To me, ANY tattoo. I've even thought of getting a tattoo just to make a statement--and I'm 53. I've also thought of getting a second piercing in each ear. When I was young (in the 1960s and 1970s)--we were told not to have any piercings and being the good little mormon I was, didn't get my ears pierced for a long time.
My daughter snuck behind my back to get her third piercing (I wasn't concerned about the "image"--but THE PAIN). My niece took her to get it. NOW, she wears 1 earring in each ear--and is TBM.
Mostly because it keeps Mormons away like nobody's business. On a personal note, I'd get my kids initials too because I'll always love my kids and I might get tired of anything else.
This is a tough question to answer. On the one hand, tats are a constant reminder of what has happened to us or who we are or what is important to us. They help us never to forget these things. On the other hand, in my opinion, one has not fully recovered from a damaging experience until one is no longer constantly reminded of that damaging experience so such a tat could serve to prevent full recovery.
Personally, rather than a tat to symbolize recovery or leaving the Mormon church, I would rather a tat to symbolize who I am or am striving to become after recovery. That would be something that keeps me looking forward or at least in the present or with good thoughts and memories of the past.
For me, I think something along the lines of a soaring eagle or something along those lines would be appropriate. Find what does that for you. That would be my recommendation.
People partying in the baptismal font with Raptor Jesus wearing goggles.
A burning Nauvoo temple.
But, I would go with a something simple and easy to conceal the meaning unless a mo looks at it.
Like a urim and thummin with a red shaded image of women in the glass part in bonnets and then blood dripping down a bit on a Nauvoo coin or an ink well pen with a skull in it's decoration.
I actually got a tattoo when I officially left the morg. I got "Vivere est Cogitare" written in script on my inside of my left ankle. It is from Cicero meaning "To live is to think". Later on I found an exmo tattooist who tattooed lilies around my ankle-theyre sort of my symbol for a new beginning. I love it everyday.
When I was a little boy my father taught me about the beginning and the end of the world and the 7,000 years of the milleniums. As a little boy I believed him, and so I knew that Adam and Eve the first humans had been placed in the Garden of Eden about 6000 years ago. I remember even as a young man, a returned missionary, arguing with a biology professor at the University of Utah. He patiently listened to my rejection of evolution as a "theory", and patiently answered my objections while trying hard not to offend the students that wanted to believe in the myth of creationism.
The tattoo is a representation of a cave painting found deep in a cave in Altamira, Spain. It was painted about 20,000 years ago by a cro magnon man, someone my old faith taught me could never have existed. Yet there is the painting, and now it is on my arm. The tattoo is for me a rejection of false teachings and doctrines, the arrogance of creationism in "god's image" and my embrace of things as they really are. We are in fact, creatures of evolution. The "falling bison" was painted by my ancestor and I acknowledge his existence.
Just me, but when I left bad things behind, I always wanted to put the lat long of my awakening on my bicep. That way I could always say when asked "Yeah, that's where I came out of the coma at".
I'm not as angry...well, normally...as some of the folks on here still feel.
I prefer to think of Mormonism as one step on a longer path, and would love to do a back or shoulder piece eventually that worked a mormon symbol, like the beehive, in with symbols of other beliefs I find beautiful, like a gothic cross, triskellion, Thor's hammer, etc....
Definitely the sort of thing that will be running around in my brain for years until I find the right artist.