Wholly Hellbent

Sunset

Thirteen weeks and six days ago one of my greatest dreams finally came into fruition! This is after living with the physical and psychological pain of a body that did not fit me and that I did not want. Since high school, my breasts drew more attention than I thought I could bear. Comments were often made to me about how I “filled out” the nightmarish white sweater I had to wear as part of one of my cheerleading uniforms. I didn’t mind the short skirt, although perhaps I would have if it hadn’t been for sweater situation. More than anything, I just wanted to tumble. I was good at it, and I had to be in the present to not hurt myself doing it. This is fortunate; around this time is when I learned about sex acts involving breasts courtesy of the older boys telling me what they wanted to do to me.  

 

Not do be outdone, getting off the school bus to walk a distance up a shared driveway, that older neighbor boy would tell me about how he was going to come into my house and rape me. He knew I was a latch key kid and repeatedly told me there was nothing to stop him. He added that, afterwards, he would rape my mother and kill my parents, too. 

 

It won't be long, now! This is taken during
my last consultation with my surgeon. (2021)

This was the beginning feeling of extreme shame about being in my body. Disgust was not a new feeling with which I adorned myself, but when shame set in, it covered me. I wish this were a unique scenario for a young woman to feel herself become isolated into, but it isn’t. And it doesn’t stop there, either. 

 

Neither does fear. I deeply hope that it is, at least, unusual for a little punk ass bitch boy to get away with repeatedly terrorizing a girl with verbal assaults depicting rape and murder. I became an extremely anxious kid at around eight or nine years old, but these threats, a few years later, sent me over the top. No remedy would ever come, either. Paralyzing fear set in and stayed for years, never really ending. At this moment, the telling of those reasons why is not withstanding. The point is, in addition to shame because of my sexualized and objectified body, fear also crippled me.  

 

Lo and behold, this was a triple threat! Guilt was close behind. If my parents died because I developed breasts, it would obviously be my fault! Every new day was the same horror of bullying and teasing because of my body, a body I was trying to get used to but, nonetheless and not surprisingly, did not want. My life ranked on that list, too. 

 

These are tough feelings for a young woman to have. And they’re tough for grown women to have, too. I know because, although my story in adulthood does get more complicated, as if these were warmups for what life would eventually bestow, I have never been able to shake those same brands of intense feelings from being a teenager. 

 

On one level, I hope the takeaway would be that if someone, even/especially a kid, is dealing with these heartbreaking feelings and circumstances, that someone would consider helping them to improve their self-esteem, body image and sense of safety. Ideally, this would be sooner rather than later.  

 

On the level I am currently - level 40 something - disgust, shame, fear, and guilt are decades of expansions that never got easier. This includes accounting for my fluctuations of weight, which occur, in a large part, due to sexual traumas that proceeded these formative experiences, a series of “warnings”, if you will. 

 

You might imagine, especially if an ounce (or a few pounds) of this resonates, being approved to be covered by insurance to due to medical necessity is like a dream come true! And from what I have seen in forums it is! For so many people, this surgery quickly becomes a blessing that is immensely rewarding within a few days, maybe weeks. There is a percentage of patients whose bodies do not respond well, however, and, if you are in the market for a breast reduction, it is worth considering that outcome as a possibility.  

 

What have I learned? The desperation for relief screams so loudly it is hard to imagine that I would not have made the same decision if I were to do it, again. So, I get it if you do not think complications could happen to you. Even though I am currently desperate for relief from the fallout of, for one thing, losing blood supply, I am still looking forward to healing enough to go back under the knife for revisions. I do not know how my body will respond a second time. It is amazing what society can do to women about their bodies and that monsters are out there compounding these mindfucks with atrocities, isn’t it? If you are one of the scores of women affected by this, know you are not alone.  

 

The most labyrinthine relationship some of us might ever have is with our bodies, and that is saying a lot. Because I still hurt, still hate my body’s appearance, and still feel like a fucking disfigured freak, I am still willing to face healing from the first day of surgery all over, again. And, assuredly, still having a hole in my chest over three months later deems this first time pretty miserable but, truthfully, when we have been tormented by our bodies, either directly or indirectly, for most of our lives, the line around what we have the capacity to endure without creating further damage is blurred. Because we lose sight of the difference between what is okay and what isn’t, for as banal as it sounds, we do become gluttons for punishment without even realizing it.  

 

Do we lose perspective between unhappiness and happiness, anyway? 

 

Or could it be that we become wholly hellbent to finally be freed of big problems from which stem more, even if it might be the last thing we do? Where is the line between self-determination being a fallacy and an attribute? When your mind is so prone to separate from that body you don't know how to really love like it deserves, does it even matter?