Who Am I To Judge? My Thoughts On Angelina's Surgery

In case you missed it, Angelina Jolie recently announced she had a double mastectomy. By choice. Because she thought she was a candidate for breast cancer at some point in the future. Seeing as how I also had a similar surgery less than a year ago, as I come up on the anniversary of that procedure and my experience leading up to it, I thought I'd weigh in, and share my perspective on that.

And my perspective is: who am I to judge?

Seriously. Who is anyone to judge anything that anyone does to his/her body? As someone who experienced that judgment both internally and externally, I realized I wasn't really entitled to an opinion about Angelina.

When I heard the news, my first thought was, "I feel sad that women are doing this, making these decisions from fear of the unknown and gambling when they don't know for sure they will even get breast cancer."

And then I stopped. I took a deep breath. I felt like a damn hypocrite.

I knew quite well the deeply painful and difficult process of choosing to permanently alter my body, to intentionally change or remove healthy, living tissue simply because it felt "right". Granted, my reasons were very different from Angelina's reasons, as a friend tried to tell me, but when it comes down to it, our experiences are more alike than different.

I was a healthy person of total sound body and mind making a decision that many people would consider unnecessary, irresponsible and maybe a little bit crazy. I heard people, both men and women, saying similar things about Angelina and I couldn't help but feel tremendous compassion for her.

Many people would never understand, in their bodies or minds, my motivations to undergo surgery so I very easily realized I would never understand Angelina's reasons. More importantly, I realized I didn't need to understand. My health and happiness and quality of life weren't going to be affected by her choices about her body. 

Before I decided to call a surgeon, I heavily weighed what people would think or say to and about me. I had several women in my life at the time who were battling breast cancer (we say battling, when it's anything but a fair fight) and here were these women literally fighting to save their breasts (and their lives). Was I a callous, selfish person to be intentionally choosing a surgery that would remove two healthy, perfect (and very large) breasts? 

I struggled. I reasoned. I weighed. I questioned. I fought. I debated. I tore myself apart inside mostly because I worried what other people would say or think about my decision about a body I had to live in.

I realized that I knew quite intimately about the fear of the unknown and how it is a tremendously powerful force: it can either paralyze us or motivate us.

A year after taking that plunge into the great unknown I can tell you that it was undeniably the right decision. I don't fully understand why, but it was right for me. There are people who still think I'm a freak or weird or maybe a little messed up in the head but I know my own truth. Angelina (and many other people) know their inner truth and how it may not line up with the norms of society at this point in history. And we all know things change.

And so, I don't have an opinion about Angelina's decision. Because who I am to judge?