If you’ve noticed someone with a semicolon tattoo, it’s likely not meant as an homage to the punctuation mark. Rather, it has a deeper significance.
A growing number of people are drawing or inking the punctuation mark onto their skin as a message of hope and to raise awareness for mental health issues.
Amy Bluel got the tattoo as a way of honoring her father as well as raise awareness of mental health after she lost her father to suicide in 2013. She decided to go a step further and founded a non-profit organization named Project Semicolon.
The goal of the project is to restore hope and confidence in people who are troubled by addiction, depression, self-harm, and suicide. The group’s website explains the punctuation symbolism as follows: “A semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.”
The hope is to encourage people to share their marks and their stories and to remind them that the difficulties they face is not the end of their story but the beginning of a new chapter in their lives.
What a unique way to help people suffering from these issues realize they are not alone!
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