When Susan Grant walked into her friend’s apartment in Dubai thirty years ago, she immediately felt piercing stares from everyone in the room. All throughout her post-pubescent life, Grant’s minimal bust felt like a genetic burden, garnering disparaging comments from classmates, colleagues, and even complete strangers. That night, in front of everyone, a man behind the house bar called Grant “Titless” when asking her what she wanted to drink. She still remembers that insult to this day.

Within months of moving from the Netherlands to Houston, Texas with her family 15 years ago, Grant had a date with the cosmetic surgeon’s operating room. Comfortable in terms of a job, a house, and a car, the sizable cost of the treatment proved inconsequential in comparison to the self-confidence she believed it would—and eventually did—bring her.

“I remember thinking, ‘My God, I wish I had done it earlier—I wish I had had the opportunity to have done it earlier,” Grant, now 50 years old, told Motherboard over the phone. “I never thought about it ever again. I never walked into a room and thought about it. It was just wiped from my mind.”