The Whole Mess

Part 4 of 4

As is common with people undergoing similar traumas, people with breast cancer tend to gravitate toward each other to seek out comfort and understanding. Ehlers (2015) argues that the SCAR project helps facilitate that in a couple of ways, by “the crafting of a more meaningful life and death in two clear ways. (p. 344).”:

1. By bringing a new aesthetics to the reality of breast cancer on the body, pushing back against the overly simplified and infantilizing narrative usually put forth to the public, and
2. Thus, providing a different language for people with breast cancer to be able to talk about their complex experiences, within themselves and with each other.

As Ehlers (2015) says, people with breast cancer “who are living with the disease and its aftermath need a language through which to comprehend breast cancer and its disabling effects, and it would seem that this language must be a visual one—a system of communication using visual elements. (p. 344) The language of imagery can be incredibly powerful on a visceral level to shake the psyche into a new understanding of what it really means to have breast cancer and its bodily impact.

I know from personal experience just how powerful this can be. Upon completion of my reconstruction, I posted on a Facebook breast cancer support group a link displaying photos I took of my chest as I went from double mastectomy, to tissue expanders, to the filling of those tissue expanders over the course of three months, and finally the result of my exchange surgery to implant my new breasts. With close to 200 reactions on the post, and many positive comments indicating how beneficial it was, it was clear that we all need to see what future possibilities may look like.

I think this is entirely in line with what Ehlers (2015) describes: that “In one sense, they might come to think about the body not simply as the vehicle through which to conform to normative ideals but also the vehicle through which to reimagine new kinds of contingent and emergent embodiment (p. 345).” This expands the opportunity for people with breast cancer to reimagine who they are that they previously could not imagine. And through such recognition, community ties are created.

I appreciate how Ehlers completes her essay, stating that “Instead of foregrounding survivorship and consumerism, a different politics would be more focused on connections between economic profits, disease, and death in  a culture that is confronted with mortality (p. 345).” Let’s move from consumerist and saccharine-based pink-washing to a place of building community and holding the complex reality of what it means to have breast cancer.