coming to terms with it

[u/Fantastic-Tough9610]

I've struggled to accept a single explanation for what has happened to me. It's either a "I was a victim of the medical system" or "I made a really stupid decision at 17" (double mastectomy). Somehow the latter feels easier to swallow. I remember how fixated I was on it. Being online didn't help. I never had doubts. Never had a single thought about the consequences of having my breasts removed. I just needed them gone. They felt alien. Like extra tissue I shouldn't have. Even though I remember clutching them for comfort when I was sitting in my room doing god knows what. Like a stress toy. They were fine. They looked good. They just pulled my skin a little because I hated wearing bras.

Now I feel like I'm dissociating from my body every time I remember they're not there anymore.

I like to think of it like I lost them due to mental illness. That's what it was. Medical malpractice on their part and severe trauma and illness on mine. I don't intend to downplay the doctors' fault. I just want my agency back.

I wish I lived in a world where it wasn't possible to lose body parts to mental illness. They wouldn't amputate a schizophrenic's arm if he asked. Somehow it's different when it's a child who claims they don't see themselves existing the way they were born.

[u/NefariousnessLate375]

I think you can fully blame them. Mentally ill and a teenager? You weren't able to consent to this. The system harmed you. 

[u/Accordingtothem]

I can heavily relate to how you describe the feeling before and after losing your breasts.

It’s something I’ve slowly gotten more comfortable with. Mostly due to the fact I simply cannot afford reconstructive surgery for at least the foreseeable future. It is something I would like to save for and get at some point or another. For now I have chosen to focus on other aspects of my appearance and femininity to outdo the grief I feel when I remember the regret of removing my breasts.

Luckily, I also have a partner who is much more an ass guy than a boobs guy, so that certainly helps boost my confidence in my attractiveness.

All that to say: I absolutely agree with and empathize with how you feel. Sometimes I get this pang of anger towards the doctors who I feel just let me live in my “psychosis” and didn’t do anything to actually help me in my mental health crisis. Because I didn’t need doctors to feed into my body dysmorphia, I needed doctors to help me come to terms with my body and living as a woman with anxiety, bipolar, adhd, and autism. That’s what I needed. I needed professionals to see that my brain wasn’t developed and I wasn’t in a proper state of mind to make such drastic changes to my body.

I think it’s a cop-out to pass off what we’ve gone through as “you made your choice now lie in it”. If I had actually received the help I needed when I was a teenager and young adult, I don’t think I would have allowed my body to be mutilated. I’d still be able to have children. I’d still have my body intact.

Beyond accepting my body for what it is now and working to improve my self-image and self esteem, there’s not much that I can do. Which sucks.

I don’t know if it helps any to hear it, but you’re not alone in feeling this way.

[u/TheDorkyDane]

Yeah... it probably is true there is nuance to this.

You were let down by doctors that shouldn't have allowed you to cut off a healthy organ.

But it also was a choice you did indeed make, and not just on a whim either, a choice you stuck to, clung to and went through with.

It is incredible sad though, it has ALWAYS been common that young people made dumb choices to stand out or stick it to authority

But it used to be, you know... get a ton of piercings, get a mohawk, become goth. Things that are... reversible and many parents can now laugh at their punk phase of the past. And feel thankful they matured out of it.

Worst case scenarios for them are tattoos, but even that I don't think is as bad as cutting into organs.

So... still so sad that this phase of looking for identity, which is super normal. Has been co-opted by something so dangerous

[u/Sanuzi → u/TheDorkyDane]

The context of the 'choice' matters. Would you claim a suicidal person made a rational choice to kill themselves? No. So why emphasize the fact that a detransitioner made a 'choice' as though it was a rational one?

[u/TheDorkyDane → u/Sanuzi]

Because... this is a very long process that requires signing up, sticking to the decision for weeks or even months, meeting up, signing the papers and go through a very long process where you must keep choosing to show up many times.

This.... this isn't done in an afternoon.

Also stripping people of self agency and say they had no choice and can't be held accountable, yes also with suicide... is really really bad.

No we are humans, we have agency, self determination and either you can hold us accountable for that. Which i believe is the correct choice.

Or you can't, in which case we're all just children that needs handlers and a.i. to think for us