20/10/2026
I can’t tell you how many women message me privately, asking how on earth I cope with a double mastectomy, and confessing a deep, hidden longing for that same strength.
& every time, I respond with: “Oh, but you can.”
Because they aren’t really asking about my surgery. They are asking how to be free from the crushing expectation of performative femininity.
I didn’t realize how much of my worth was subtly tied to my breasts until I chose an aesthetic flat closure. In the medical boardrooms, I was told I was ‘too young’ to skip reconstruction. Medics and friends worried about my husband, my s*x life, my wardrobe, and pressured me to wear padded bras to hide the scars.
But when you walk away from that hospital, you are the only one who has to live in your skin.
Remove the whole lot, I thought. And let me live FREE
But walking out into the world without them? That is where the shift happened.
People will stare at all sorts of things—stretch marks, cellulite, being too fat, a big nose etc So if someone stares at my flat chest because they think it’s weird, then another woman who feels insecure about her body is getting a break.
It gives other people permission to love themselves exactly as they are. This is why I’ve photographed my scar at every stage & still do!
I like that it ruffles feathers. Disrupters never change the world by staying quiet !
Scars might not fit conventional beauty standards, but biologically, scar tissue is the strongest tissue your body will ever grow. I am incredibly proud of that strength.
And this goes for you, too. You didn’t survive whatever you survived—whether it’s a medical crisis, childbirth, a toxic relationship, or just the heavy battles of life—to make yourself small, camouflage your skin, or hide from the world.
You survived to go out and live fiercely. Not to hide yourself.
We all have scars. And the biggest gift we can give to the world is to share them. Because raw vulnerability is connection. Being real gives the next person permission to do the same—and in doing that together we create change.
cancersurvivor