Im so Angry, so Sad :(

[smoothd]

Ive been finding myself crying from time to time, im so angry, so sad so disappointed, my chest as been giving my problems since i was 15, the amount of shame ive beein gathering of the years is enormous, i was bullied constantly when i was a child at school,  today im 30, why couldnt i be born normal, i had gyno surgery when i was 17, now instead of having big boobs i have huge craters, deformities and lost sensation in my chest , i cant take my shirt off or be shirtless in certain positions again... im tired and angry i wish i would die already so i wont bare this anymore, worst luck in the world, im tired of this i wish i wouldnt exist.

[giggsy]

https://www.gynecomastia.org/smf/index.php?topic=32767.msg208471#msg208471

[dr.moe]

Having gyno can be embarrassing. Having a botched surgery can be embarrassing. If I had this in my teens or 20s, I'd have been mortified. As it is, going shirtless is something I won't do because of embarrassment, and I'm most likely going to join the ranks of the bra-dudes very soon. However - I knew a lot of people who would have gladly traded places with me.  A teacher who'd suffered from polio and was partially paralyzed and had breathing issues. A few WW2 and Vietnam vets who had really bad injuries, including lost limbs and disfiguring facial scarring. A very cheerful guy who lost his manhood and part of a leg to a mine in a rice paddy but refused to give up on life.
When you're older, you'll realize that very few people will notice unless you point it out to them. You can always use humor - if someone notices, look them in the eye and boldly answer, "Like a lot of boys, I had man boobs when I was young, but I donated them to transplant to a flat-chested girl that I felt sorry for. Unfortunately the doctors took a bit much, but least she made it as a Playboy centerfold!" Be bold and unashamed - and if you use humor, people will notice and remember your strong character and humor and not your chest issue.  It's hard - I know, but if I can do it, you can too.  A good plastic surgeon might be able to sculpt your chest as well, restoring what the botched surgery messed up.
Talk to a counselor or a pastor or some other professional. You may have clinical depression from all of this, and it is very treatable. I know - I've been there. 

[joe7]

dr.moe, can you give us some pointers on how you treated your depression? I am struggling with this at the moment.

[dr.moe]

The first thing is to find a counselor who will help diagnose if it's true depression.  If it is, there are many medications which can help; my doctor and counselor both recommended one which does not have the side effects of the 'selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors' - believe it or not, one common side effect is gynecomastia and reduction of sexual function.  Not something that I'd consider acceptable.

A psychologist probably cannot prescribe an anti-depressant, but he or she can contact your regular physician to write a prescription.  You have to be open and honest with a counselor - and I can tell you honestly that it's difficult at first to trust someone that completely. No Freudian 'lie on the couch, why do you hate your mother' stuff.  A good counselor will not tell you how you feel; he or she will help you find out how you feel - which is a huge difference.  When you get a prescription, be very diligent, and know that it can take a week or two for the effects to be noticeable, during which time the psychologist or psychiatrist will want to see you to judge how the dose is doing.  A prescription can be a short-term thing or a long-term thing; it turns out I've suffered low-intensity periodic depression my whole life, so the anti-depressant is now a part of my regular permanent cycle of medicines. For someone younger or who has only a single event, they might take you off the meds after a short time.

Depression is insidious. It sneaks up on you.  In men, the first symptoms are usually not crying, tears, excessive sadness - men frequently display unexplained anger. I got to a point that I laid in bed for two days not eating, barely sleeping, crying, and wanting only for the pain to end - which is far closer to the edge than I ever care to go again.  How close?  I don't know, nor do I want to know. But with counseling and the meds, I'm happy again - and so is my family (mostly.  wife still dislikes my boobs and disputes my need for support).

Maybe it's just me because I'm older and my priorities have changed a lot from my earlier years, but some things - like my general body shape and gynecomastia and ED and hormones that defy doctors' explanation and are giving me a more feminine body shape - just don't matter like I used to think they did. 

Find a counselor. If you can't afford one, find a pastor or go to a community health clinic or something to talk to someone trained. Most clergy learn counseling in seminary, in case you didn't know. If you go to a doc and aren't comfortable, go to a different doc.  You HAVE to be comfortable with a counselor - some of the discussions will be very personal and a little uncomfortable if you don't trust the counselor. (My first counselor, on hitting discussions of sex life with wife and gynecomastia and mixed feelings about that, bluntly asked me if I might be gay or trans - which led to a very interesting discussion that was quite valuable for me to have. If I hadn't trusted him, that conversation wouldn't have happened.)

Ask any questions you want, and I'll try to answer them. If you aren't comfortable asking on the forums, let me know and I'll get you my e-mail so we can discuss in private.  Just please stay open to talking with people and let people care about you.

[Alchemist]

Ive been finding myself crying from time to time, im so angry, so sad so disappointed, my chest as been giving my problems since i was 15, the amount of shame ive beein gathering of the years is enormous, i was bullied constantly when i was a child at school,  today im 30, why couldnt i be born normal, i had gyno surgery when i was 17, now instead of having big boobs i have huge craters, deformities and lost sensation in my chest , i cant take my shirt off or be shirtless in certain positions again... im tired and angry i wish i would die already so i wont bare this anymore, worst luck in the world, im tired of this i wish i wouldnt exist.

Hi Smoothd,

I have spent most of my working life in group health, much of it HMO oriented.  We cautioned people of more potential harm by "over-treatment" than by "under-treatment.".  My father was nearly killed by a poorly done botched minor surgery and gave him brain damage for his last 10 years.  A friend of mine died from the anesthesia and nothing else yet done, a preparatory surgery for a complicated reconstruction.

I know what bullies and gynecomastia can do in middle school and high school.  I went through years of harassment over having breasts.  Surgery wasn't an option then or I might have been desperate enough at 17 to have surgery.  But I also know that plastic surgery doesn't fix PTSD or body dysmorphic disorder. 

I have gone through being unable to take my shirt off and being unable to say why it was so shameful.  I changed my understanding by becoming a nudist and getting rid of body shame in general as well as the hyper shame attached to having the breasts.  As an Alchemist I learned all about the changing of one's self.  I have several surgical scars, one crater under the biggest scar, muscle split open from chest to navel leaving a large hernia plus the OEM breasts of 50 D or DD.  My abdomen is a maze of scar tissue from stretch marks from when I had 85 pounds of excess water on me.

At 24 when I was hit by a truck going through a red light and ended up with 3 fractures of vertebra, damaged disks and nerves.  That became important because of the severe chronic pain and breasts became quite unimportant.  My wife had founded the college nudist club and I became a nudist, finishing off the whole breast business.  The scars were decades later after I was already a nudist and it never occurred to me to make scars into a problem.  By then I could very well see that breasts were normal on 2/3 or so of men and that virtually everybody accumulates scars with age.

You can change your understanding whether by therapy or becoming a nudist or a philosopher or whatever you like.  You don't have to keep these stories that make you miserable for the rest of your life.   Good luck.