Age 42

When I was 13, the boys taunted me about my upturned nose. They called me "Miss Piggy" and it devastated me. I begged my mother for a nose job for my birthday, but she would just get angry and tell me they were jerks and to ignore them. I was much too sensitive to ignore them and so my depression grew. A few years later, when I was 18 and trying very hard to be as pretty as I could be, a car drove by me, full of those same boys and they yelled out, "You're still ugly!" My anguish led me to toy with the idea of suicide. I felt too ugly to live. When I was 24, after another insult was thrown at me, I finally got a nose job. At first I felt completely different. I thought my life was changed forever, but it wasn't. I still felt ugly. At 34 I was diagnosed with BDD, put on Prozac and ordered to stop mirror checking. I have since gained 50 pounds, but mostly don't care about how I look. Other things occupy my thoughts now. But I still don't feel pretty, and I still wish I was.