At A Glance
Author	Mary
When	Three months ago
Artist	Me.
Studio	My basement.
Location	Virginia.

I come from a one hundred percent Vietnamese family, and they disapprove of almost all piercings (minus ears, but even then they can only be pierced once) and all tattoos, so I have no idea where my fascination with body modifications came from. I've wanted to get my belly button pierced ever since I was about eleven or twelve years old. The idea just always appealed to me. So I asked my mother if she could take me to get it done, but she refused. I then went to my aunt, but she also declined. I then decided to take matters into my own hands. If I was not allowed get my belly pierced professionally, I would do it myself. I first did some background research. I convinced myself that if I was going to be stupid, I was going to try to do it safely. Like that made any sense. I read about various infections, ranging from mild to severe, rejections, nerve damage and there was even one extreme case where the person was paralyzed from the waist down. From a mere navel piercing. After reading all of this, I still had my mind set on self-piercing my belly button. I have always tended to be stubborn. I told my mother I was going to stick a safety pin through my belly button. She did not believe I was going to do it. I think that motivated me even more to get it done. So one day, in early to mid July (I believe that the exact date was July 12th) I sterilized a safety pin with hydrogen peroxide, and shoved it through my navel. I seriously did not feel any pain whatsoever. I guess it's because I wasn't really concentrating on how much it was going to hurt, I was focusing on getting the pin all the way through. It kind of got stuck going in half way through. I didn't want to push it too hard, for fear that the tip of the safety pin would break. I got it through eventually after carefully wiggling the pin back and forth to loosen the hole. So I then had a safety pin through my belly button. I took a picture of my belly that night.

Here it is:




The next day, the area around my new piercing was pink and a little irritated. I read that that was normal, and part of the healing process. I disinfected my piercing three times a day with hydrogen peroxide and put Neosporin on it twice a day. Hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin are not recommended by professional body piercers, but it was all that I had in my house. I could not afford to ask my parents to buy me some proper disinfectants because they didn't know about my piercing yet.

Four days after I had done my belly button, I went to the pool. It's not recommended to go swimming or soak in water for a long period of time until two weeks after you get a navel piercing. I'm not sure what I was thinking because it could have gotten severely infected. I didn't even care then. But I did care when my mom found out about my belly button that same day. When she saw the safety pin, she screamed at me to take it out. I didn't listen, so she called my daddy. That's when I got a little worried. When my dad got home from work that day, he just inspected the piercing, and I assured him that I knew what I was doing, and so he didn't make a big deal out of it. When my piercing finally healed, he took me to go get a ring for it.

I'm extremely lucky that my navel never got infected. I'm not exactly happy with my results though. On a closer look, I realize that my belly button piercing is not a true navel piercing but is more of what would be called a surface piercing. The ring goes through very little flesh, and I often worry if it will rip out. I don't mean to be a hypocrite, but this is why it's not recommended that people pierce themselves.

I realize how stupid my actions were, but I don't regret them. I try to learn from my mistakes.

I've actually grown mentally from the experience. I can block out pain and now I try to think before I act.

I never knew how one piercing could open up a totally new world for me. It's amazing. I mean, I never planned on getting any other piercings beside my belly, and I never planned on getting any tattoos. Now I'm getting my nose and tongue pierced, and my ears a second time, and I've planned out three tattoos.