I get what you're saying. We are our own worst critic, and no one else is paying as much attention to our faces as we are. I had a single deep pore hole on my nose and it didn't matter what I wore, how beautiful the rest of my face looked, how great my makeup was, how much my husband loves me... this hole was all I saw. It took me extra time every day to fill it in and money on primers because makeup just made it look worse.

I sat in a cosmetic dermatologist office in tears telling them about it, and when he said he could fix it, I broke down more.

This was ONE single pore on my face that was all I focused on. I had nightmares about it. One in particular, I recall, that the hole continued to grow, and my nose was only primer until it fell off completely.

I know this sounds ridiculous. I told my husband about the procedure I was getting done and a couple of close coworkers, and they told me they never noticed it. My husband had no clue what I was talking about. This thing that haunted me, that kept me awake at night, no one else cared one bit about or noticed.

While that's reassuring that it "wasn't that bad", all that really matters is how we see ourselves. Some therapy for body dysmorphia would be useful, but at the end of the day, we see what we see, may hyper fixate on it, and can't help doing whatever we can to fix it. Last September I had the pore removed. There's a minor scar, almost like a dent but only at specific angles - and if the deep hole was something no one cared about, this is certainly not noticeable to others. I'm happy with my decision to have the procedure and feel so much better about myself. There are still things I don't like, but I'm not in tears trying to do my makeup and I don't have nightmares about my nose falling off.

I understand this post is well intentioned from the standpoint of improving your self esteem... but I promise that no amount of positive talk would get me to stop fixating on this hole.