Your Stories - Amanda D
Content Warning: These stories contain mentions of body dysmorphia, body image struggles, pregnancy loss, fertility struggles and gendered violence. If you find any of the below triggering, please find a list of helpful and free resources below:
DV/SV: 1800 RESPECT
Mental Health: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/
Eating Disorders and Body Image Issues: Butterfly Foundation 1800 ED HOPE
Our darling Amanda who has both a bright bubbly personality and a calm, steady energy that makes you instantly exhale around her. She’s 42, a single mum, and through it all, is stronger now than ever. In her pre shoot chat with Janie she was so open and thoughtful, and you could just feel how much she wanted this to be meaningful and powerful for her, while still letting there be softness too.
She’s lived through a lot with her body. Growing up in that heroin chic era will mess with anyone’s head, and she’s done the whole gain a bit lose a bit dance for years, but she’s also done the work to get to a place where her weight does not get to decide her worth. She lost her mum to breast cancer when she was nine, and losing the chance to really know her, and then being made to feel like the problem for wanting to talk about her. When doctors told Amanda her risk was sky high, she made the call in 2019 to have a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy because she could not bear the idea of her daughter living her life as she did hers. People call that brave, and she doesn’t even see it that way, she just sees it as being a mum and doing what felt right.
The hard part is what comes after a decision like that. The scars, the nerves that were cut, the way things sit differently now, the little details that get under your skin, and the way one careless comment from someone who is meant to love you can undo a whole day’s worth of logic. Amanda’s been honest about chasing validation at times, trying to quiet the inner critic with likes and attention, and realising it never actually works for long. She didn’t come into this experience to perform for strangers. She came in because she wanted to make something beautiful and true, something that could meet her where she is and maybe shift something.
At her viewing with Bess she tried to play it cool, but there was a lot riding on it, and I think anyone who’s been there understands that. She was brought to tears in that first run through and said she hadn’t felt pretty like this in the longest time, and it was emotional and so lovely and so deserved. She raved about her whole team too, Janie for that grounding pre shoot chat, Em for makeup, and Andrea for making the shoot feel incredible, and you could tell she genuinely had the best time.
Amanda, you are such a special woman. Thank you for trusting us with your story and your body and everything it has carried. You deserve to feel powerful in your skin, and soft in it, and beautiful in it, and to look at yourself with kindness on the days it feels easier and on the days it feels hard.