4

People Have No Problem Slut-Shaming 11-Year-Olds

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3

Clothes Are Science-Fiction Nightmares

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It wasn't long before perfectly normal T-shirts stopped even being an option. Once you've reached a certain circumference -- approximately the time random objects start orbiting your cleavage -- they simply do not make clothes that fit you. After I left school, I think I mainly wore my dad's XXXL flannels, because who cares if I'm cute, I'm not leaving the house. (Keep in mind, this is a 5-foot little girl -- I looked like a toddler playing lumberjack, which is honestly a pretty accurate description of me at every age.) But I had a huge problem with bras. I had no idea what size I was for a long time, because most stores don't stock sizes past DD. The lady at Walmart suggested we try Frederick's, but they didn't go past E, so E it was. For several months, I squished myself into my underwear in much the same way you try to close an overfilled trunk, and I didn't even have the option to sit on it.

Imagine the Casino head-vice scene, only even less safe for work, more cursing, and every day of your life.

Still, I remember thinking I couldn't have been more than a few sizes bigger than E. My mom eventually found out about a specialty lingerie shop several towns over, so we made a day trip to finally find out what fucking size I was. I stood in a dressing room while this 60-year-old woman manhandled me with some measuring tape for what seemed like hours before she announced that I was a 32JJ. (That's about the size of an adult's head. I hear there are plenty of photos on the Internet if you wanna see some examples.)

My mom and I stared at each other in shock while she left to go find some bras in my size. What I still didn't expect, however, was the shape. Remember Madonna's cone bra phase? That should give you a good idea. Once you reach a certain size, the lady explained, the entire structure of the bra changes out of necessity, and it makes you look like you're smuggling torpedoes. I could have put an eye out in that bra.

Me me me me me me me me Artist's rendering.

2

Next Comes the Boob Tape and Skin Flaying

ArtmannWitte/iStock/Getty Images

I don't remember talking to my mom about getting surgery. I think we just wordlessly agreed that it was something that needed to happen. Luckily, I had great insurance, so everything moved along rather swiftly. Standing naked in front of a grown man (and a bunch of medical students, presumably after someone announced that they needed to come see this shit) while he draws on your body with a Sharpie is pretty intimidating for a 12-year-old girl, but my surgeon was a lot more sympathetic than my family doctor. It went off without a hitch, and I was home the next day, hanging out in bed and eating ice cream like I'd had my appendix out.

OlgaMiltsova/iStock/Getty Images Two scoops out, two scoops in.

It's always a big risk to perform this surgery on someone so young, because they're still growing, but luckily I settled at DD over the next few years after being taken down to a C. I remember the weirdest thing was that I could, like, reach in front of myself now. I had pretty much been limited to up-and-down arm motions, and it took a while to stop flailing around like a dork trying to avoid my phantom boobs. (Now I flail around like a dork for entirely unrelated reasons.)

Doug Schneider/iStock/Getty Images Jesus had loaves and fishes; I had the ability to open doors. Miracles are everywhere, folks.

1

You'll Never Be Completely Normal Again

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Nobody has awesome long-term decision-making skills when they're 12. The two things that everyone heavily warned me about -- that I would likely have very noticeable scars and trouble breastfeeding in the future -- were the furthest thing from my traumatized preteen mind. When the time came that I found myself very interested in other people's interest in my bathing suit areas, though, I got a side of scar anxiety with the usual order of body-image issues.

The typical pattern of scars resulting from a breast reduction is what they call an "anchor scar," a semicircle around the bottom and then up from the middle to the areola. I also got a bonus prize in the form of a very dark lump of scar tissue about the size of a 50-cent piece on the bottom of each breast from the removal of the infected tissue. As a result, I dread getting naked with a guy for the first time, because "By the way, I've got weird boobs, don't freak out" is a conversation no one enjoys. On the bright side, that scar tissue is totally dead. I can stick a pin in it and not feel a thing. It's a neat trick at parties.

Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images Mother Nature's rendering.

An amazingly short 10 years later, I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, and the one week that I attempted to breastfeed her was the most painful and frustrating week of my life. If you imagine normal women as bountiful waterfalls, I was a bathroom faucet that leaked occasionally. I kept trying because the only way to increase production is to feed more, but by the end of the week, my baby had lost a full pound and I wasn't in great shape either. I don't want to get too gross here, but my doctor eventually took me by the shoulders and said, "She's getting more blood than milk." (Which, now that I think about it, explains a lot about my daughter.) I conceded defeat, tired of having that baby on my boob 24 hours a day anyway, and she gulped down that first bottle as if she were starving to death, because she kind of was.

oksun70/iStock/Getty Images She still refuses to touch garlic anything, though.

So those things I wasn't worried about at the time ended up mattering a lot. Still, when I think about not having the surgery and weigh the downsides (spinal deformities and medieval underwear) against the upsides (the possibility of a lucrative porn career), I feel like settling for baby formula and a middle-of-the-road porn career has worked out pretty well for me.

You can follow Manna and her boobs on Twitter.

For more insider perspectives, check out 6 Bizarre Things Nobody Tells You About Weight Loss Surgery and 5 Things You Didn't Know About Smuggling Drugs into Prison.

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