Most of us see something we don’t like when we look in the mirror, whether it’s lines and wrinkles, thin lips, or a zit that magically popped up overnight. For 24-year-old Keileigh Lanaway, she saw a larger-than-normal forehead that unfortunately made her a target for bullying.

“I always knew that my forehead was bigger than normal. And from my early teenage years onward, I really started to compare myself to others. There was nothing said to my face, but you could see people talking about me, pulling their own hair right back, mocking me,” Lanaway told DailyMail. “They’d call me things like, ‘spam-head.’ I’d hear it constantly. I was lucky to have close friends, but it was still really hurtful. I never told mum and dad about the bullying at school; I never got anyone involved. I kept it all to myself. Things weren’t easy at all.”

The bullying and self-consciousness led to anxiety—Lanaway avoided swimming for a decade so no one would see her forehead; she even grew long bangs to help hide it. She also had a difficult time dating, never letting a man see what was underneath her bangs. “I remember a previous relationship where my boyfriend would say, ‘What’s under there?!’ One night I woke up and he told me he’d moved it in my sleep. It hurt me so bad. I was devastated. It sounds so silly, but that was my comfort blanket. I couldn’t even talk to him about it because I was so upset.”

After years of searching for a better, more permanent solution to end her suffering once and for all, Lanaway discovered a plastic surgery procedure that could lower her hairline.

The surgery, which lowered Lanaway’s hairline by 3 cm, produced instantly visible results, but took about nine months for the full transformation to settle in. “When they first removed the bandages in the hospital, I was so pleased—so, so pleased. It was just what I wanted.”