn’t tell people how I felt or what was going on inside me.
Like any good story, a woman came along to save the day. I met Jackie, a 911 Dispatcher, after I had separated from my wife and was just about at my lowest. Jackie helped me. She helped me realize there was a name for what I was feeling, and even a way to treat it. And she continues to help me through all the challenges of navigating mental health injuries.
Something magical happens when you begin to have a name for trauma. When your life is in shambles and you feel like there is no way out, it is easy to blame everything and everyone else—work, your spouse, the kids, the economy. Even just bad luck. But when you begin to name it, and then to summon the strength to look inward and confront the problem, it sets you on a different path. It is a journey from suffering to self-discovery. At least that’s how it has been for me.
To be crystal clear, though, this was not an easy path. It has taken many steps. I work on it daily. I’ve tried to share that journey with others: sharing my own experiences, advocating for better mental health care for first responders, and trying to help people on their own quests of self-discovery. Yet, while I have been very open about my own struggles with PTSD Depression and Anxiety, there are still things that are hard to say. Sometimes, you have to show, not tell.
I’m no Picasso, but if I can’t explain something, I will try to draw it for you. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to tattoos (ha ha). Ink on skin. It seems so simple. But something magical happens with them too—for me, and I believe for others too, tattoos let me express my feelings in a way that words never can.
It is weird, though. I mean, getting a tattoo is not a pleasant experience. As I said above, I don’t like sharp things stabbing me. But there is something to the pain that is important. I mean, when you are sitting there under the gun, you are basically fighting your own instincts, ignoring your body’s alarms, and bypassing your brain’s recommendations to run from the pain. Pain is bad, it is a message from your body to get the hell out of there! And yet you stay in the chair because you know—you feel—that it is worth it. It is worth the pain. And so maybe that’s what tattoos mean too, they mark you as someone who sat with the pain. When you look at the ink on your skin, you are reminded that your passion was stronger than the pain.
I have more than a few tattoos, but one of my favourites is “man on a high-rope.” It depicts a man balancing on a tightrope, holding his brain in one hand and his heart in the other. It’s a struggle most of us have. Another favourite is a swallow on the side of my neck. British sailors used to say that if they died at sea, the swallows would carry their souls back home for them. That story always stops me in my tracks. I don’t know if the swallows will carry my soul, but I like the idea that they might. On my body, I also have the following: a compass, to remind me of all the others who have been lost too, and who found their way; the Fibonacci sequence on my left wrist, to remind me that everything keeps expanding and we are never as limited as we might feel; a map of the psilocybin compound, because we have so much still to learn; some crows, because I have always been drawn to them; and the Egyptian god Thoth, for reasons unknown even to me.
Coming to understand my own mental health has been a long journey, and it has taken me places I never thought I would or could go. Tattoos have been a key part of that journey for me. I can’t say that tattoos mean the same thing for everyone else, but I can say that tattoos remind me not to judge people just from how they look. For me, though, tattoos have let me express myself in new ways, to come to know myself in new ways, and to remind me of all the things I’ve done. Trauma can be invisible to others; it doesn’t always leave visible traces behind. I say, choose your own scars—you can even make them in colour.