Lady Spends 4 Years Eradicating 30 Tattoos and Was Shocked on the Outcomes (Unique)

Generally to start out over, you should begin with a clear slate, and that is what Kayla Stewart has performed.

The 28-year-old Californian went viral in July when she posted a TikTok of her physique after spending 4 years getting 30 tattoos faraway from her arms.

The elimination course of for Stewart started in Might 2021, only a few months after she had added 22 new tattoos to the 11 she had already gotten over time.

Stewart tells PEOPLE that she obtained the brand new tattoos throughout COVID, a interval the place she started spending time with a man she met in Venice, who was a line artist and needed to get into tattooing.

“He was additionally in restoration from dependancy — however not lengthy after we met, he relapsed. I didn’t actually know methods to navigate that scenario. I simply needed to assist, however I didn’t have any expertise with dependancy, and I’d by no means been round it earlier than,” says Stewart.

Reflecting on the scenario now, Stewart tells PEOPLE that she will see how “susceptible” she was and the way simply she was “taken benefit of” due to it.

“He’d do something to observe, and I grew to become the particular person he practiced on,” she says, noting that “it’s onerous to explain the psychological and bodily toll that took.”

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The tattoos for Stewart grew to become like “trauma I used to be carrying on my physique,” and taking the steps to take away them was a part of her “therapeutic” that finally helped her “reclaim my physique and my sense of self.”

“Emotionally, I be at liberty and liberated now that they’re gone. I actually felt like I used to be strolling round with scars — primarily on my arms, which have been onerous to cover except I wore lengthy sleeves. And I did — nearly day-after-day — for my very own sanity and to guard them from the solar,” she says.

Stewart tells PEOPLE that the week after every tattoo elimination session “was essentially the most brutal,” and recommends those that discover themselves in the same scenario to eat a nutritious diet, train and in the reduction of on alcohol, because the lymphatic system performs a vital position in tattoo elimination by clearing ink particles from the physique.

“Blown away” by her outcomes, Stewart says that she is going to “completely by no means” get tattoos once more.

Following her expertise, Stewart underwent eye motion desensitization and reprocessing remedy, generally often called EMDR, with one in every of her targets being the sound of a tattoo gun.

“I positively had an aversion to tattoos basically for about two years. However because of the remedy I’ve been lucky to do, I can now admire and love them — for different folks, simply not for me,” she says.

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As for the way folks reacted to her tattoo elimination, she says, “Everybody’s been extremely supportive and understanding,” and that it’s good to see that her outcomes have given different folks “hope.”