18 Jul My healing journey with Breast Implants: How they taught me to love and accept myself unconditionally.
How has the past few weeks been for you? It’s personally been one of extreme highs and extreme lows but amongst it all I have felt grounded and had this deep inner knowing that everything was as it should be.
The 3 eclipses we had in a row really stirred up some deep healing. In my family alone just in a space of 7 days before the last full moon, there were 3 surgeries, (myself, my sister and her son) along with the death of my beautiful Nan and also the sudden death of a family friend. On top of an already life changing year with my mum’s terminal cancer diagnosis. I feel like as a family we are going through some deep generational healing…. and in particular Heart Chakra healing. Essentially that is what 2020 is all about- it is a 4 numerology year which forces us to build more solid foundations for the future by weeding out anything that isn’t for our highest good and health is a major focus.
In this blog I wanted to focus on my very personal journey with Breast Implants. I found that as I started to be more open and be transparent about my implants I have been put in the path of many women, some who I have known for a long time as friends or acquaintances and some who are total strangers, that also have implants yet neither of us knew either one had implants until I opened up the conversation with my journey! It’s like a woman’s best kept secret. And I do understand why as it is a very personal thing- we don’t tend to make it common news!
I’ve hated my body for a very long time but have been very good at hiding that from others…. from being an overweight kid, crash dieting and punishing my-self with exercise to getting breast implants. I never felt like I lived up to my perception of what a woman’s body should look like. I never stood a chance of ever being enough when I was comparing myself to the media’s view of what a beautiful body looks like… and more specifically for me what beautiful boobs looked like. Because I wasn’t blessed with much in the way of breast tissue I always felt like I wasn’t a real woman- I had this belief that to be more womanly and feel sexier I needed to have bigger breasts. Ones that could at least fill out a lacy bra!
Almost 3 weeks ago I finally shed a part of me that has reminded me for 13 years that I wasn’t enough the way I was. I had my breast implants removed and it was a massive relief and so liberating. I haven’t felt like “me” in such a long time and I’m ready to find her and embrace her once again. No more hating my body and not feeling enough.
I don’t regret my decision to get them. The journey I’ve been on has taught me how to love and appreciate myself, my body and my boobs for the truly magnificent and precious things they are. I forgive my younger self for not knowing what I know now.
This is a picture of me just a few hours after my operation. I can’t even begin to describe to you the sense of calm I felt, it was like my body was saying “thank god for that! I can finally relax” – the surgery went well and I am just so grateful and so at peace with my decision. When I woke up in recovery straight after my surgery I burst into tears- happy tears! The relief I felt that it was finally done and that I was still alive ( yes I had a massive fear that I could die in the surgery and I wasn’t ready to leave my family!) was so emotionally overwhelming for me.
My implants were a trial PIP implant that were recalled years ago as the manufacturers were found to be filling them with non cosmetic /non medical grade silicone. As my amazing surgeon Dr Mark Ashton put it – filled with “Bunning’s Silicone”! Potentially exposing my body and many other women’s bodies to toxic chemicals causing a whole host of physical, mental and emotional health issues. There is a major law suit happening overseas suing this French company. It just makes me so mad how this even happened?!! I feel for every woman our there just like me.
I look back at my young 20 something year old self and think “what were you thinking?” I had agreed to having this trial implant put in because it was meant to reduce the risk of capsular contracture and I never asked any other questions about what was actually in that silicone . All I was worried about was making them look good! I later found out in my research just recently that my Titanium coated trial implants were never approved by the TGA and when I rang the breast implant registry to see if they could look up my file and give me some more info on my implants, I didn’t exist!. I wasn’t on the registry…. To top it off my original surgeon had died 3 years ago and the surgery only keeps records for 7 years- mine were 13 years old, so there were no medical records. The only record I had was an invoice with the Implants serial number on them and the company that supplied them. So I looked up the medical supplier in hope of finding some more answers about my particular implants and guess what? They didn’t exist anymore! They went into liquidation many years ago. It made me feel sick to my stomach and also furious!! I had been playing Russian roulette with my health all these years and for what? I still felt self conscious about myself. ( Breast implants didn’t solve my issues of not enoughness – suprise suprise!)
It’s not just my recalled implants that are alarming but the fact that all implants, even medical grade ones are causing silicone reactions in the body. My sister and I are perfect examples. We got our implants put in at the same time but in different states- I was in Melbourne, Victoria and my sister in Queensland. Two different surgeons, 2 different types of implants and 2 different methods of inserting them. Mine was through the armpit and my sister was under the breast. Both were under the muscle and both were a type of silicone gel – and my sisters were “medical grade silicone”. I will also mention from what I have learnt in my research, that even if you have saline implants they still have a silicone outer shell so you are still exposed to silicone.
To cut a long story short over the years both of us have slowly experienced changes in our health. Nothing major that would make us think there was something terribly wrong but enough to make us start to question what the hell is going on?! My sister Danielle had experienced a sharp pain in her chest though for many years with many ultra sounds and MRIs revealing nothing. We are both mums so yes we are busy and have a certain level of stress, and I was running my skincare business. We would both put it down to just never having time for ourselves and burning the candle at both ends. This certainly did contribute to our feelings of low energy, constant exhaustion and anxiety. But we both just felt old- our bodies felt old. Dry skin, fast greying hair ( for me ), hair falling out, IBS and the list goes on.
So when I found myself with severe adrenal fatigue about 3 years ago I changed my entire lifestyle. I reduced my stress and mental load and focused on extreme self care- mind, body and soul. Doing so completely changed my life but I still never felt fully healed- I still didn’t feel like myself and my gut was telling me there was a missing piece to my health puzzle. Following my little hunches I stumbled across something called Breast Implant Illness. The light bulb went off! And the more I researched, the more I couldn’t deny that it was in-fact my breast implants making me sick- they were slowly poisoning me and my sister.
On the 30th of June I finally had them removed after 18 months of putting it off for fear of what I might find and also being slightly in denial. My sister had hers removed the very next day on the 1st of July. I was in Melbourne and she was on the gold Coast. It’s been a very emotional journey for both of us but also a very freeing and very healing process and we feel blessed to have each other as we have gone through this as it is such a confusing and anxious time. We both still have a healing journey ahead of us but we are off to a good start- those toxic boobies are gone!
We both had our capsules (the fibrous tissue that forms around the implants- it’s our bodies way of protecting itself from a foreign invader!) sent to pathology for testing and here’s the interesting thing: My sister end up having capsular contracture and a rupture on her right side which she wasn’t aware of ( explains the pain she has been living with for years!) – even with 2 MRIs, it didn’t show the rupture. Mine were perfectly intact and I did have capsular contracture on my left side and didn’t know it, but both of our results came back the same. No signs of malignancy (thankfully!) but evidence of high inflammation and reactions to silicone in the tissues. This just proved to me without a doubt that our bodies are reacting to the silicone and you don’t need to have a rupture for them to be reacting. That silicone is slowly leaking into your cells and causing symptoms of silicone toxicity. And the longer you have had your implants the more toxicity. The Drs tell you there is no hard evidence to back this up and that implants are completely safe but my sister and I and the 100k plus women in the Face book group called Breast Implant Illness and Healing by Nicole are proof that this is real.
This is a picture of my Implants after they were removed along with the drains I had in for 24 hours. None of it is pretty! (sorry to anyone who might have a weak stomach!) Why do we voluntarily do this to ourselves?!
Ladies please please please, don’t play Russian roulette with your health. You don’t need implants to feel like a woman, you are beautiful no matter what. Your health and happiness is far more important than any set of nice boobs will ever be. Fake boobs are like wearing a mask- you can never be who you truly are because you are denying yourself the true deep inner healing that needs to be done. And the most important thing I’ve learnt from my personal journey is that how we feel about our bodies is an inside job- it all comes down to the thoughts we think and the beliefs we hold. There is so much conditioning built into our subconscious minds that drives these unhealthy beliefs and behaviours and the greatest gift you could ever give yourself is to make a commitment to work on changing them. You will change your life in ways you cannot even begin to imagine! this is the key to learning how to truly love and accept yourself, unconditionally.
Put on some make up, wear a padded bra, get your hair done, have a spray tan to boost your self-esteem but please don’t go under the surgical knife. It’s not just the 10’s of thousands of dollars you are wasting but more importantly you are risking your health and it’s not worth it. Yes I loved for a period of time that I could fill out those sexy lacy bras but it didn’t bring me inner peace or happiness.
Being a mum to an almost 11 year old girl and 9 year old boy I had to explain to them what mummy was going to have an operation for, and I was completely transparent and honest with them about my implants. I said it was decision I made when I was younger because I didn’t think I was enough and I didn’t know what I know now about truly loving and accepting my body for the amazing thing it is. I hope that through my lessons my daughter learns to love and appreciate her body for the beautiful and magnificent thing that it is and that you don’t need to change anything about it in order to be worthy enough or pretty enough. And I hope my son grows up feeling accepting of his body and more importantly appreciating that a woman’s body comes in many shapes and sizes, which are all unique and beautiful. I hope my journey teaches them to not get sucked into the false Instagram perceptions of “beauty”.
My beautiful mum has been a massive source of strength throughout my journey also. Her journey with breast cancer and having a double mastectomy with no reconstruction helped me to see that my small natural breasts are a beautiful gift to be treasured. I see my mum as being more beautiful than ever, scars and all, and the strength she had to just fully embrace and accept herself after having both breasts removed is truly incredible. I know how scared and nervous I felt about getting my implants out, and the fear of what they might look like afterwards and as I said to her, “I can’t even begin to imagine how you were feeling the day you had both breasts removed and the process you went through physically, mentally and emotionally”. If she can live happy and accepting of herself with no boobs and scars then I have absolutely no excuse to not be able to do the same.
If you have implants or know someone that does or know someone that is thinking of getting them, please pass my story on to them. It might just plant a seed towards health and healing that they hadn’t questioned until now.
I am honestly more in love with me than ever before and so in love with my new “natural boobs” and I feel like more of a woman than I ever have. I know that age, life experience and doing the inner work has helped me get to this point. Being fully accepting of who I am and appreciating my body for all that it does is so freeing.It certainly helps having a very supportive husband too. Corrie and I have been together for 17 years. He fell in love with who I was before implants. He loved and accepted me and my body just the way it was. If I only I had felt the same about myself. We really are own own worst enemy.
I wish I felt the way I do now when I was in my 20’s but like the saying goes- “we teach best what we most need to learn” And I have had to fully walk my talk this year! I had to go through this journey to really understand self love and self acceptance.
Affirmations, Oracle cards and healing crystals have been my go to self-care tools for a while now but their potency is even more powerful for me at this time. They are helping me so much through my healing journey. Having a self-care tool kit has really helped me keep calm , fully embrace my journey for what it is and trust that this is all happening for me, not to me. I can feel a brewing of a new revised edition of my Self-care for your Soul Cards on the horizon!
I will share more of my healing journey as time goes on but for now it is time for next level self-care and walking my talk! Plus new bra shopping!!
Biggest hugs,
Peta x
#breastimplantillnessisreal
PS If anyone wants to chat with me more personally about my journey I am absolutely happy to. Please reach out. I am open about sharing my before and after photos too. If it helps one person to make a decision that creates better health and healing then I have done my job.
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