The author is shown before her 2019 brain surgery, at left, and after.

In a world obsessed with appearance, it’s easy to let our physical differences define us. For years, I lived under the comforting umbrella of stereotypical beauty – unaware of the journey that awaited me.

But in 2019, at the age of 25, my life took an unexpected turn overnight when I underwent brain surgery to remove a tumour. During the surgery I suffered a stroke, which left me unable to walk or write, and with the sensation that the world is constantly moving.

Due to nerve damage, the right side of my face was also permanently paralysed.

When I woke up, everything was different, mostly in the way I saw the world and in the way it saw and treated me. I was petrified – not only by the scale of the journey ahead, but also by what my life would now look like.

In 2020, I became the first person in the UK to undergo a pioneering smile surgery, in which nerve and blood vessels were grafted from my right calf to my upper lip, to give power to my affected side.

The results weren’t immediate, and it took a further three years of physiotherapy to learn to smile again and engage my bite muscles. However, with time, the surgery enabled me to regain some of the expressions I’d lost when I woke up unable to communicate on my right side.

Immediately following my onset of facial paralysis, there was a constant battle between embracing my authentic self and succumbing to the unrealistic standards set by social media.

I felt an unspoken expectation to hide or minimise the aspects of my appearance that strayed from the norm, and pinned all hopes on my smile surgery erasing the difference caused by the stroke.

But the surgery didn’t erase it completely. An element of my facial paralysis will always remain and, with hindsight, I’m able to see this as a positive – as evidence of the journey I’ve been on, which has been marked by strength, resilience and self-acceptance.

The author is pictured after smile surgery in 2020.

My appearance before I experienced nerve damage in my face fit the mold that society deemed acceptable, and I never questioned my worth based on my looks.

But when I gained my visible difference at 25, everything changed. Suddenly I was confronted with stares, whispers and the harsh reality that I no longer fit the conventional definition of physical beauty.

I became aware of just how much emphasis is placed on looks when I could no longer walk down the street without attracting negative attention or questions on why my mouth is “wonky”.

It became difficult to socialise and meet new people, which I did so effortlessly before. And I could tell my difference made others uncomfortable because they seemed unsure of what to say, so I often felt avoided altogether.

I initially struggled to reconcile my new appearance with my sense of self. I felt the same inside, but was constricted by an unrecognisable cage. I mourned the loss of what I’d looked like before. I realised I had never fully appreciated it, and I grappled with feelings of........

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