Blaming the victim

Right now, the media is abuzz with talk about all the celebrities who had their nude pictures hacked and posted on the internet. Well, they shouldn't have had them in the first place, people might argue. They shouldn't have put them in a secure storage system that wasn't hack-proof. It's their own fault.

Classic move of blaming the victim. Never mind that they thought that they were using a secure system. Never mind that blaming them for the hack is akin to blaming a homeowner for a burglary, even if they keep the curtains drawn, doors locked, and exterior lights on.

I'm not going to soapbox about rape culture (although it's tempting) but thinking about victim blaming makes me realize how pervasive it is, even with breast cancer.

You should have been avoiding X, Y, or Z. You should have been eating A, B, or C. You should have done this, you should have done that. Could'a, should'a, would'a.

It's still victim-blaming.

We didn't do anything to deserve getting breast cancer. Yes, we should all eat healthier, but that's not to blame for breast cancer. What we do or do not do is not the issue. We did not cause our disease.

Yes, I should have gone in when I found the lump. Even though when I tried to find it again later that night, I couldn't. Even though medical sites insist that breast cancer is rare under the age of 50. The more I read and the more I research, the more convinced I get that it was already too late.

The whole point of mammograms is to find breast cancer before they can be detected by touch. Usually when they get big enough to find by feel, they're already advanced. Maybe not yet stage IV, but invasive. Once it's invasive, there's always a risk of metastasis. And in younger women, it's frequently more aggressive.

When I had my mammogram, roughly two weeks after the biopsy results proved cancer, I was called back three different times for nine different scans on my right breast, and even then they needed to resort to an ultrasound to rule out any lumps. The tissue was too dense to get a good reading.

I have no known history of breast cancer in my family. There are times I wonder if some of them aren't worried about themselves, and in their own worry, harbor any unconscious resentment toward me for "introducing" breast cancer into the family line. I didn't do anything to cause my breast cancer. I'm not at fault. There is nothing I could have done to prevent it. And there is likely nothing I could have done to prevent it from metastasizing.

If you're reading this and you have breast cancer, take heed: It is not your fault. You did not cause this. You are not at fault for this disease. There is nothing you could have done to prevent it, so don't waste your energy looking behind you with all the might-have-beens. Look ahead, and keep your head held high. You are not to blame.