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Breast dysphoria and practical problems with getting surgery


everywhere and nowhere

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everywhere and nowhere

(I've already written it as a response elsewhere, but I think it will be better as a standalone topic.)

 

I dislike my boobs very much. Two ugly, sagging bags of fat. I wish I had tiny breasts, I wouldn't mind not having them at all, but I don't feel like I'm trans.  And I don't know what I could do about them. Binding only helps a little. Surgery is a very difficult option because:

1. I'm EXTREMELY uncomfortable with nudity. I think that perhaps I could be able to show my boobs to doctors a few times just to be able to get rid of them, but I have no way of being sure. Nobody has seen me naked or seen my "private parts" (including boobs) since I was a small child, just because I'm just mentally unable to undress in front of anyone.

2. I can't afford a breast reduction by myself and it's very unlikely that my mother would support the idea. She would probably just say: "If you want to have smaller breasts, lose weight!". Yes, I'm overweight enough that it poses some danger to my health, especially my right knee is in a really bad shape... but I would need to lose a lot of weight to really shrink my boobs. I just don't think it's feasible - and another problem is that I just wouldn't want to be thin. If I was slender and petite, I would feel very trans, I would really feel that "this is not my body". I just mentally need to be a "big lady".

3. There are some clinics which do reimbursed breast reduction. My boobs are not big enough to give me back pains or so, but dermatological reasons (such as rash from bra in hot weather - I have quite severe allergy, so generally my poor skin reacts negatively to lots of things) or even psychological ones could be OK too. However, they will only reduce breasts as much as they see fit. No thanks, I want to have really tiny boobs, not just to have smaller boobs.

4. Under Polish law sterilization is illegal and mastectomy is also considered "depriving a person of reproductory capabilities" because it removes the ability to breastfeed. However, there are exceptions: mastectomy is legal for FTM trans patients, for cancer patients AND also prophylactic mastectomy, even if it belongs in the "grey area" under Polish law, is being performed. Perhaps I could go for full mastectomy without reconstruction under the pretext that there have been cases of breast cancer in my family. But I'm also afraid that my mother would dislike this idea very much.

5. My general health could complicate matters enough that any surgery without serious indications could be considered too dangerous.

Any advice?

I probably have relatively small mammary glands - my boobs are very soft and mostly consist of fatty tissue. So perhaps reducing them via liposuction could work?? Is it possible? Any idea?

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  • 9 months later...

I know how you feel. I get rashes underneeth my breasts in summer. I refuse to not wear a bra.  Me they are also fat lumpy bags of flesh that I need to get rid of. I don't identify as trans-nor do I want to take Hormones but I would like to just get rid of them. My (adopted) mum had breast cancer so she had to have one of her breasts off I can't just talk to her about it as it would bring back bad memories for her.  Might i add I was adopted when I was two so I have no idea of my birth family history. Mine arn't big enough to cause back problems either. 

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To Each Their Own

I’m sorry, I’m probably not going to be of much help. I just wanted to say that I got a lot out of what you wrote.

 

I’m almost the exact opposite of you. I am trans, I had tiny boobs, and I’m so skinny (bmi of 13 or 14) my insurance wouldn’t pay for any of my F2A surgeries.

 

But I get what you are saying, none the less. Psychologically, I have a need to be a small person. So it wasn’t as easy as ‘just gain some weight’ so that I could get the surgeries paid for by my insurance. There was no way I was going to gain 40+ pounds just so my insurance would think it was safe enough for me to have surgery! It was like asking me to put on 40 pounds of ‘femaleness’ only to turn around and take it off again through surgery. Two of those surgeries included liposculping; gaining more weight didn’t exactly make sense to me. So, when you say that loosing a bunch of weight would make it feel as if it ‘wasn’t your body’ I think I really understand what you mean.

 

What I ended up doing is calling around and finding a doctor (that was reputable and had experience with trans people) that agreed to work with me and the body I had. I had all the blood tests and cardio work-ups, which showed I was healthy enough for surgery. It took a year to go through all the surgeries, but I could never have predicted just how f-ing happy I would be as I began to see the results. 

 

Of course, I ended up having to pay for everything myself, but I don’t even care because I couldn’t live in that body anymore. In my view, I can live without a lot of things...but I can’t live without self-compassion anymore. And to me, saving up and spending every spare dollar on my surgery was an act of self-compassion. I gave up cable, bought a bus pass, gave up Starbucks, didn’t buy new clothes or new ‘stuff’ in general...I took a look at everthing I could cut out and I cut it out. If I had anything worth selling, I sold it!

 

As far as being naked in front of a doctor...sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to get what you want. You’ll just be exposed from the waist up. And once your breast are gone...They are gone. How bad do you want to get rid of them (or reduce them)? So bad that you are willing to let a doctor see them? This is what you’re ultimately going to have to figure out because everything else can be in place, but if you don’t let the doctor do what they need to do (in order to help you out), nothing will change for you.

 

I hope you find some answers to your dysphoria. I do know how horrible it is to not feel comfortable with (or even downright disgust and hatred for) parts of your body. Nobody should have to feel that way.

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