Darnah Mercieca: 0:02

Do you ever miss your implants? And this question hit me. I'm not going to lie. I read this. I was like, ooh, how am I going to answer that? This is Empowered Explant, the podcast helping women ditch their breast implants with confidence. I'm D Merzica board certified health and wellness coach and explant warrior. Today I went live for the first time in a very long time and I've started a series of live Q&A sessions. So explant surgery Q&As, where I'm going live every Saturday at 11 am Central Time on Instagram in the Empowered Explant Facebook group. I even live streamed to my YouTube channel today and I'm answering questions. I keep getting asked questions in my DMs and they're amazing questions and I realized that if one person is asking the question, a lot of other women will have the same questions, so why not answer these questions for everybody? And so it's really cool. I'm very excited and one of the questions that came through for me was deeply personal, and I was. I just I got a little bit emotional. I'd never been asked this before and so I wanted to talk about this for today's podcast episode and I want to share my answer with you. The question was do you miss your breast implants? And I was like oh wow, let me think about that. And basically I answered the question kind of live and I did a lot of processing, emotional processing out loud, and so it was a kind of an intense question to answer without journaling on it for a week. But I think that it's an important one to share, especially since it's been nearly three years since my explant surgery. Literally one month from now it will be three years and I really hope that my answer can help women either planning for surgery kind of setting their own expectations and preparing emotionally, mentally, for what's to come and also for women on the other side of explant, and really showing you that it's okay to have all of the feelings and to embrace all of the feelings, but just to take the time to really get to know where they're coming from. And that's why I really feel very strongly about the mental and emotional preparation before explant surgery, on this journey and and through it, you know, supporting yourself emotionally through this journey is as important as the physical preparation and the physical healing. Seriously, this, this journey, is super transformative and so I hope that me being really honest and vulnerable and raw about how I feel about my breasts today, three years later can help bring peace to you, no matter where you are on your journey and what you're feeling. All right, here's the clip from the live Q&A earlier and this question hit me. I'm not going to lie. I read this. I was like, ooh, how am I going to answer that? Ooh. So the question is do you ever miss your implants? Mm, and this is a deep question that's going to bring tears to my eyes because I don't think anyone's ever asked me this. So thank you for asking this question.

Darnah Mercieca: 4:19

Nearly three years after my explant surgery and and I haven't spoken about this yet and the answer is I never miss my implants, specifically, or the feeling of having those implants inside my body, or the feeling of having those implants inside my body. That is definitely not something I miss, a feeling that I miss. I don't miss feeling the rippling of the plastic, the silicone, like inside me. I don't miss. I don't miss, like, the discomfort of of, you know, feeling restricted all the time, laying on my side or not being able to run, or not being able to do pushups and just like things like that. I do not miss my implants and I will, and I will definitely say that very clearly.

Darnah Mercieca: 5:27

But and there is a, but sometimes I do miss having bigger boobs. That's hard for me to say and it's hard for me to admit out loud. To admit out loud Um, you know that usually comes up when I see old photos of myself Um, usually like, usually like my modeling photos and things like that or when I see other women with larger breasts. You know when, when me and my partner are walking in Italy and I see this like gorgeous woman with just like these beautiful big breasts and and just like oozing sex appeal. You know, um, and let me be clear, my breasts with implants were way too big for my body, at size double d, and I would never want that again for me, for my frame, for my body. But there's still a wiring inside my brain that associates big boobs with sexiness and I was wired to think that way from the age of 10 years old.

Darnah Mercieca: 6:56

I remember being a little girl and learning from the people in my environment that big boobs were appealing, that big boobs were sexy, that big boobs made you a woman, and so like there's this wiring in my brain that I still am working on and, um, and it's really sad that this comes up and uh, and it makes me emotional, because I know that I'm not the only person. I mean. That's why we all do this to begin with, right, like, regardless of what our what led us to get implants or what like really drove that decision. It's all because we thought that that was making us more, something more sexy, more appealing, more woman. You know, whatever it was, um, and so you know, I would say that 90% of the time, I don't even think about it, and that's like the honest truth. I don't even think about it.

Darnah Mercieca: 8:11

I'm super happy as I am, like sitting here right now, super happy as I am, and yet there are still times when I wrestle with not feeling busty enough or sexy enough, and I have to coach myself through those moments using techniques like reframing thoughts, positive affirmations, loving myself up with some self-care, putting on sexy clothes and celebrating my sexiness as I am. So there are things like don't just sit in it, don't just sit in it. There are things that you could do to help with the rewiring, to help bring you out of those little spirals that we just naturally get in, especially in moments of comparison. But let me tell you this, um, but let me tell you this Actually, we have a question. This is exciting. Kyla, thank you for your question.

Darnah Mercieca: 9:18

Are you truly happy with the way your breasts look? How long did it take you for you to love them post implants? Great question. So, yeah, let me, cause this is on the same, the same topic, so I will address this now as a part of my answer. Um, yes, I am truly happy with the way my breasts look and I can say that honestly, with confidence, considering what they've been through, considering that I put massive implants inside my body and that they were a size double D and that they're now a B and I didn't get a lift. I'm so happy with how they've healed and with how my skin has bounced back significantly, with how my stretch marks improved. I am so pleased with the work that my surgeon, dr Dev, did. I'm pleased with my scars you can barely see them. So, yes, I am really happy. I'm happy with the amount of tissue that I do have. I'm happy, I am.

Darnah Mercieca: 10:52

Are they perfect? Been a process of accepting those imperfections as a part of knowing that this is a part of my journey, um, and you have to come to a place of acceptance with yourself. Otherwise you continue to. You just continue to be miserable for no good reason, like that's literally why I got breast implants, because I didn't accept myself as I was. I'm happy and they are not perfect. And so you know I will say that after getting them removed it's a shock. At least it can be. I know that some women get them removed and they look and they're really happy straight away. For me it was a shock.

Darnah Mercieca: 11:46

I remember like I remember looking at my breasts in the um in my surgeon's office and just feeling like immense, like shock, like wow, this is different and scary, and um, and it takes time for your brain to actually get used to seeing yourself differently. And so I would say it took a couple of months for me to not still see myself as um, as like strange, when I walked past the mirror. You know, I think initially afterwards, even a few weeks afterwards, when things were settling, I would walk past the mirror. I'm like Whoa, who's that? What is that? Like that, my, my side profile was weird, my um, I just I felt strange when I looked in the mirror. It felt like I was looking at a stranger just because of the difference. But then I, and a few weeks later I felt more like myself than I had felt in years and it was a reconnection with myself. And you know, like I said, I don't miss my implants, but what I miss more than bigger boobs, because sometimes, sometimes 10% of the time, I miss bigger, having bigger boobs, um, and I think that that's just because that's what I got used to for so many years and, like I said, like it's the rewiring of my brain.

Darnah Mercieca: 13:44

But what I miss more than bigger boobs, this, what I miss more, is my original set. Oh my gosh, that's what I miss when, when I, when I like really boil it down, when I really get to like the core of how I feel about it, I miss my original boobs before getting implants and I sometimes get caught in the spiral of regret that I ever got implants to begin with. And that's the part that gets me the most. It's not the missing my implants, it's the missing before implants, it's the why did I ever do this to myself? That gets me. So when I see the imperfections, when I see, you know, any, any stretched skin, when I, when I see those things, it's not that I miss my implants, it's why the F did I choose this?

Darnah Mercieca: 15:01

Um, and sometimes, you know, just, I get caught in that spiral of regret and how I kind of bring myself out of that is talking to God. I am very strong in faith. That's when I talk to God and I I thank him for the lessons that I've learned. Um, because without going on this journey, it probably would have been something else. Let's face it, right Like I had to learn to accept myself and to love myself and to be in gratitude for my health somehow, right? So if it wasn't breast implants, I probably would have done some other dumb shit, to be honest. So I come back to God and I thank him for these lessons and for giving me the gift of my health back, which is just the most incredible blessing that I could possibly ask for.

Darnah Mercieca: 16:08

And I come back to a place of gratitude for this work that I'm now able to do in being a voice and an advocate in this space, in the explant space, you know, being able to help women on their explant journeys and to support all of you and to spread this message. And hopefully, my biggest goal is to help young women not do this, or any woman at any age to not do this to themselves to begin with. So, yeah, that was a really long answer to that question, but I think it all. Like I said, I had never been asked that question before and I'm so glad you asked me that because it brought up a lot and I had to do some some processing of that publicly here with you all watching uh live, which made me sweat a little bit. But thank you, thank you for being on this journey with me. Like I said, it's going to be three years since my explant surgery next month, on November 11. So three years in and I'm still very much on this journey.

Darnah Mercieca: 17:34

This journey continues and that's what is the most incredible thing about being a woman on her explant journey, having breast implants, going through this transformation is it is a transformation, is it is a transformation and through this, you have an opportunity to transform not just your breast size, not just your health, but your whole outlook on life and the whole way that you show up in your life, and for your health and for your body and for others, and it's a really, really powerful journey. Thanks for listening, brasti, and for holding space for me to be honest with how I'm feeling and where I'm at. Like I said, the emotional and mental component of this is really important and it's a journey that continues, and I think anything self-esteem, body image related is something that we are going to have to face our entire lives. So, uh, having the tools to really um, reframe thoughts and coach ourselves through all of these thoughts that come into our head is just so important, and there are. You know I've I've recorded a ton of podcast episodes that talk about this side of it. Um and uh. Even just a couple of episodes ago, I recorded a podcast episode called the Best Way to Ease Anxiety and Mentally Prepare for Explant Surgery in 10 Simple Steps. That episode is really amazing to listen to if you are planning for surgery at the moment and you want to really get ahead of this emotional rollercoaster that you're about to embark on. Plus, those tools can be used ongoing throughout your entire explant journey after recovery through healing.

Darnah Mercieca: 19:43

If you want to see the whole Q&A replay, I will drop the link to that in the show notes or description below.

Darnah Mercieca: 19:50

Remember I will be going live every Saturday at 11 am Central for Q&As. I don't know how long I will do them, for we will see how many amazing questions you all have. You can also catch those replays in the Empowered Explant Facebook group and on my Instagram, and if you are listening on this podcast or watching on YouTube and you have a question that you would like me to answer in one of these live Q and A's, then you can get those questions to me by DMing them to me. So go to my Instagram, shoot me a DM there, or on the website there's a form that you can fill out. So go to empoweredxplantcom forward slash podcast and at the bottom of that page you can see a little button that says submit your question here. Go ahead, submit your question, and I'm really excited to be able to answer as many questions as I can on this live series and share some of those answers here with you on the podcast. All right, breasty, I will see you here next week.