Woman Who Had Belly Button Removed Now Says She Regrets Procedure

Paulina Casillas Landeros, 23, got mad at her family, so she decided to hit them where it hurts: Her belly button.

Landeros, from Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, decided to have her belly button removed in an act of revenge against her estranged family, The Sun reports.

After the removal, she sent the belly button to her then-boyfriend as a “present.”

Her family was not happy with her lifestyle choices, from her tattoos to her “extreme body modifications such as a back corset – where piercings are created on either side of the spine, laced with ribbons and pulled tight – along with a split tongue,” The Sun said.

So she had her belly button removed because, as she said, it’s “what makes us human.”

Since having her belly button removed three years ago, though, Landeros has made up with her family and ultimately regrets her decision, describing it as “reckless and impulsive”.

The HR intern and tourism student explained: “I have always had problems with my family, I was not very close to them at the time.

“Body modifications fascinated me, there is something very transcending about them.”

Landeros said she was “very angry” at the time and wanted to “cut all unions from everything and everyone.”

“I wanted to dehumanize myself in a symbolic way, I wanted to do something controversial.”

Now, though, she says she’s having second thoughts about the procedure.

Her surgery got infected and she said, “I was suffering, I spent days in bed as if I were quarantined. I couldn’t stretch, push, stand up or laugh. It gradually healed itself but not 100 percent – it will never close entirely.”

Her relationship with her family has improved since then and Landeros now realizes how irreversible the decision to remove her belly button was.

She also said: “I do regret it when I put myself in my mum’s position, it must have been devastating for her, she was so sad.

And as for the gift to her boyfriend, Landeros said:

“I was very much in love with my then boyfriend; he supported me through many difficult times, and he is one of the most influential people in my life.

“It was something I did in the spur of the moment. We were young and stupid but that’s the way I felt.

“I put it in a small bag along with a note saying ‘I love you’. It was very emotional.

“He has kept it and he will keep it forever because he knows the meaning behind it.

“We are good friends now but we will always love each other.”