A mother with more than 800 tattoos said that Christmas wouldn’t be the same for her because she couldn’t get into a pub.
Melissa Sloan, who is from Powys in South Wales, uses an ink gun she bought from Amazon for £120 and uses it at least three times a week when she gets her body pierced to tattoo herself.
When she was 20, the mother of seven got her first tattoo. Since then, she has covered most of her face and body with different tattoos and dyes. She had said in the past that she does it to deal with the effects of how her brother treated her when she was a child.
The 45-year-old woman says that she has called the school a “Crayola,” and that people have stopped inviting her to Christmas parties because of it.
Melissa says her tattoos have made it much harder for her to go out and do things during the holidays.
She said,
I want to enjoy myself and go for a drink at the pub, but they won’t even let me in
I’m covered in tattoos, I’ve got 800 in total. l get tattoos three times a week. I even do my own tattoos at home.
Even though she has gotten several infections, the ink addict says she will never stop marking her body with ink.
She claimed that some of her tattoos did not heal properly, leaving her with scars. Because of this, her skin fell off.
Melissa said,
I will never stop having tattoos until the end.
Even though some of her tattoos were done by pros, many were done by her 56-year-old partner, Luke.
She also said that two of her younger children, who are in elementary school, have added their own tattoos to her back.
Melissa said that her “prison-style” tattoos were keeping her from getting a job, according to a source.
She said the following about her attempts to get a job:
If someone offered me a job tomorrow I would go and work – I would take that offer.
I expected this in life, I can’t fit in with people as I like to be me and I’m always going to be myself.
The mother said in May that she got tattoos on her arms, back, and chest as a way to deal with the sexual abuse she received as a child from her older brother.
Gavin Sloan, who is 46 years old, was given 21 years in prison at the beginning of this year for a string of sickening rapes and sexual assaults he did to other children.
My tattoos help me cover the emotional scars that Gavin left behind,
said Melissa.
They’re my mask and I hide from the world behind them. But now that he is finally in jail, I can begin to feel free.
Melissa says that the police didn’t take her complaint seriously and that the person she accused of wronging her was never charged with any of the crimes she said he committed.
Melissa and Gavin grew up with their mother, Doris, and two other brothers and sisters in Kidderminster, Massachusetts. She is one year younger than Gavin.
Melissa said,
Gavin and I have the same mother but different fathers, but we were raised as brother and sister. As tots we shared a bath together, as siblings do.
But when I was six, and he was seven, Gavin touched me down below in the bath. I told my mum but we were both small children and she brushed it off. She didn’t really believe me.
But it carried on and it got worse when I was in my teens. Gavin and I shared a bedroom, and he took every chance he could to grope me, and he tried to make me perform sexual acts on him. He drilled a small hole in the bathroom door to spy on me.
I grew up thinking it was normal. He told me it was fine because he was my half-brother.
I tried to fight back against him, but he was stronger and very aggressive towards me.
He called me sexual names and made inappropriate comments. I saw him kill birds and small animals and I was very frightened of him.
She added,
I found the tattoos very therapeutic; a way of blocking out the past and also the abuse.
Gavin got in touch again and even as an adult, the suggestive comments continued. He just didn’t seem to see that it was wrong.
When I was 35, I made a complaint to the police, because I was worried that he would do it someone else.
I was interviewed, but that was it. Nothing came of it, and I went away thinking that I had left it too long.
