I spent $10,000 on facial surgery because of my body dysmorphia

A woman has revealed how using social media filters left her hating her own face - and paying $10,000 (£7,439) for surgery to remove a double chin that didn't exist. 

Aspen Brook, 29, from Orange County, California, says she began using the digital filters - which gave the appearance that she had flawless skin, a more streamlined nose and pronounced bone structure - when she was just 12, in a bid to 'fit in better' at school. 

Despite growing up in a strict Mormon household, her parents never considered the filters their daughter used as harmful.

However, Aspen says artificially modifying how she looked in photographs made her detest how she looked in real life, and she developed Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).

The mental health condition, which can lead to other conditions such as depression, anxiety and OCD, causes a sufferer to focus excessively on flaws, which are often unnoticeable to others.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Aspen says: 'Looking back through my camera roll at that time, I don't really have very many photos without me using a filter. I didn't think that I was pretty at all without using them.'

'It's definitely an addictive feeling, because you're like, wow, now I look beautiful, once you've made all these tiny little changes.' 

After years of using the digital filters, including FaceTune, an app that allows you to edit pictures, to tweak her appearance, Aspen says she became convinced she had a 'double chin' and would see it 'every time' she looked in the mirror.

This obsession to achieve the perfect look led to her spending $10,000 on AirSculpt surgery in San Diego, which promises to be 'minimally invasive' and 'permanently remove fat in one treatment using no scalpels or stitches'. 

The former estate agent had the operation in April 2023 and spent two weeks wearing a chin strap 24 hours a day to keep the swelling down, and then four weeks only when sleeping. 

Aspen expected the pricey operation to fix her insecurities. But as soon as her wounds healed, she started thinking about getting more procedures - as she still didn't feel 'that ultimate' level of 'pretty'. 

She said: 'After getting the surgery, I was sure I would be finally happy with what I looked like... that I wouldn't want to use face filters anymore, and I would finally feel confident in my own skin.

'But that wasn't the case. Even after my surgery, I still heavily used filters.'

Looking back, Aspen has now realised she was 'so beautiful' before her surgeries, but never once thought so at the time.  

The model also revealed she had a boob job at the age of 21 and still gets regular filler and Botox.  

The mother-of-one, who did not want to name her surgeon, said: 'I remember showing him a picture that I Facetuned of myself and I told him, "I want to look like this. This is what I want to look like."

'I made all these tiny little changes on my phone of my face and my body.'

Aspen added that she'd also been looking into liposuction, but her surgeon denied her the procedure, even calling her 'crazy' and saying she 'didn't need it'. 

While she sees nothing wrong with getting tweakments and surgery, she is against people with body dysmorphia attempting to fix their flaws with operations. 

She recalled pointing out her 'double chin' to her surgeon, who told her 'Okay, we can fix this part and this part.'

Despite being 'confident' in her surgery at the time, after speaking to her friends and followers on social media, and showing them her before and after pictures, she realises it 'wasn't the most ethical'.  

If she hadn't been exposed to filters as a teenager, Aspen is convinced she wouldn't have suffered from the condition, admitting: 'Your mind is so impressionable at a very young age.' 

Aspen also opened up about her own parents' reaction to her surgery, saying they were shocked and saddened when they found out. 

'My chin surgery was really heartbreaking for them, because it wasn't real, and no one could convince me otherwise,' she said. 'I'm the kind of person, once I have something in my head, I will do it.'

Eventually, it was the unplanned arrival of her daughter nine months after her surgery that helped heal her body dysmorphia. 

With the pregnancy came hormone fluctuations and weight gain, which she struggled with at first. 

But not having control over her body changing helped her realise the pressure she had once put on her younger self to strive for perfection. 

She said: 'I had to just be okay with my body getting bigger, your face gets bigger, you gain a lot of weight. 

'I gained over 65 or 70 pounds in my pregnancy, and during that time, I hated taking pictures of myself. I hated how my face looked, but it gave me the chance to really pause and sit with myself.'

As soon as she welcomed her baby girl into the world, Aspen said she was mesmerised by her beauty and perfection, which helped her have a lot of 'compassion for younger me'.

Looking back, she said: 'I didn't realise that I was so beautiful. Especially when you gain all the weight during pregnancy, you look back and you're like, oh my gosh, I was so thin.

'You start realising that it might be a mind trick where I am not really seeing who I am, and I'm not really grasping the reality of what I actually look like.'

But her harrowing experience has meant she is taking a much firmer line with her child's phone usage, hoping to keep her away from the toxicity of social media until her late teens. 

'I'm going to be very strict with my daughter,' she said. 'I really don't want her to have access to any of the editing features that I had at a young age. Probably until she's, like, 16 or 17. There's no reason for it.'

The content creator, who is currently working on launching her mother and baby clothing line, Maison Clarabell, says her advice to anyone wanting to get surgery is to go with an ethical practitioner and to make sure they can go under the knife for the 'right reasons'. 

The Daily Mail has contacted AirSculpt for comment.  

WHAT IS BODY DYSMORPHIA? 

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia is a mental health condition where a person spends much of their time worrying about their flaws.

It is most common in teenagers and young adults, but can affect people of any age. Both men and women can get BDD.

Symptoms of BDD, according to the NHS:

• You worry a lot about a specific area of your body, particularly your face
• You spend a lot of time comparing your looks with other people's
• You look at yourself in mirrors a lot or avoid mirrors altogether
• You go to a lot of effort to conceal flaws 
• You pick at your skin to make it 'smooth'

In some cases, BDD can lead to depression, self-harm and thoughts of suicide. The NHS recommends seeing your GP if you have symptoms of BDD. 

Source: NHS