I want to live.

[SadHarold]

I've had a problem with my chest for as long as I can remember, but my first memory of it was on a ninth grade field trip to new york.  I had been overweight since the 5th or 6th grade at this time, and when I wore a white undershirt (thin white hanes t-shirt), one of my classmates remarked that I had 'titties.'  I was confused by this, but also devastated.  

In health education class, we were learning about puberty and how boys sometimes get puffy nipples during it - one of the girls in the class asked me (out loud) if mine felt sore, and I was again confused.

Many years later (I'm now twenty and in college), I've lived an empty life because of my chest.  I've lost weight from 215lbs to 180lbs, and I'm 6'2".  My chest is humiliating to me.

When I go outside, at least one person mumbles something about my chest.  Strangers laugh at me, and my family members even whisper when we have family gatherings.  This is humiliating, and it seems so wrong that I have finally lost weight and everything else is normal, but I have this problem.

It is very comforting that there are so many other guys with this that I can talk with and relate to, but I am so embarassed by this and am afraid to talk with my mom about it.

Any advice you guys could give me would be wonderful - maybe I just need to hear it first hand rather than read a success story.

[headheldhigh01]

i'm not one of those people who reconciles or enjoys gyne, but i definitely agree with them on one point:  you have to assert at least some measure of control over your own attitude.  

like probably the majority of people here, i know your school experiences directly myself.  i think what i'm better at now that i didn't have then was a much more relaxed sense of myself, a greater peace and security than high school kids get to enjoy.  if anyone said something like that to me today, i'd either tell them they had issues or to go jump in a lake or fly a kite, and i'd be less bothered by it.  as my tag line suggests, i believe, as much right as i have to define my body for myself, via surgery or otherwise, i am not defined by it, i'm much bigger.  

you should live, you have every right to, and the choices you make will help define better your superiority to whatever the world throws at you.  anyone incapable of empathy for your suffering something you didn't choose is the truly deserving object of pity that probably couldn't handle this imposition nearly as well as you.  

and if you're still in college, consider yourself fortunate.  you can deal with this at a much younger stage than many of us who are longer and further out.  

peace on ya bud.  

[turbo6]

Heres what I did. I worked my @ss off for money for surgery, netted about 4 grand in the bank and had that issue squared away.

The harder thing than saving that type of money was honestly getting on the phone and making the inital consultation. Honestly, any plastic surgeon has probably done quite a few gyne procedures so its nothing new. Don't sweat the call, they will be nice to you. You can even paraphrase it and say something like "i'm looking into a chest reduction".

After the surgery, I had a grand left over, so I celebrated with a bunch of new clothes.  

[headheldhigh01]

that's what it comes down to, isn't it?  'course in my case i gotta finish paying off some plastic first  

i don't have any problem saying the word gyne now, i find it enormously empowering.  sorta like unfearfully saying "voldemort" in the harry potter books.  

but you'd have me shaking right at that other step you mention:  finally picking up the phone.  

[wolfman]

hey headheldhigh think like this if u are afraid to do the call, do i want to live with this shit for the rest of my life or should i make this damn call and be afraid for a couple of minits thats what i though its better to be afraid for a few minits rather to be afraid the whole life


             BYE Henrik

[Blarneystoner]

TALK TO YOUR MOM ABOUT IT! She is your mother. You don't have to be embarassed about it in front of her. She probably knows already anyway if it is such a problem.

[jc71]

Blarney, i think this thread has been dead for over a year.  Then again, i'm always for reviving any thread that shows turbo's stripper!

[Cuttin Headz]

Yo fred, you are right!!! Those turbo titts on that stripper hoe  are nice when they jiggle!!!!

Knock KNOCK!!!! IF you are still there SadHarold, i hope you still read. Get surgery, get surgery. I cant because i don't have a job, yet, but if you are old enough, get money and cut those fucking shits off. I remember kids poking at my chest and me knocking their teeth out, and me running away. Get tough and get surgery, becauz i assume you are an adult with a job. You dont need no support groups or psychololologists or anything, but surgery is the call from God.

[nukem2k5]

After the surgery, I had a grand left over, so I celebrated with a bunch of new clothes.  

Heh, I told my girlfriend that after my surgery she has to take me shopping.

[Kk]

Well im new to the board and personally im finding reading ur messages very... i dunno, overwhealing in an emotional way, because its like finally finding people who know what its like...

My personal first realisation was when i went to the pool with 3, extremely in shape and athletic "friends" and once pointed out that I had breasts... the fact that he had a 6 pack at 13 made it all the more painful of course... somehow i managed to ignore it that day but from then on it snowballed, that summer i covered up with a towel at the beach and started hunching, and the next summer? I didnt bother with the beach and started wearing vests under all my t shirts in the scortching heat...

It would be overly dramatic to say its "ruined" my life, but in some substantial way it has stopped me from being who i feel i was meant to be, from seizing opportunities out of fear, from living a normal life... well "normal" is subjective, on here I've had a pretty averagely crappy adolesence!:)

Its oddly comforting to be "around" people who have been, or are going through, the exact same thing...

I am determined to have the surgery asap, right after my exams, because this has haunted me long enough, I wont let it ruin any more of my life, so it'll cost me a sh!tload of money, if it comes out as well as most people's op, it'll be worth every goddam penny...

[serg]

I am determined to have the surgery asap, right after my exams, because this has haunted me long enough, I wont let it ruin any more of my life, so it'll cost me a sh!tload of money, if it comes out as well as most people's op, it'll be worth every goddam penny...

Asbolutely!!