Why Some People Regret Their Tattoos (And Others Never Do)

I was knee deep in angry comments before I realized something pivotal: I was missing something huge here. Everyone, as unique as we all are, must also have a different relationship to permanence. So I ruminated on my missteps and created the Permanence Profile: a three axis model for how each person may relate to their tattoos as they change, and how differently the advice looks when it is tailor made.

When Good Tattoo Advice Goes Wrong

I set out with good intentions— I just wanted to talk about the dynamic nature of collecting tattoos and help people plan their body of work to be its most empowering and affirming. I gave the advice that I wish I’d been told when I first started getting tattoos at 18 and 19. And yes, some people clearly resonated with the content I was creating around permanence. While others… strongly disagreed.

I must admit, I am a sensitive person. I’m a bit of a people pleaser, and I only wanted to help people get tattoos that felt like them—that their future self would end up thanking them for—but instead I was offending people left and right, with the same messages that seemed to be thoroughly appreciated by others. I recoiled. I had touched a taboo topic without really considering the very personal implications I was accidentally suggesting.

You know what they say about the roads paved by good intentions…

The Search for What Separates Tattoo Regret from Pride

There was something here. And I needed to better understand the distinction between advice appreciated and advice abhorred. What was the variable?

I regret most of my earliest tattoos. As I began to have the honor and opportunity to tattoo young clients, the weight of helping them navigate tattoos that they want today, as well as tattoos that they still love in the 30’s and 40’s and beyond, started to pull at me. I began considering how to think about the temporal enigma that is tattooing—existing on two timelines, simultaneously— right now as well as forever. Starting the conversation around how best to navigate the psychology of permanence felt like a calling I needed to step into. I want everyone who collects tattoos to feel empowered by the nature of their creative autonomy.

I think tattoos are the ultimate form of creative choice in a chaotic world that often feels like it’s imposing its own will upon you. They can be so many things: ritualistic, archival, layered with meaning, purely beautiful, or just an exercise in the freedom of will. Tattoos are like portals, they transport you to specific times, places, and feelings. A tattoo can feel like a time capsule back to a past sense of self.

A sense of self who is always shifting.

Why Your Relationship to Tattoo Permanence Is Uniquely Yours

I began to dive even deeper into my philosophical musings. One of my favorite things about tattoos is how individualized they are: as unique as the spectrum of people collecting them. There are many styles of tattoo collection, and I started to realize that each person’s relationship to permanence must be just as unique.

The only truth that we share in this uniquely creative experience is that tattoos are permanent and that a changing self is guaranteed. So, why then, was I so sensitive to the difference between who I once was and who I now was—made visual by my tattoos— compared to others? For some, the tattoos that they’d outgrown represented the beauty of this fact, they weren’t that person anymore, and that was the whole point. The tattoo marked the dynamism that was their life, and they loved the change it marked.

This felt like a piece of the puzzle. But there had to be more. This wasn’t the whole story.

Not only are some of us more sensitive to the misalignment of the changing self, between past and current self, but some of us highly mutable—changing frequently— while others have a sense of self that is much more stable and fixed. Neither is better than the other, but we all change at slightly different velocities.

I knew this too well, I used to change hobbies, interests, and sense of self like outfits. For years, my mutability felt like a liability— always on to the next thing. It wasn’t until I grew older and wiser that I realized what an asset this could be, always on to new sets of information, and being willing to change. But with willingness to change came a rapidly shifting sense of self, and tattoos captured that change in real time. I realized something about myself and my own tattoo journey within this train of thought: I was both highly mutable and highly sensitive to that misalignment that was represented by my tattoos.

The story of my own tattoo regret began to make even more sense to me as my deep dive continued. I change frequently and I am sensitive to these changes in symbolic form. But the complexity of this dynamic temporal relationship between now and forever still felt incomplete.

The relationship to the future self was missing its seat at the table. Some people are rooted and grounded in the present, living in the moment, and collecting tattoos that speak to their moments. Others are constantly forward projecting, conversing with the selves they are becoming, and it’s likely that their tattoos are more of a conversation with the dynamic self. Here, again, I found myself at the extreme end of the spectrum: very forward looking.

The gap between the advice I needed and the advice that felt offensive to others was starting to become clear. I was speaking to myself, advice that I’d needed as someone on extreme ends of each variable: consider permanence carefully to avoid regret. I will change quickly, I am constantly looking forward, and I am highly sensitive to the delta between these variables. The tattoo advice I need is to select durable and elastic symbols, ones that will meet me where I’m heading, not pigeonhole me into who I once was.

But not everyone felt the same way I did within their own relationship to permanence.

It’s worth stating very clearly that these variables are all uniquely perfect as they are. None are better than the other, they are just different ways that a permanent addition to the changing self may or may not evolve. Because tattoos are not only individuation, but also a deep sense of self, made material, the adverse reactions made so much more sense. This same advice I’d needed might feel like a direct attack to someone else's sense of self. And they were right—I was simultaneously claiming that each unique tattoo experience was beautiful, while accidentally saying that their relationship to permanence needed rethinking to fit my own mold.

This was the lightbulb moment that put everything into perspective. And quite frankly, how dare I venture into blanketed tattoo advice without seeing the whole picture? The road, indeed, was paved with the best intentions, but it was a road i had to travel down to find the fuller picture.

Introducing the Permanence Profile: A Framework for Tattoo Decision-Making

It was this revelation, born of missteps and my own hypersensitivity to my own mistakes (both tattoos and offending people), that led me to develop what I call the Permanence Profile. The Permanence Profile is a three-pronged matrix that consists of the variables that relate directly to how the changing self perceives permanence: Change Velocity, Identity Friction, and Future-Self Focus.

Change Velocity: How Fast Does Your Sense of Self Shift?

Change Velocity is the relationship between a fixed and mutable sense of self. When you look back at your story, how much have you shifted? Do you change frequently, or are you rooted in who you are?

Identity Friction: How Do You Carry the Gap Between Past and Present Self?

Identity Friction is the reaction to the Velocity of Change: how do you carry the difference between who you are and who you once were? Do you carry your history with pride and acceptance, or does the gap between who you are and who you used to be feel like friction? When something from your past no longer represents you — an opinion you held, a phase you moved through — do you carry it lightly as history, or does it actively bother you? This is the difference between looking at tattoos from a previous sense of self not with regret, but as a beloved marker of how much you’ve changed, and wishing your tattoos represented who you feel like now.

Future-Self Focus: Are You Living in the Now or Planning for Who You're Becoming?

Future-Self Focus is how present vs. future directed you are. Do you live rooted in the now, or are you constantly looking towards who you’re becoming? When making a significant decision, do you primarily trust how it feels now, or do you find yourself frequently imagining how your future self will experience it? Those who live in the present are probably more likely to collect experiential tattoos, markers of moments, whereas those who are future projecting may want to consider tattoos that can hold the potential of who they’re becoming.

How Your Permanence Profile Shapes the Tattoo Advice You Actually Need

Of course I outgrew most of my earliest tattoos, with a high Velocity of Change, high Misalignment Sensitivity, and high Future-Self Orientation: my story is constantly changing, and my temperament prefers tattoos that can hold who I was, who I am, and who I’m becoming. I didn’t know any of these things when I first started getting tattoos. I only recently figured it out. And of course the advice I needed looks differently from someone who would score differently from me. We are wearing permanence with different relationships.

Someone like me, who would score high on all three variables, would best appreciate and resonate with advice that suggests finding symbols that are durable and elastic, that can hold deep meaning and change with them. Someone who would be at the low end of all three spectrums would find advice around simply trusting themselves more, as they are more likely to be the type of collector to enjoy experiential tattoos and wear them like a scrapbook. The tattoos they get are appreciated as markers of a past time and self, and that's the whole point.

Just as my own Permanence Profile reveals, I am happy to change, sensitive, and forward looking. So, naturally, I am happy to admit I sometimes got it wrong, although my intentions were pure. And my sensitivity actually helped me to reveal a better iteration of how i could offer helpful advice to the dynamic spectrum of tattoo collectors. My forward projection led me to find a better way to hopefully offer support for the temporal relationship between right now and forever. I realized any framework of support for someone's most empowered tattoos needed to meet them at who they are and where they are at, not where I am.

Body as Story: A Framework Built for Every Collector

So Body as Story evolves, with original intentions still pure, as a wider net. Still a framework to support the best-case scenario for every tattoo. Never to dictate, never to deliberate, never to determine—only to support. To hold space for the full spectrum. To empower decisions that speak to present AND future self.

Want to test your own Permanence Profile and get tailored advice for collecting your body of work? Try it here: tattoowithintent.com/permanence-profile