I was a 16-year-old girl with pocket money to burn and a desire to be the centre of attention, so I decided to get tattooed. It was the mid-Nineties. I was, I thought, misunderstood, and spent my time feeling shy and listening to indie, rock and grunge music in my bedroom while my parents downstairs feared for my sanity.
I'd secretly neck vodka on a Saturday night with my friends before hitting the 'alternative' club in our small seaside town, but I'd never really been a wild child or much of a rebel.
I can't say I thought long and hard about the decision to indelibly mark my skin for life. Getting the tattoo was easy. Tattooists had long since lost the stigma of the backstreet parlour and being the preserve of men in the merchant navy or jailbirds.
Best of all, tattoos were cheap and easy to come by, a bit like drugs - you could find one on almost every suburban high street. And they were guaranteed to get a reaction among my friends.
Thinking back 10 years, I devoted pretty much zero brainpower to considering the consequences of my actions: the fact that I would be sporting this design for the rest of my days. The majority of my deliberations went into concocting elaborate schemes to keep my parents in the dark about my body art plans and devising cunning clothing schemes to hide it. It all seemed such a good idea at the time.
It was about a week between my initial idea and scooping up my Saturday job wages and strolling along to a registered tattoo parlour in Brighton with my then best friend. After signing the book 'confirming' I was over 18 (well, I was only two years younger than that), I was authorised to be tattooed. I spent five minutes looking at the designs, or 'flashing', on the wall. All is there, from traditional heart and roses-style efforts to 'Mum' and the ubiquitous British bulldog.
My friend saw a colourful and smallish butterfly, which we deemed the best of the bunch, and it was done. On entering the studio, I felt there was no going back. The studio smelt of cigarettes and disinfectant, and the receptionist had huge pet dogs behind the counter.
After pointing out my chosen design to the tattoo artist, who traced it on to my right shoulder, it began. Combined with the alarm I felt at the pneumatic noise the needle made - modern tattooists load ink on to a pen-type device containing several needles, powered by an air pump and operated by a foot pedal.
I remember being struck by the enormity of my actions, and what my dad would do to me when if he found out. And I knew deep down that he would find out. At 16, I still took holidays en famille.
Thirty minutes later, it was over. Slightly sore and £20 poorer, I left the parlour brandishing my photocopied 'tattoo care' card, my three square centimetres addition covered with Savlon and a folded-up piece of kitchen towel secured with some sticky tape. Very classy.
I was filled with dread and guilt at the thought of going home. This lie was going to be in a different league from my usual little white ones. As soon as I got in, I confided in mum. Her reaction spoke volumes. The words 'Is this a joke?' and 'But it's not real, is it?' were used more than once, combined with a look of abject shock when I revealed the bloody butterfly-esque spectacle adorning my shoulder.
Before she'd even uttered words to the effect of my regretting it, I regretted it. I estimate that I liked the tattoo for about a day. After that I went off it, but still thought I could live with it. It was winter, I'd cover it up.
But after about three months, I despised it. My dad saw it on our summer holiday and just deemed me 'stupid'. I felt stupid. Despite the explosion in the numbers of young people having tattoos, I believed strangers judged me on it, especially if I wore a nice summer dress or a slinky vest top. I was labelled.
Two years later, my first serious boyfriend told me that he hated my tattoo so much he would pay for me to have it removed. Before that, it hadn't actually dawned on me to consider having the design erased: I'd just wear T-shirts. I looked into it, but there was no way I, or he, could afford it then.
In days past, tattoos were almost impossible to erase effectively. Designs were either rubbed out of the skin through a process of abrasion, or cut out and replaced with a skin graft. Neither solution was attractive. Cosmetic technologies have since evolved hugely, and after university, I inquired again.
After a consultation, I opted for laser removal at the Lasercare clinic in London's Harley Street. That was in April 2003. I'm still a regular attender almost 18 months on and the butterfly has some way to go. I'm not in the minority. Sixty-five per cent of my fellow patients are young women seeking to remove their hastily-made mistakes.
Removal is not cheap or quick. Fifteen-minute sessions cost between £55 and £155, depending on the complexity and size of the tattoo. My design has cost more than £1,000 to remove so far because it features almost all the colours of the rainbow. Black is simplest to eliminate, while any designs featuring blue, green or pink are more problematic, needing a combination of different lasers to shift.
Removal is incredibly painful. I'd describe it having someone puncturing your skin with burning nails. It's possibly 10 times more painful than having the tattoo done in the first place.
Having a tattoo young is akin to buying a T-shirt when you're 16 and being told you have to wear it, regardless of style or fashion, for the rest of your life. You just wouldn't do it. Tastes change, fashions change, you change.
Fifteen-year-old Julie Thomas, who appeared in the press after having a large Winnie the Pooh tattooed on her arm, isn't necessarily, as she said, 'stuck with it'. But it will take months of pain and much expense to be rid of it.
