It’s been more than three years since I first felt a lump in my breast.
To say that I was scared was an understatement. I was still in my first year of college then, still settling in when suddenly the record screeched. Deep breath in.
I have never really given much thought to my relationship with my body. I inhabited it, I clothed it, I fed it; but before now, I never really believed that it had the capability of twisting my self-perception. While I was aware that these things happen, it never occurred to me that something I’ve only ever heard through stories or medical documentaries—found in a space visible but distant—could happen to me.
But that is the reality of it—when we hear of things happening, they always happen someplace else, to someone else. The moment it happens to you, well, the disbelief outweighs the expectations you had about having a normal and healthy body.
This wasn’t the end of the world, though. After I got the courage to face the lump that wasn’t supposed to be there, I got it checked. Benign. Deep breath out.
It didn’t erase my fear of things taking a turn for the worse though. Nor did it help me forget that for a while, I felt like a stranger in my own body, like it had betrayed me somehow by allowing this to happen. Despite my doctor’s reassurance that breast cysts were normal and I could relax, it didn’t quite erase the memory of fear or worry.
If I were honest, a part of me has never completely wrapped my head around the idea of being corporeal. Sometimes when I am in a particularly melancholic mood, I forget that I am both my thoughts and the body that follows.
It would never have occurred to me to regularly undergo breast examinations if my doctor hadn’t recommended it. They are nothing to be ashamed about, and early detection of any abnormalities can be key for successful treatment. Though my case is fine, the importance of early detection was stamped into my head that day.
Perhaps it is because society has perpetuated this notion that the human body is something to be tucked away that it took so long before I noticed my first cyst. Society and media have enforced this outdated and harmful idea that it is sinful to acknowledge our bodies outside of the most basic of functions.
Women, especially, are taught shame at an early age. From the moment we outgrow our childhood bodies—sometimes even earlier—we are taught that we must shroud ourselves away to avoid the possibility of being reduced to anything less than pure. A lot of times this manifests into an uneasy relationship with our bodies. For a while, I was too embarrassed to even acknowledge myself in front of the mirror without my eyes shying away from more private areas.
The body is natural, and in itself, it should not be perceived and associated with shame. Sometimes we ignore the signs because it is more convenient to do so, but how many have found out too late that there was something wrong because they didn’t listen? One shouldn’t be ashamed of doing more than the cursory wash-and-rinse.
This October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I want to stress the importance of early detection. According to a study done by the Philippine Cancer Society together with the Department of Health in 2015, there were more new cases of breast cancer than any other cancer types for women. In this culture of conservatism, I implore those to do away with misplaced shame and put their health first.
Now my relationship with my body is healthier. I don’t really worry about my cysts—my mom does the worrying for us—beyond annual checkups. I am more than the sum of my body, though it is still an important facet of myself. There is nothing to feel ashamed about and nothing in which to attach absurd ideas of shame.
Don’t fear feeling yourself.
