The Shocking Truth of Having a Boob Job

It isn’t always the confidence boost you need.

I was 27, sitting in my doctor’s office crying, again. The times in my marriage when I was at my happiest were when I was pregnant. My daughter was a few months old and my breasts had deflated along with my self-confidence.

My doctor said, “You seem really unhappy with your body, have you ever considered having breast implants?”

I hadn’t until that moment.

Have you ever felt unhappy with part of your face or body and thought about changing it? Whether it was to make yourself happier or to meet some kind of beauty ideal imposed on you, do you really think it would make that big a difference?

I guess I felt at least partly responsible for his suggestion. I was focusing all my unhappiness on my body because I had given up trying to fix my marriage.

I stopped telling people what was going on in my marriage because they either didn’t believe it or didn’t want to know. Perhaps if I changed the superficial issues I had, everything else would somehow fall into place.

Beauty is an illusion

We are becoming a species obsessed with enhancements and procedures to stave off ageing and to “improve” ourselves aesthetically. But it’s all an illusion. There are a lot of sad and lonely people in the world who look “perfect” on the outside.

Is the path to happiness and enlightenment likely to take you to a plastic surgeon’s office on the way?

Before you go under the knife, at least make sure you know what you’re getting into. Here are 4 things I wish I knew sooner:

There are no quick fixes for low self-esteem

There is no quick fix when your “problems” are both physical and psychological.

If you are unhappy about any aspect of your body, the chances are that you are perfectly normal and many people would choose to have your body over the one they have, but that doesn’t stop you being anxious or focusing on an area or areas of you you just don’t like.

The thing is that this is more likely a manifestation of your mind than any real abnormality or inadequacy with your body. After I had my surgery, I still worried that I should and could look better somehow. There was no magic wand in the world that could make my unhappiness with my appearance disappear.

If you are considering going under the knife and having a breast augmentation — or boob job, as it is more commonly known — you should think carefully about the short- and long-term consequences.

It isn’t a one-off surgery

Statistically, you will need to have multiple surgeries over your lifetime to maintain the look you want.

Implants have a limited lifespan. They last around 10 years depending on how your body reacts to them, so if you have your first surgery in your 20s, you’re looking at going under the knife at least once every decade for as long as you want your enhanced/increased bust size.

It’s really hard to have natural-looking implants for the rest of your life. Hard being the operative word, because many women find their implants hardening over time due to scar tissue formation. The implant is a foreign body inside you and some people will have a severe physical response to that.

One in ten women will have capsular contracture. If you’re happy to have the “fake” look, then this maybe won’t bother you. One in forty will have this so severely that it causes them constant pain.

Your mental health doesn’t improve with implants

Many studies have shown that suicide rates are higher among women with breast implants. There is not enough data to conclude the causality. It’s possible that the mental health of women seeking surgery is poorer to begin with but these statistics should not be ignored.

Attend a therapist or at least look after your mental health first as a top priority before you ever visit or speak to a surgeon. You need to know what you want and your reasons for doing it before you are persuaded along a path that might not be right for you.

It isn’t always the confidence boost you need

One thing I can promise you is that you will get more second glances from men if you have larger breasts — that’s just a side-effect of biology and testosterone! But that might not really be what you are trying to achieve.

Many women feel pressured by all the clever marketing and the usual ploys of making us feel that something about us is wrong and needs fixed. But the sad truth is that along with that “age-defying” face cream and “detox shakes” we might just be buying a lie about cosmetic surgery and its ability to change our lives.

On the plus side, if your decapitated corpse turns up on a beach somewhere, the police will have a head start on ID’ing your torso from the unique code numbers on your implants. They are all held on a national database.

Silver linings.

I know I sound cynical and negative about this. I had bigger boobs for a while. Did it make me happier? I can tell you for sure it’s a categorical no.

On the other hand, did leaving my ex-husband make me happier? It was not an easy decision, but ultimately it brought me a lot more happiness than anything else I tried to change.

Having breast implants is a bit like treating the visible symptoms of an illness rather than diagnosing the underlying cause. If you feel unhappy with any part of your body, explore the reasons for that before you ever consider changing your beautiful body into something you think it should be.

You are perfect just the way you are. Don’t let anybody make you feel like that’s not true. You are enough right now. Never let someone tell you what you should do to fix your emotional problems if it involves altering your physical body.

I was 27 when I first had my breasts enlarged with silicone implants. Twenty years and multiple surgeries later, I now have only natural, small-ish breasts and a few scars. I have learned some valuable lessons about myself and about life expectations in the intervening years.

The biggest lesson is to love and accept my body as it is now. If you only love your body when it looks the way you want it to, that’s like only loving your kids when they behave the way you want.

Having a boob job might not be the confidence boost you need, but learning to love yourself lasts a lifetime and won’t break your bank balance.

If you’re considering going under the knife, I hope you explore other options first.

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