Ophira Eisenberg Was Nicer Before Motherhood

Ophira's turn from overly nice to not so nice happened when she became a mom.

But there was a ramp-up period that started a couple years earlier, soon after she turned 40.

I got diagnosed with breast cancer pretty much out of the blue.

No hereditary factors, no obvious clear lines between cause and effect.

I was so angry, so angry.

And because it was breast cancer, I really hooked in to this feeling kind of ethos around me how women with breast cancers are expected to be pretty chipper in their survival and get a pink boa around your neck pretty quick and you better be cheersing with the cosmo and going on a bike ride where did you get that idea from I think when I was in the different doctor's offices, they had a lot of pink ribbon stuff around and they had a lot of very motivational kind of sayings on placards.

And sometimes the way people talk to you, not the doctors, but the people talking to you, talk to you in like these soft tones and were encouraging you to join communities.

But I started feeling that...

You know, you sit in these waiting rooms where you're sitting with these other women, but there is a lot of kind of chatter that I just was like, oh, I'm not part of this, because it was chatter about...

I mean, there's some religion in there.

There is this, I just call it a vacuous hope, where it's not hope based on any science.

It's like a hope based on like, well, you know, whatever, you know, God's going to give us what God's going to give us.

And I remember someone saying to me, look in the mirror and look at old photos of yourself and find one of you smiling.

And let me tell you, you're going to return back to that.

And there was a lot of talk of the word boobie, which I was like, no, that is an archetype that likes that.

But what about me? What about me? Where am I? Why did that

stuff not resonate with you?

I guess I just felt like it was just more of society telling me that I couldn't feel how I want to feel.

Yes.

I go, it's going to be okay.

And look at how feminine and beautiful I am still, right? And I did not feel feminine or beautiful.

I did not.

I felt hacked apart.

So am I just a bad survivor because I don't relate to this? And I felt silenced.

I felt silenced because I wasn't, like, basically smiling enough.