Amanda's Story | Scars for Stories
MEET AMANDA: THE FIRST SCARS FOR STORIES JOURNEY
When Healing Needs More Than Time - It Needs Witness
Amanda during her first Studio Program session - the moment before healing begins.
Eight Years
That's how long Amanda waited.
Eight years on a public hospital waitlist for a breast reduction that wasn't cosmetic - it was medical. Chronic pain. Postural issues. The kind of daily discomfort that reshapes how you move through the world.
When the call finally didn't come, she made the decision thousands of Australians make every year: she went overseas. Not because it was cheaper, but because it was the only option left when your own healthcare system tells you to keep waiting.
To make sure she got the best possible experience, Amanda sought out and paid an Australian based cosmetic surgery company to support her journey. They promised to help her book her trip, arrange post-operative care, and provide support during her time in Thailand. She'd travelled the world, but never overseas for medical treatment.
When she got there, the promises she'd paid for quickly evaporated. She found herself alone and abandoned in Thailand. For eight days in hospital, the only people she spoke to were her nurses. After her discharge, the company that promised to help had all but disappeared, taken her money and left her alone in a foreign country.
She ended up with severe post-operative depression and wounds on her back from not being able to change her own dressings. The wounds on her back were bedsores due to the negligence, "it was like someone had burned my skin off," she said. "It was so painful.
They promised a breast reduction and abdominoplasty that would change her life.
And it did. Just not in the way anyone promised.
Amanda pre surgery (Photo shared with Amanda's permission to raise awareness)
The First Surgery
The first surgery left her with asymmetry—one breast significantly larger than the other. Not ideal, but correctable. The agency assured her they'd fix it. She went back.
The second surgery is where everything collapsed.
Within a week post-op, Amanda's body was showing signs of serious complications. Severe necrotic bruising spread across both breasts; deep purples and sickly yellows that signaled something was profoundly wrong. Blisters erupted near her armpits and took ten days to heal. The pain was relentless. The fear was worse.
"I was scared of losing the nipples," she told me.
She didn't lose them. But one nipple was irreparably damaged, discoloured, a ghost of what it had been. The scarring tripled. What should have been thin, neat surgical lines became raised, textured, angry.
And then came the discovery: tissue necrosis. Dead tissue inside her breast, confirmed by biopsy. A seroma (a hard, rock-like pocket of fluid) formed in her chest.
The agency that facilitated her surgery? Gone. No follow-up. No accountability. Just Amanda, alone, trying to navigate a medical emergency in a foreign country before flying home to a system that didn't want to help her either.
⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: Medical Trauma Imagery
The following image contains graphic medical content showing severe post-surgical complications including necrotic bruising and tissue damage. This image is included to provide context for Amanda's experience and to raise awareness about surgical risks.
If you are sensitive to medical imagery, you may wish to scroll past this section.
Left image:
Lesions and sores on back associated after being abandoned. Right Image: The necrotic bruising and blistering that made Amanda fear she was losing tissue.
When the System Fails Again (And Again. And Again)
Back in Australia, Amanda knew something was seriously wrong when the wound opened up.
Her GP was supportive and sent her for biopsies that showed a serious staph infection. He sent her to hospital for treatment.
Unfortunately, the treatment she got there was worse.
She was gaslit. Told her doctor wasn't skilled enough to do a swab. Refused food because of her allergies. Isolated. She became so frustrated she discharged herself because nobody was helping her or listening. Again, the healthcare system failed her.
With the support of her GP, she's still fighting for a resolution to her post-operative complications.
But the hospital visits weren't her only battle. Amanda also needed surgical revision. What she got was a revolving door of dismissal.
Doctors at a prominent hospital sent her to oncology for scans without additional context. Another plastic surgeon didn't bother to read her file before the appointment. He asked if she had implants, despite her records clearly showing a reduction. When she explained the necrosis, the complications, the trauma, his response was clinical indifference.
To even get a referral to a plastic surgery team, she had to file a formal complaint with the hospital. Mammograms were traumatic. Biopsies were terrifying. Every medical interaction became a re-traumatisation.
And through all of this, she carried the visual evidence on her body: scars that wouldn't fade, an areola that looked nothing like it should, wounds on her back that took months to heal, and the kind of shame that makes you avoid mirrors.
Amanda's surgical scarring before beginning treatment at Resolute. Right before revision surgery. Left after revision surgery.
The Betrayal That Broke Something Deeper
If the surgical trauma wasn't enough, Amanda experienced something that happens far too often to women sharing vulnerable medical experiences: predatory attention disguised as concern.
A colleague began asking to see her post-operative photos under the guise of caring. It escalated. The requests became sexual. She realized he was fetishizing her trauma.
She blocked him. Reported him. But the damage was done.
"There's a real shame surrounding breasts not looking perfect," Amanda said. "And when someone sexualises your pain, it makes you feel like you deserved it."
But the shame didn't just live in that violation. It lived in every moment she looked in the mirror. It lived in the panic attacks.
Recently, Amanda met someone. They went on two dates. Before the first date, she had a complete meltdown, scared of him seeing her scars. It took two friends an hour to talk her through it.
"I don't want to be that woman anymore," she told me. "To feel ugly for the first time in my life is horrible. To have panic attacks is the worst."
This is what happens when the system fails. It's not just physical scars. It's panic attacks before a date. It's feeling ugly for the first time in your life. It's carrying shame that was never yours to carry.
The Message That Created a Sense of Change
In April 2025, Amanda sent me a message.
It started with an apology: "Maybe this isn't the content you were thinking of, but here is my idea..."
She explained everything; the surgeries, the scars, the nipple damage, the systemic failures. And then she said something that made me stop scrolling:
"If this can help other women, I'm happy to share whatever you're comfortable with. There is a real shame surrounding breasts not looking perfect, and if it inspires one woman to seek your help, then that's amazing. I can't undo what was done to me, but if we can show others what can be done to help them, then I'm all for it."
I didn't respond right away. Life got heavy my son's health, family crisis, the kind of things that make work feel impossible. But when I re-read her message two months later, it hit just as hard.
This wasn't someone looking for a free tattoo, this was someone ready to turn her pain into purpose.
The Studio Session
On July 12, 2025, Amanda sat in my tattoo bed for the first time.
We set up lights. My sister came to film. Amanda brought her own photography equipment because of course she did; she's a photographer herself, someone who understands the power of image, of witness, of capturing the truth.
Treating raised scarring and texture damage to prepare the skin for eventual areola pigmentation.
The treatment itself takes about an hour, but the conversation that happens during it is where the true healing can really begin.
We talked about the waitlist. The agency. The surgeons who didn't listen. The colleague who violated her trust. The feeling of looking in the mirror and wanting to cry.
And at some point during that session, something shifted. Not the scars - not yet. But something inside her that had been holding so tightly it forgot how to release.
Eight Weeks Later
Amanda came back for her second session.
The scars had lightened. The texture had softened. She healed with minimal scabbing—a sign her skin was responding beautifully.
"It all looks a lot lighter in appearance from what it previously looked like," she texted me. "It healed really well, and I was shocked - I felt sensation in my nipple for the first time since surgery"
But, we're not done yet. This is a year long journey, not a quick fix. Sessions every 10 -12 weeks. Slow, deliberate work on the raised scarring before we can even begin the areola pigmentation.
But here's what's already different:
She's telling her story. On camera. With tears, yes -but also with power.
She's warning other women about what can happen when you're forced to seek care outside a system that's failed you.
She's naming the ways the healthcare system fails people, especially women, and even more so those who don't have private insurance or endless patience to keep waiting.
She's reclaiming her body, one session at a time.
Why This Matters
Amanda didn't just reach out for treatment. She reached out because she'd been failed by a cosmetic surgery company that took her money and abandoned her in Thailand, by a system that made her wait eight years, by a hospital that gaslit her when she had a staph infection, by doctors who dismissed her pain, by a colleague who violated her trust.
And she decided that if she could help one other woman avoid feeling that alone, it would be worth sharing.
Her story is part of Scars for Stories—a platform documenting healing journeys for people the system has failed.
If you're carrying a scar that carries weight, your story matters too.
Amanda's Message to You
If you're reading this and thinking, "That's me. That's my scar. That's my shame," Amanda wants you to know:
You are not broken.
You are not vain for wanting to feel whole again.
You did not deserve what happened to your body.
And there is help. Not just from me but from a whole community of people who understand that healing is never just physical.
A Final Note
Amanda didn't just give me her story. She gave every person who's ever felt unworthy of healing permission to try again.
That's not content. That's courage.
And it's exactly what Scars for Stories was built for.
About Scars for Stories
Amanda's story is the first shared as part of Scars for Stories - a platform documenting healing journeys for people carrying scars the system has failed to address.
Every month, one person's story is featured. Some receive restorative tattooing at Resolute Repair Studio. Some share their story without treatment. What matters is that every story gets witnessed.
If you're carrying a scar that carries weight whether surgical complications, medical tourism trauma, self-harm recovery, accident scars, system failures or scars from beginning more aligned with yourself - we want to hear from you.
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FOOTER CREDITS
Photography: Amanda's journey, Sessions 1 & 2 @thecosmicclick
Timeline: July 2025 – Ongoing
Location: Resolute Repair Studio, Sandringham, Melbourne
Instagram: @scarsforstories
TikTok: @scarsforstories
Website: resoluterepairtattoo.com.au
