Art from Scars - Taking Back My Body

“Survivors can draw in their eyebrows and wear a wig throughout treatment to look and feel more normal. Their hair and their eyebrows will eventually grow back, but every time they look at their bare chest, they’ll either see a concave space where their breasts used to be or strange nipple-less reconstructed breasts” she added.

These scars can lead to deeper feelings of negative self-esteem, anxiety and/or depression. For this reason, Art for Scars aims to help women to feel more beautiful and confident, inside and out, after everything that they have been through.

The group’s first tattoo recipient was a 55-year-old woman by the name of Debbie Phillips from Lexington, North Carolina. “For me, I think it’s going to make me feel a little bit sexier” she said. Two years ago, Phillips decided to undergo a double mastectomy so that her mind could be at peace that her cancer would not return. “Even if I didn’t do the tattoo, I would go on living, and I wouldn’t let it bring me down” she said. But at the same time, “I want to feel pretty” she added.