People are getting these semicolon tattoos as a symbol of hope in the face of depression and addiction

By Nidhi Prakash  |  July 24, 2015 | 1:53pm
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People who have struggled with depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicidal thoughts are posting photos of semicolon tattoos, meant to signify that their lives are not over yet.

The initiative, Project Semicolon, started out as a small Christian non-profit group’s attempt to raise awareness of mental health and suicide, but has been taken up by other secular support groups and people globally:

The project’s mission statement of sorts is the following: “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.”

“When my life was filled with the pain of rejection, bullying, suicide, self-injury, addiction, abuse and even rape, I kept on fighting. I didn’t have a lot of people in my corner, but the ones I did have kept me going. In my 20 years of personally struggling with mental health I experienced many stigmas associated with it,” Amy Bleuel, the project’s founder, wrote on the website.

https://instagram.com/p/5f6yWoqlNW/?tagged=projectsemicolon

 
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