my name is cherry tong i once got
plastic surgery
and i totally regret it and this
is back story this all started in my
freshman year
when i was in college growing up in
shanghai spending my teenage years there
i always thought i was not good looking
enough and i still remember when i was
just a couple years old
my own grandma actually called me ugly
she said i'm the
ugliest cousin out of all three female
cousins
the beauty standards in china it's just
like pretty harsh like you
have to be a size double zero you have
to wear
xss and clothes and you have to
basically look like a barbie doll or
you'll be considered ugly
when i got to college i got in a
relationship and
it was all rainbows and butterflies i
felt like
i was finally being loved
unconditionally being loved for who i
am until i realized that i
had difficulty having sex with my
boyfriend we tried a couple times
and i started thinking that
is it because i'm not pretty enough is
that why
he couldn't get up when he sees me
and every single time i try it's not
even about the sex anymore it's more
about
can i make him want me again can i
make him feel attracted to me again and
the summer of my freshman year i decided
to
go get plastic surgery i had always had
some insecurities
around my nose and i always felt like my
side profile doesn't look good enough
and so i added this wechat person uh
wechat is kind of like
messenger here and so initially i was
just you know looking at the picture
scrolling to find like beauty
inspiration
and then i saw this wechat person is
representing a hospital i saw the before
and after pictures and the changes were
just so drastic
and so that made me feel like wow this
is almost like a kind of like get rich
quick but like get
pretty quick uh procedure and so yeah i
just remember
following that account for a while and
uh finally
deciding to fight the bullet when it's
summertime
and i go back to shanghai so my family
did not know
and of course i sneaked out that day i
just told my parents hey i'm just seeing
a friend
it was definitely one of the scariest
things i've ever done in my life
and looking back i'm just so glad that i
didn't die because
honestly i don't think that hospital is
even legit
i just remember going there and they
didn't even test my blood
they didn't do anything and the same day
i
checked in that was the day i had my
procedures the procedure that i got done
is um
vital plastic surgery they take an
implant it doesn't like
hurt that much during the procedure
because you're numbed
but afterwards you do feel quite a lot
of pain over here
the toughest thing is to breathe because
i have to breathe with my mouth
and it makes my mouth really really dry
and i'm not a mouth breather so i'm not
used to it
i don't know why i was like so naive i
thought i could just like
go home and hide in my room and no one
would see me during the recovery period
which is like
10 to 15 days which is like not sure
like why would i think that my family
wouldn't know i just remember wearing a
mask
and a cap and just going back home
normally of course my dad
i think he first noticed and he was like
what's up with your face like why do you
have bruises
i mean i couldn't explain it i can't say
i got beaten up
because that would be even worse and so
i just told my dad
um yeah i i got my nose done and he was
so angry i've never seen him so angry
and i think
part of it is because he thinks that by
me getting work done
i don't look like him anymore he thought
that
i was you know not grateful of what he
has given me which is like
i guess my face at that time i just felt
like
all sorts of emotions coming towards me
at the same time
the plastic surgery itself also came
with its complications
the implant that i got in my nose
started kind of um
poking out a little bit so you can kind
of see the
shape of the implant and under the sun
my nose was like red and transparent
and that again triggered another series
of
insecurities i felt like oh my gosh
people are gonna know i got plastic
surgery
they're gonna know that you know even
even if they consider me as pretty
that'd be fake and i'd be an imposter i
also felt
strange having a strength substance in
my body
and i have no idea how my body is going
to react to it like years from now
and that fear really kept me up at night
reading articles after articles about
how to deal with your nose implant that
has signs of
poking out and in the end i decided to
take it out
and now my nose doesn't have any implant
anymore but it's still not the same as
before because there are scarring
tissues
so my nose still feels like harder than
before
but um at least there's no implant
inside at least i can
not worry about stuff poking out my nose
and it really took me so many years i
would say at least
five years after that initial incident
with my
boyfriend at the time that made me
realize that
it's probably not my face
it's probably not my nose it's something
else like it's not about me
it's it's not about the way i look and
it took me a long time to finally accept
that
the way i am the way i'm born it's all
right since i
also make personal finance youtube
videos sometimes i would like look at my
face
and be oh my gosh what is this double
chin doing even though it's like a
personal finance channel
like who cares about my double chin
that's still something that i'm working
on
but overall i don't feel as insecure
about my face anymore
try not to give yourself too hard of a
time
because you're already going through a
lot like don't forget to practice
self-love
because you deserve it
[Music]
you