Photo Courtesy of Anaya Peterson/Instagram
Anaya Peterson is at risk of becoming permanently blind after tattooing her eyeballs blue and purple.
According to the New York Post, the 32-year-old law student was inspired by Australian model, colored eyeball comrade and body modification inspiration Amber Luke. She was recently hospitalized after having a medical emergency in response to the toxic tattoo ink in her eyes. Anaya also told The Post that she could now develop cataracts.
The mother of five went against her seven-year-old daughter’s wishes and tattooed her eyeballs even though she risked becoming blind.
“I was just going to get one [eye tattoo] at first because I thought that if I go blind, at least I’ve got the other eye. I should have stuck with that,” Anaya said. “My daughter told me that I didn’t want to do that [the tattoo] asking, ‘What if you go blind?’ She wasn’t on board with it at all.”
The Jamaican Brit, who resides in Ireland, explained that her vision is also impaired since getting the outrageous tattoos.
“I don’t have 20/20 vision anymore. From a distance, I can’t see features on faces. If I didn’t have my eyeballs tattooed, I wouldn’t be having this problem. Even today, I woke up with more floaters in my eyes. And that is dangerous.”
The gag is she’s stuck with vision issues because tattoos on the eyes can’t be reversed or removed.
Anaya first started her eyeball tattoo journey in July 2020, starting with her right eye. Initially, she didn’t have any complications other than dry eyes and occasional headaches. She got her other eye tattooed in December 2020.
In August 2021, Anaya woke up to find both her eyes were swollen shut. She went to the hospital, and doctors treated her with medicines via IV and performed a biopsy on her damaged eye.
“I just wanted to be at home watching [TV] to be honest. I can’t even put it into words. It wasn’t nice at all whatsoever,” she recounted the event. “It was traumatizing to go through. I just remember thinking, ‘I’m not doing that s**t again with the eye tattoo. I’m definitely not doing that s**t again.’”
She now regrets the foolish decision.