8 years ago.

 8 years ago: 

I went back to Adelaide for facial surgery.

It's a weird thing to Celebrate?

Honestly doesn't feel like apart of ''my life'' I see photos of me from my childhood and teenage years and I don't feel much for it.

Highly unattractive but real photos.

I was 16 and 17 and desperately unhappy with the curve in my nose or cleft as surgeons would call it.

Everytime I looked in the mirror I saw this twisted nose staring me right back and I hated it. I couldn't wait to change it and feel more ''normal''

When I woke up from the surgeries I didn't feel pretty, I didn't feel normal and I didn't feel great.

- I had half my hair shaved off

- large morphine ball stitched into my ribs and a graft put into my nose (rhinoplasty)

- A drip that reached from ear to ear attached into my head to drain fluid

-filler to smooth out the unevenness of my forehead.

I was teenager, Expecting them to fix everything, At this stage of my life I wanted to be perfect, beautiful.

the one everyone wanted and wanted to be.

I put so much trust and so much into this surgery and when I woke up and saw myself.... yeah I was devastated.

Before the bandages came off my nose I had so much hope and I was so damn ready to have that normal nose everyone else does.

Seems weird right, All this for a straight nose? flat forehead or just some sort or normal looking face!?!

But we all have something we are self conscious or would change...

A few days later I couldn't wait any longer and took my bandages off and instead of this small twisted nose...

I was looking at this big, swollen, uneven and bright red nose with new scars on it. I shut down.

I was taken to the hospitals social worker and I couldn't speak.

I just cried and cried for a long time.

I wanted everything to be fixed but I didn't know the fixing needed to be within and not outwards.

At 16 and 17 you think everything depends on how you look, you are so obsessed with fitting in its easy to be consumed.

Media is constantly waving things in our faces with perfect images of perfect people.

But of course that's not real..

I'm now nearly 25 and yes some days I look at my face and look at the scars across my body and wonder what life would have been like without going under the knife.

I wonder if it was necessary or if i could live with myself without the surgeries and its something I might always wonder.

But here I am,

All those hard times didn't happen without a reason. They've helped shape me into the person I am today.

I am thankful.

My scars are no burden, they are beautiful art in a book still being written.

I'm unafraid to be who I am and just what I can become.

The future is a wonderful thing!

I adjusted to the changes and learnt that the people that matter in my life won't care about how I look.

So that's pretty cool.

Life would be boring without you in it and life does get better for you.

I really hope you all know how lucky this world is to have you in it.

Liv

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