This is a rare case of EA using the same graphic two days running, but there is a good reason.
In yesterday’s morning post, I wrote, concerning Rep. Nancy Mace’s extensive tattoo “sleeves” which she revealed in public for the first time this week, that voters and parties needed to stop letting people with serious emotional or mental issues from getting at the levers of power. I also mentioned that an associate of mine, also fully sleeved, a veteran and a Camp Lejeune victim who suffers from Complex PTSD, once told me that excessive, visible tattoos like Mace’s (and his) are often, even usually, a form of self-harm to cope with serious emotional damage.
I need to pay more attention to his observations in the future. I had missed a story in the New York Post earlier this year in which Mace explained her reasons for getting the tattoos:
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has gotten nine tattoos as a member of Congress because getting inked provides “the pain that I need to feel,” the congresswoman said in a revealing profile released on Friday. The 48-year-old congresswoman got the tattoos in “rapid succession” between a period in late 2023 and early 2024, marked by the breakup with her fiancé and an exodus of staffers from her office, some of whom viewed working for Mace as “toxic,” according to Politico.
Aside from a need to feel “pain,” Mace described getting tattoos as a way to “reclaim” her body and identity. One of her nine tattoos is the opening line of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel, “Mrs. Dalloway.” Woolf, as Politico pointed out, committed suicide in 1941 over fears “she was going mad.”
“So my story is I am totally broken,” the congresswoman and South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate is quoted as saying in the profile. Mace details the strained relationship she has with her father, her struggles in becoming the first female graduate at The Citadel and alleged instances of sexual molestation and rape that she’s been the victim of throughout the piece.
“I have PTSD over what I’ve been through,” she said.
Ethics Alarms 
Jack,
What you wrote about empathy, tolerance, and compassion mean a lot, and serve as words we all need to hear. One small caveat: well many people who have trauma may use, tattoos as a coping mechanism, not all people with excessive tattoos, have coping mechanism problems. from your words, you desire to approach this from a place of understanding, but as with all complex human issues, make sure you understand the right thing.
Assumptions, asses, and all that. Great post!
Wise counsel, Neil. The way I’d put it is that someone with such ostentatious (and painful) tats raises a rebuttable presumption that he or she is suffering from trauma. It was pointed out to me that the groups we most associate with the phenomenon—military, prisoners and artists—are also recognized as likely sources of stress, emotional sensitivity and trauma. My son’s former girl friend has many tattoos, and she is a survivor of a horrendous upbringing. I never made the connection.
Survivors of molestation are like sail boats without keels. They have been deprived of the emotional ballast we all require. It’s devastating and lasts a lifetime.
Someone told me getting a tattoo is addicting. You can’t have just one. Almost always, I have found that to be the case.
If tattooing provides pain which leads to feeling and feeling enables grieving and grieving gives way to healing then what other pathway does someone really have? Comparing tattoos to cutting unnecessarily exaggerates getting tattoos even if it was to feel.
PTSD aside, could it be that we all need sufficient pain and grief to appreciate joy? The trick is not “not having” problems or struggles but managing them. How can we survive as a nation if every time someone presents in an objectionable way, we discard them? Who will be left at the end of the purge? What will we have to show for our selves when, at the end of our struggle to purify our representation, we find that all of the remaining acceptable representatives were merely shams who were the most effective at camouflaging themselves?
Living in a community of very vocally emotionally expressive people, I am much less concerned about someone who can voice their pain and struggle.
Re: Seeing an abundance of tattoos as evidence that an individual is coping with serious trauma. I’ll add a cautionary note, but not before I make a confession!
I have always regarded tattoos as a sign of both rebellion and lack of wisdom, possibly coupled with groupthink and peer pressure. The military/prison connection is strong with the latter. I also think of them as graffiti, which I detest!
However, whilst I wouldn’t be surprised to find it associated strongly with damaged people, I wouldn’t be too quick to assign that cause. I understand Jack was not saying that you should do so!
I have a younger friend who is extensively tattooed. He has a full sleeve green arm illustrated in ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ images, amongst a number of other tats. His wife is also extensively tattooed. In my unprofessional opinion, they are both pretty level and together; but both just love Tats! I also have other friends who I consider pretty grounded, with sleeve tats.
I do think that the probability of a trauma connection increases logarithmically with the number of smaller kitsch tats, Nancy Mace being a case in point. People covered in a multitude of little unrelated tats, especially of conspicuously poor quality, is a particularly concerning sign.
Interesting thoughts regarding empathy and compassion, but sometimes tattooing and piercing are attention seeking behaviors not necessarily linked to trauma or PTSD. And for quite some time now they have simply been fashionable. My grandson’s fiance is a beautiful young woman with a couple of tattoos, multiple earrings, and a small nose ring. She is smart, a university graduate, climbing the ladder at a major corporation, grounded, sweet and charming.
The adage ‘you can’t tell a book by its cover’ can and does apply to body art.
However, if you’re sporting a spider web tattoo on your face, don’t be surprised that we assume MS-13 affiliation and/or prison …