Mental health struggles often remain hidden, yet their impact is profound. According to Mental Health America, nearly 60 million adults in the U.S. experienced mental illness in the past year, and over 3 million children and teens seriously contemplated suicide. In Lincoln, Nebraska, tattoo artist Kelsie Shriver is turning invisible pain into visible strength through her art.
At 30 years old, Shriver has crafted hundreds of tattoos throughout her nearly eight-year career. But the work she does to help mental health survivors reclaim their bodies carries a unique and deeply personal significance. Shriver herself has battled anxiety since childhood, giving her a profound understanding of the emotional weight carried by many of her clients.
One transformative moment came when Shriver returned to her recently opened Luminary Tattoo shop on 27th Street after a therapy session. She decided to cover her own self-harm scars with a tattoo for the first time. “As soon as I put the stencil on there, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t just immediately pick them off. This is such a wild and empowering sort of feeling,’” she recalled.
For Shriver, the experience was life-changing. Before, she avoided wearing shorts, fearing her past struggles would be visible. But after the tattooing, she felt a profound sense of relief and empowerment, as if she had reclaimed and rewritten a part of her story she had long kept hidden.
“That thing that I have been self-conscious about for like 15 years is gone now,” she said. Inspired by her own healing, Shriver made it her mission to help others find the same freedom.
“It’s almost kind of allowing people to reclaim that part of their body and rewrite that part of their story,” Shriver explained.
Her work has touched many deeply. “I’ve had people cry,” she shared. “I’ve had people just be speechless for a while afterwards and be like, ‘I don’t even know what to say. I didn’t think this was ever something that was going to be erased for me.’”
Through her art, Kelsie Shriver is not only creating tattoos—she is helping mental health survivors transform pain into pride, scars into symbols of resilience, and invisibility into empowerment.
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