I'm a Barbie Girl: The Life of a Plastic-Surgeried Twentysomething

"The perception of beauty is a moral test." - Henry David Thoreau

I stirred a lot of curiosity and interest with my last post and opening up about having plastic surgery when I was 21. It is only fair that I now explain myself. I intended this next post to discuss love, but I don't think it would be fair for me to leave you hanging with a teaser like that.

The only way to preface this is to say that I grew up believing that we should love ourselves for exactly who we are; that everyone is beautiful. [insert additional cliches as necessary]. What I never realized, until I was in the position myself, was that it is not always possible. You can't just wake up in the morning and say "I am going to love every inch of my skin." Well, you can, but saying and doing are two very different things. I think we are all aware of that. 

The challenge wasn't waking up some mornings and feeling blah about my body. The challenge was waking up every day feeling like a freak. Since I was 13, I ran around wondering what it would be like to feel normal. I felt like I should be ashamed. I felt like nothing about me could ever be beautiful; not until I fixed the ugliest part of me. Admittedly, some people would have never noticed. Hell, I hardly thought it an issue beyond seeing specialists and having my 13-year-old tits man-handled by a middle-aged man and a handful of nurses as they tried to just make sure my situation was "normal". It, apparently, was. So, I lived on without much care. That is, until I was 14, when my, then, friend pointed out how funny by breasts looked in a bathing suit. 

We all know 14 year old girls; with their cell phones and their cameras and their giggles. That was my friend, and I was her new object of gossip. She pinned me down and snapped as many pictures of how awkward and uneven my boobs were and sent them to whomever she could. I remember asking her to stop, but giggling it off with her. The only problem is, my giggles weren't because it was funny. My giggles were because I knew if she thought that what she was doing was hurting me, she would do it more. 

It isn't okay to say you feel ugly. It also isn't okay to be ugly. I couldn't do both. So, I laughed it off.  For the next 7 years, I laughed it off. 

In my room, in the shower, on the phone with my mother I cried about my uneven boobs, that were in the beginning just a little B and and bigger B. Not just sobbing, but that uncontrollable kind of crying, gasping, hoping she would be able to tell me how to be beautiful. I can only imagine how hard it is for a mother to sit and listen to her teenage daughter wail on about something that no one had control over and no one had an explanation for. By the time I was 18, I had a full size D; and a very small B. I walked around with one of those extra push up silicone pads that "adds two cup sizes" in the left half of my bra. 

Second base was off limits, but at least they finally looked even in a bra! They (duh) came in a two pack and one of them lasted me a few years. I was set for quite some time. There were a few second-base mishaps and one or two (right-handed) guys moved a little more quickly than I could stave off and found out I was faking it. They usually just assumed it was in both, but the mortification across my face was enough to kill any mood. {Boner Kill} Needless to say, I stayed a virgin for quite some time...

In those 7 years, I wasn't always so coy about it. There were still people in my life that were part of the original string of texts who hung around. And, I was in theater, and cheer, and dance. I was naked-ish around other people a lot. In order to avoid the awkward "Oh Em Gee, are your boobs, like totally different sizes?" conversation, I often disarmed people by bringing it up myself. Admittedly, probably not the best move, but it seemed like a smart idea at the time. Make it a joke, they can't use it against you, right? Sure. It worked. But, it became a BIG joke. They all just thought they were laughing with me, not at me. I couldn't be mad at them. 

By the time I was 18, there had been 4 years of ridicule and jokes behind me and I was on my way to college. FUCK YES COLLEGE! I was so excited to have all new friends, and no one that knew about my boobs, and a new roommate. 

Fuck.

A roommate. 

I was about to live, intimately close with a complete stranger. How could she not find out. My initial plan was to disarm her like I had disarmed so many adversaries before her and just play cavalier. That would have worked well, if she weren't a conniving bitch who thought it might liven up some frat parties to tell them about my boobs, so naturally they all wanted to see. Don't worry, ma, I didn't flash anyone. I moved out after a month. She was also fucking every dude on campus while I was trying to sleep three feet away. Have fun with those genital warts, darling.  

Anyway, I also could have taken the path of least resistance and just not said anything; except I only had one silicone bra insert (that I had to wash in the shower, or public sink {ew, underboob sweat}so there was no hiding it) and my right boob was covered in bruises. Epic bruises. Like black and blue all over bruises. 

I know, you're wondering, "WTF is with these bruises? She didn't mention shit about that before. I'm confused." Be confused no more:

Flashback to two weeks before my parents pack me and my teddy bear up and ship us off to the middle of no where for a bullshit degree. I'm in the shower, la di dah-ing about and in my head I hear Ms. Long, my 7/8th grade Health teacher's voice singing some little ditty she wrote about doing a self breast exam. I thought, "What the hell. May as well practice now, so when I'm old and have to worry about it, I'll know what I'm doing." Plus, boobs are soooooooo fun to play with. 

Nothing could have prepared me for the fact that I did find a lump. A sizeable one at that. When I found it, it was just a little bigger than a kernel of popcorn. Just like Ms. Long warned us about. Given my history of doctors and unanswered questions, I still hadn't really taken into consideration any risks for breast disease. No one mentioned it. I didn't even know if there was anything other than breast cancer that it could be. 

Freak out: Engage. 

I went weak at the knees. I couldn't breathe. And, I sobbed for another hour; the remainder of my two-hour daily break at girl-scout camp. I had to plaster on yet another "I'm totally fine" face and spend the rest of my week with 12-year-olds pretending like singing "Airborne Ranger" was the highlight of my life. 

I don't know if you have ever had a biopsy done, but I pray you never have to. They essentially have the largest gauge needle (before it is classified as a dagger) that has another needle inside of it that shoots out and rips tissue out of you and pulls it back into the first needle. You don't know fear until they have to give you local anesthetic  in 6 places because they have found 6 masses and they're going to stab you 6 times with Satan's idea of fun. 

Everything came back as benign and I was told just to monitor it. 

By May, the kernel-sized fibroadenoma (if we are going to get scientific) had grown to the size of a chewed up piece of Bubblicious. It was huge and so were the other 5. They had to come out. I spent the summer on Vicodin. You don't know funny until you have seen Spaceballs high on prescription meds.

The unfortunate thing is that the removal didn't change much for size and by now I was a solid DD on my right and still a fairly small B on my left. I spent two more years with my silicone friend before I couldn't take it anymore. I named it Pamela- like Pamela Anderson.

By this point I had landed me a boyfriend. Chyeah. I know. Me? A boyfriend? But for real. I did. And he never really said much about my boobs. He just let me do my thing. Distantly supportive, I would call it. We started dating in July. I was approved for surgery in October. Scheduled it for two weeks after my 21st birthday. It was seriously the best year of my life. I met someone who cared about me. We made it work long distance. I could legally drink in bars without having Katie or Brian sneak me in anymore. I was on an amazingly competitive Collegiate Mock Trial Team and we were all super close. And, I was finally going to be normal. 

Oh my God. Normal. 

The anticipation nearly killed me. In and out of the doctor's office; med student after med student. I had never heard myself referred to as "an extreme case" as though I weren't standing naked in front of two relative strangers before this time in my life. But, nothing was going to bring me down. I was going to finally be normal. 

No more jokes. No more swatting boys hands away. I could finally flash everyone at Mardi Gras. I could say goodbye to Pamela. 

As I awoke in recovery, I started crying. I opened my eyes and stared at the pock-holed white ceiling tiles as a nurse grabbed my hand and I whispered "It's over."      

Straight up, out of a movie, right? But, really. It happened just like that. 

The unfortunate thing is that it wasn't exactly 100% over.

My body didn't like the sutures and by July I was a scarred-up mess. I went in for one more surgery to try to fix the scars but my body didn't like the new stitches either. By the following December, I had accepted my fate as the scarred up version of me. At least I didn't have to laugh it off anymore. I am better. And, I am happier. The problem is I am still scarred. So, I can't flash people at Mardi Gras, and second base is still awkward as fuck. But, I'm working on it. And, I don't know if I will ever feel normal. I still feel like a freak with unsightly scars and one real boob and one fake one, but guys don't seem to mind a variety pack.

  

I'm still not perfect. I am still not the kind of beautiful I want to be. But, I just have to try to love myself for who I am and try wake up every morning and say "I am going to love the skin I'm in." Easier said than done. But, goddamn, I'm trying.

Thank you for letting me open up about the most intimate thing I could possibly open up about. On more than one occasion, I broke down into a blubbering mess writing this. The pain is still there. The memories are real. And, the normativity I long to experience is still just a dream. But, it helps to talk about it. It helps to not have to laugh at myself. 

My eternal gratitude,

Sarah Black

P.S.
"Ugly is as Ugly does,
but what does Beauty do?
It sits alone and waits to be
'till Ugly joins it too. 

Beauty is as Beauty does,
but what does Ugly do?
When Beauty's in bad company,
It can think it's Ugly too."

- SB

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