I Thought Goop Was Dumb Until The Day I Felt A Lump On My Breast
By: Ella Figg
Tags: Health, Self Care, Self, Equality, Life

I Thought Goop Was Dumb Until The Day I Felt A Lump On My Breast

The wellness industry is alluring both to the rich and those who can’t afford healthcare

Goop is easy to poke fun at. A wealthy white woman promotes products for astronomical prices that are supposed to be “alternatives” to the larger health organizations at large. Jade eggs for your vagina, stickers to align your frequencies, and water bottles featuring a prominent crystal that aids your love life. This is all very silly. Yet the company is worth millions and its clientele eat it up.

While the majority of Goop’s customer base is white women, it has fans from multiple ethnic backgrounds and genders. There is a similarity that runs through all of Goop’s customers. First, they have money or are willing to go into debt to be part of the Goop lifestyle. Secondly, they mistrust or can not afford the normal healthcare route.

I thought all that positivity thinking and alternative medicine was crap and that I’d never buy into it. Then I felt a lump on my breast.

For weeks I’d felt felt achy in my breast area, and depleted of energy. So I decided to look up my symptoms online (which you should never do) and breast cancer popped up as one of the many diagnoses. Just to knock it off the list I gave myself a quick self-exam. My hand slid over my right boob, finding nothing amiss.

Then, as it made its path down the lower portion of my left breast, I felt a lump. I pressed it harder. It was firm and hurt slightly to the touch. Unsure if I was truly feeling this or if it was just in my head, I ran into the shower, covering myself in hot water and suds to make it easier to distinguish between slippery skin and an unusual bump.

I have no insurance. As I stood in the shower, feeling my soapy breasts, rubbing my fingers over what I was sure was a malignant lump, I started to grow irrationally angry. This was so fucking stupid, I can’t have cancer! This thought raced through my mind as tears flowed down the drain with the soap.

Instead of going to a doctor I looked for other ways to dissuade my body from destroying itself if that’s what it was in fact doing. Ignorance truly is bliss when you want the placebo effect to have full sway. In my heart, I knew healthy eating, crystals, and herbs weren’t going to defeat cancer. But by telling myself it was just some knotty tissue or harmless cancer-lite cells, I was able to believe I could cure the myself with lifestyle changes.

My reaction was not unusual. It is how thousands of people feel when they Google ways to cure their bodies and their minds without medical intervention. We buy into Goop, Moon Juice, and other wellness brands because we must. Above all else we need to believe that we have some say over our bodies and the cells that choose to rebel. We want to feel like we have some control of the universe’s chaos through good eating and exercise. We want to spend money to keep our beauty, youth, and health, so we never need to look at a $300,000 bill and bankruptcy.

When insurance is lacking, sucking down some positivity juice for $100 to reduce the inflammation makes you feel less hopeless. It’s also cheaper than the $400 dollars you would end up paying for a doctor’s exam.

So instead of insulting those who feel the need to believe in the almost magical (unproven) benefits of special teas, dust, and tinctures, restrain yourself. You don’t know what they are going through and there’s no need to tear someone else down for a belief that is not harming you.

Unless they try to sell you essential oils, in which case bring out all the science you can to show why you will not be buying their product.