I remember the first time someone mentioned my boobs to me. My mom looked at me and said, “honey, you can’t get away with not wearing a bra anymore”. I was in the fourth grade and I didn’t understand. None of my friends had even mentioned bras. Sure enough, when I looked around and looked down at my chest I could see that my boobs were already way bigger than everybody else’s. So I went to the store with my mom and skipped right through the training bra phase into the world of real bras with padding and underwire. Wearing a bra in elementary school was uncomfortable and inconvenient. My straps were constantly falling down because I had no idea how to tighten them. As I’d pull them up, boys would point and laugh. At the time, I just wanted to look like all of the other girls in my grade.
By the time I got to eighth grade I was a 36C. People, mostly boys, started to comment on my boobs like I gave them an invitation to do so. I began retreating in my shell, wanting to hide and keep attention away from myself. Having big boobs made everything harder, from shopping to running to in gym class. I started to retreat from the friendly, outgoing person I was and became almost mute during school. I would barely talk in class and would get extreme anxiety whenever I had to say “here” during attendance. I was so uncomfortable with my body just like everybody is when they’re going through puberty.
My extreme dislike for my boobs continued until my sophomore year of high school, when I got dress-coded for a floral maxi-dress that was slightly low cut, but nothing scandalous or inappropriate for school. At the time I was a 36DDD. I got called into the principal’s office and was humiliated. She suggested that I should have known why I was there and that I didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea about me. I waited for my mom to drop off a second dress, missing class in the process. While I waited I ranted on Twitter, not really expecting anything to come of it. By the end of the day my tweets had over a hundred likes and retweets. I felt so supported by my classmates as they shared their own experiences with body shaming dress codes at my high school. Once more people started tweeting, the pattern was clear: girls with larger boobs were frequently targeted while girls with smaller boobs could wear the same things without fear of punishment. I made a promise to myself that day that I would try my best to embrace my big boobs and love them because they were a part of me. Having other young women support me and build me up did wonders for my confidence and self-love journey.
Learning to love my boobs has not been an easy process. There was a time when I went too far to the other extreme and placed too much value in them, thinking that the only interesting thing about me was my boobs. I thought no boy would like me if it wasn’t for my chest. I am at a much better place now where I realize that my boobs are special and wonderful but I also am not only boobs. I also had to come to terms with the fact that although I love my boobs, it is in my best interest for me to get a breast reduction because they literally will. Not. Stop. Growing. (I’m well past an F now). This decision does not mean I love my boobs any less, it is simply the best decision for me to avoid back and shoulder pain. It’s important to remember that the road to self-love isn’t linear. There are days where I want to scream and chop my boobs off myself because I can’t find a decent bikini top to hold them, but there are many more days where I look in the mirror and appreciate how damn good they look. Loving your body takes work but once you get there it is well worth the journey.