In this age of Instagram models and celebrities, lips seem to be getting bigger and bigger and bodies more and more flawless from one day to the next. It seems as if everywhere you look someone is getting plastic surgery or has had something done. It is typically negatively viewed and made out to be bad in society.

In my eyes, though, it can really do some good.

There are those who go overboard and have procedures done, so that they don't look like themselves anymore. That's when you start to lose yourself within in it, instead of just trying to improve yourself.

It is when the procedures start to define you and not your true inner-beauty.

My plastic surgery story was very much something that I chose for myself. Being Jewish, my nose was and still is the most prominent feature of my face. I had always hated the large bump that protruded on the side and how it was just the slightest bit crooked. I had begged my mom for years to let me fix it — a small change to make ME feel better for ME and about ME.

That's not to say that from a young age I was teased for my nose. That hurt never really goes away and I can still hear the boys that teased me screaming "ding-dong!" and pressing on my nose. It didn't feel good and a small voice sat in the back of my head saying that I needed it from those experiences on. It's not to say that those boys are the sole purpose that I got "work" done.

In the time leading up to surgery, I came to realize that I needed to first love myself without plastic surgery, in order to truly love myself with it.

My first surgery was junior year of high school and my second was my senior year. The differences in photos really show not just how my nose changed, but how I changed as a person. I had two rhinoplasties — "nose jobs" — a chin implant, and lip injections.

For me it wasn't to look like someone else, it was to make me a better version of me. I wasn't lusting after the idea of looking like a Kardashian.

I wanted to just feel a little bit better about myself.

If you can improve yourself — for yourself — in a way that will make you feel so much better, why not do it? Plastic surgery gave me greater self-confidence that I don't know if I ever would've gotten without it. Everyone deserves to love themselves whether that be with a little help or not. My changes were subtle and "natural-looking," yet to me, made the biggest difference of all.

Plastic surgery may get ridiculed, but it has impacted my life in so many positive ways. It may not be for everyone, so don't judge or shame those who it is. I still continue to get injections and sometimes want another nose job, but we all have insecurities and you have to love who you are.

Plastic surgery has made me, a better me.