Cancer has taken my breasts, my hair, and my ovaries. Everything that reminds me of being a woman.
I have undergone a double mastectomy, a port placement surgery, 16 rounds of chemotherapy, two surgeries removing my expanders due to infections, 20 rounds of radiation, a bilateral oophorectomy, and port removal surgery.
All of these surgeries and treatments have taken a toll on me physically and mentally. Every time I had an opportunity to rebuild my confidence, my body would change again. And it’s still going through significant changes. One of the biggest struggles for me is adjusting to being flat on both sides.
Some women choose to stay flat, love it, and rock it beautifully. But I have been flat for about 7 months now, and it’s been really tough for me. At first, being flat felt great. I was a size F before being diagnosed with breast cancer and complained about them all the time. So it was nice to fit into clothes that I had never been able to before. But as time went by, I noticed that I became really insecure in my own skin.
This insecurity bled into my sex life.
Because I didn’t feel sexy, I wouldn’t engage in sex with my partner. My partner was also my primary caregiver, so our relationship just took a back seat to our new responsibilities. Him tending to me and the household and me working on getting better.
We both believed that once I was “done with cancer,” we would go back to being sexually active. But that didn’t happen. I knew in order to repair my sex life, I needed to fall back in love with myself.
So I took photos of myself, spent more time being naked, masturbated, and wore clothing that made me feel sexy.
It’s just like the famous words of RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” My focus was on me, and RELEARNING to appreciate and enjoy my body.
Fortunately, I did build some confidence back, but what really helped me bring my sex life back was talking aloud about my insecurities. I had a serious conversation with my partner. In that conversation, I realized that we were both dealing with many insecurities and were experiencing depression.
Acknowledging our insecurities and being honest about them helped us move past them and try harder in our relationship. Of course, we aren’t perfect, but we’ve learned that when you work on yourself, the benefits of that usually spill into your relationship. I still don’t absolutely love my flat chest, but I am learning to love it more and more every day. Because I know I exude confidence, and if I don’t, I pretend like Rihanna.
One Response
Wow. I needed to read this because I am going through this right now. Double mastectomy in 2020 uterus in 2000. No other specific parts that make me a woman. I don’t feel sexy, I feel depressed most of the time. How could my husband be remotely attracted to me with the scars, the fatigue and the depression. He’s seen me at my very worst.