How I Got Over My Trauma For Being Flat-Chested
I am from a beautiful country with beautiful women.
It is also a country with very tight and defined standards of beauty.
Particularly, the city where I'm originally from was vastly affected for violence due to drug trafficking during the 80's and beginning of the 90's, it is also one of the reasons that we hate jokes related with Pablo Escobar.
During this time it flourished the idea of beauty required by the drug dealers, and they had the money to pay for any plastic surgery for their women to "make them" more beautiful.
The idea of feminine beauty in my home country is defined by big breasts, tiny waist and prominent glutes.
It is also an idea widespread worldwide although some countries seem to take it more seriously.
I remember being aware of my lack of breast since I was a little kid, as I had a late bloom, while all my classmates were entering puberty and their bodies were changing, mine was still the body of a little girl.
Kids and teenagers can be mean and cruel, especially with other kids, so I remember the jokes of my classmates about my lack of breast, saying I was probably -A.
You take very seriously stupid jokes when you are a kid, everything seems very important.
I remember many times crying over my lack of breast and my inexistent puberty, which is ironic because that was not the only problem I had, I would also cry about the poverty and scarcity in my family, but that is a trauma for another story.
I remember being the last one from my cousins in having their period or growing breasts.
Later in life, when I started dating and felt uncomfortable with the upper part of my body, my chest, I quickly realized that was a women problem. That was just my problem.
Guys didn't care about that, at all, or at least most claim no to care and if they were acting, they did it quite well. Man just like breasts, they like big, small, excessively big and also tiny.
They might have preferences, but at the end, it's not that important for them, meaning, most of them would not stop dating or stop themselves from falling in love with a girl, just because she has tiny breasts.
I dreamed about having surgery many times, more than I can count and more than I feel comfortable to admit. I did not want to go through surgery, or spend the money on it, or go through the possible risks, I just wanted to feel comfortable with my body and feel like an adult instead of a woman trapped in a little girl body.
I fully support women who decide to have a surgery, because each have their own reasons, but in my case I knew I didn't want to go through surgery, I didn't want any of that, I just wanted to feel symmetric, and have an "adult" body.
It was a long way to overcome that feeling, but during this searching for body positivity and meaning, I realized that I didn't quite feel like an adult because there were another parts of myself where I still felt quite childish, naive and lost.
As I grew and overcame those other aspects I also went deeper in my concept of body positivity.
I was determined to accept my body and overcome my insecurities, after all I didn't want to go through surgery and I didn't want to keep living feeling sorry for my flat chest either.
Some of the things I did included meditation, conversations with close friends, introspection, but I have to say what help me the most was what I call "a little research".
One of the things I did was to look for pictures of naked or close to naked women. I found hundreds on internet, not even in porn sites.
They were more diverse than any Dove commercial.
Breasts came in all sizes, color, shapes and features.
I found many that looked like mine. And that was liberating. I was not defective. I was not even special!. My tiny flat chest was perfectly normal and many women were like me.
It is funny when we technically knew something but didn't really feel it before or internalize it.
I knew there are many women in the world and many might be flat chested like me, however looking at the pictures was internalizing it.
The second part of this little research was finding some artists (mostly aerial dancers, ballet dancers, weight lifters and gymnastic athletes, just because those are my specific interests) that were flat chested.
They were glowing in their performances and pictures, beautiful pictures in yoga poses or dance poses moving in synchrony with their bodies, showing their upper body and flat chest without the need to hide it or make it look bigger. I was astonished.
I realized each picture of women that I saw, naked or not, flat chested or with big breasts, white, brown, black, red hair or blond hair. They were all perfect the way they are.
I started taking pictures of myself in yoga poses that I felt very uncomfortable before due to the evident lack of chest. And for the first time I started to realized how silly I was.
I was normal. I was OK. I was an adult.
And my flat chest, my breasts, they were mine, and then.. I loved them.
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