Young girl was born with rare facial defect – now she’s breaking beauty standards with her modelling career

I thought: How else am I supposed to look like? That’s how I am! But then I consciously looked in the mirror and realized that my nose is different. Then you start questioning yourself,” she told German newspaper Kurier.

Even though she was a beautiful little girl, bullies at school were relentless. They called her names like “Freak,” “Alien,” or “Pig Nose” and never wanted to play with her.

“As a child, I often had eye infections because my tear duct was not developed, and headaches because my paranasal sinuses were very susceptible to moisture,” Ilka said.

“But I was always able to live with the symptoms.”

She added: “My parents always gave me the feeling that I was right the way I was. As a child, I could confidently counter stupid sayings or looks. Nevertheless, the question came up during puberty: ‘If I’m supposed to be so normal – why don’t you see people like me anywhere?’”

Ilka even intentionally made faces in photos, so her parents wouldn’t hang up pictures of her at home.

“That was my avoidance strategy,” she said. “If I look at photos so stupidly that my mom doesn’t hang it up, then I don’t have to see it either.”

Ilka experienced an increase in her level of self-doubt as she grew older. not just from what she overheard in class, but also from television advertising. Ilka said that businesses frequently released advertisements that promoted social standards of what was attractive, and she felt she was never represented. The girl claimed that as a result, displaying her face was much more embarrassing than showing herself naked.

She was subjected to a lot of bullying at school, but she resisted letting it affect her. Ilka excelled academically and earned the highest grades in her class.

“It was like a kind of double life,” she recalled.

Everything changed before the photoshoot

As for her low self-esteem and self-confidence, Ilka had a hard time making friends.

She had ten operations, and even though she struggled with accepting herself, things started to improve over time. She quickly transformed into a self-assured woman who wished to serve as an example for others after realizing that she wasn’t less valuable than everyone else.

In 2014, when she was en route to her first picture shoot, everything changed.

“On the way to [the photographer], I was on the verge of turning around several times because I was so terrified that she would laugh at me when