Brooklinn Khoury Says She Felt Insecure After Brutal Dog Attack: 'I Felt So Imperfect'

"Living in a society that is so focused on being perfect was very hard because I felt so imperfect," the skateboarder said in a new video

Brooklinn Khoury has learned to love herself regardless of her circumstances.

The pro skater, 23, was the victim of a brutal pitbull attack in 2020 that caused her to lose her upper lip and part of her nose. While she's candidly documented all of her reconstructive surgeries on social media, she took to TikTok on Thursday to share how the experience affected her mental health.

In response to whether the ordeal made her feel insecure about herself, Khoury explained, "At the beginning, I was because I felt like I was the only one going through something like this. I obviously did not have an upper lip. Living in a society that is so focused on being perfect was very hard because I felt so imperfect."

Since the incident occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Khoury added that she found it easy to hide her face behind a mask.

Related: Brooklinn Khoury's Health Journey — from Pitbull Attack to Final Surgery

"Then when the mask mandate stopped I had to figure out a different way to cover up because I was so insecure," she continued. "So I put tape over the top of my lip with a little piece of gauze under it. I wore this for about a year. "

Khoury filmed the video while sitting next to her girlfriend, Chloé Lukasiak, who shared that she loved when Khoury stopped wearing a gauze because it gave her the opportunity "to teach her to love her new smile."

"It took time but I think one of the most powerful things is just loving and accepting yourself regardless of the situation or circumstance," added Khoury.

Related: Brooklinn Khoury Recalls Being 'Scared' of How She Looked After Dog Attack: 'I Couldn't Change What Happened'

The video confessional comes after the athlete shared in April that her plastic surgeon "didn't get the results he wanted" during her seventh lip reconstruction surgery.

"To be honest, I thought this was going to be my last surgery. But my surgeon is trying to get my upper lip as close to how it was before," she shared in a TikTok video. "If you look at my upper lip from straight on, it slants a little bit. That's because the pitbull took more from this side than this."

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Her plastic surgeon "tried to fix it in the last surgery, bringing this [side] up, but he didn't get the results he wanted," she explained. "He's gonna want to also pin down the central column to create a more in-depth look. Other than that, I'm obsessed with how it's turning out."

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