Unnatural results - destroyed my appearance and left me with permanent pain

I have been self conscious of my large forehead and high temples ever since high school, and have been researching this procedure and saving up for it ever since. Despite this, I had never once received any negative comments about it, however I still wanted to get this procedure to for once do something nice for myself and help improve an insecurity of mine. After a decade of saving up, I was excited to finally be able to afford going through with this surgery. Unfortunately, I was left with terrible results which have not only caused me to become depressed but also left me with permanent pain and itching. It has been over a year since my procedure and I spend every single day in extreme regret and I would give anything to be able to go back to my previous face and hairline. 
During my face-to-face consultation, Dr. Attenello asked what I did not like about my hairline, and I stated 2 things: the size of my forehead, and how high my temples were. I went on to mention that I am fine with my appearance from the front when my hair is down, but from the side or when my hair is pulled back, my forehead looks large. I also mentioned I did not like how high my temples were. Dr. Attenello spent some time drawing out 2 lines to denote options where my new hairline would be planned for, and asked what I thought of the lines. I was pretty hesitant looking at them and took some time before finally responding with my concerns that I did not want my forehead to be too small. She did not offer to redraw the lines at this point or acknowledge that it may be too small, and simply reassured me that she felt that these lines would be what would fit best with my face, and she did not think either of these would be too small. After I spent some more time hesitating to make a decision, it seems I was taking too long as she told me I did not have to decide during the consultation and we could revisit on surgery day. She did not send me any photos of the mapped lines for me to be able to think it over. Because of this, what ended up happening was I showed up on surgery day, she redrew the lines, and I had to make a decision on the spot. She did not say or do anything to rush me into the decision at that time, but obviously it is hard not to feel rushed when the whole surgery staff including nurses and the anesthesiologist are waiting on me to make a decision. I was left with the decision to either walk away/delay and forfeit thousands of dollars that took me years to save up, or make a split second decision and trust her professional judgement by going with one of the lines she had drawn. I ended up going with the latter and this was my biggest mistake of my life. Not only did I end up with a forehead that is too small (after clearly stating that this was not what I wanted), but I ended up with a hairline that looks extremely fake and unnatural, is uneven, and gives me a masculine appearance in addition to the appearance of badly receding temples. Since this was my first cosmetic procedure, I didn’t really know what to expect from the consultation. But looking back, after not having made a decision on the mapped lines during the pre-op appointment, it would have been good practice to send me photos of my face with the lines mapped out on my forehead, so that I could look at them between the consultation and the actual surgery. Another issue with not being sent photos was that I never had the chance to see what it would look like from a side profile. She had only given me a mirror so I was only able to see the front and 3/4 profiles while I was there in person. When I finally got the chance to see photos of the mapped lines (which was not until after the surgery was completed), it was extremely clear to me from the side profile photos that these lines would not suit my face at all. If I had been sent these photos prior to my procedure there is a 0% chance I would have went through with the lines she drew. It is very obvious to me from the photos that the mapped lines would result in an unnaturally small and blocky-looking forehead which is something I was unable to see with the limited time I had with a handheld mirror showing me the front and 3/4 views only. 
The day after the procedure I went in to get my wrapping removed, and my heart dropped the second she removed the wrapping and I held the mirror up to my face. Right away I could tell my forehead was way too small, and the hairline was extremely squared, blocky, and uneven. I did not say anything at this time, because what can you do at this point besides wait for the healing process? It’s not like she can reverse the procedure. I was meticulous in my aftercare process and hopeful the final outcome would be better. I also wanted to give it some time because perhaps I was just not used to seeing my face with a smaller forehead. 
It has now been over a year since my surgery and I still hate my ruined face and hairline. I had a difficult recovery process and even a year later, I still have a lot of itching, numbness, pain, and dandruff on my scalp. Not only that, but the scar is extremely visible and I even have 2 bald spots on each side of my temples due to how thick/wide the scar is in these areas. Not sure why this happened as the scar is meant to be a thin line. The scar is also raised and lumpy throughout but actually INDENTED where I normally part my hair, giving my hair part a very unnatural look as there’s literally an indent in my forehead and the hairs stick in strange directions. Because of this my hair cannot even properly hold a part anymore and I have to constantly fix/adjust my part. The scar is visible as a thick white/pink line, however there has been almost no hair growing through the scar as expected. 95% of the hair at the hairline has been growing directly behind the scar with the exception of maybe a few hairs in front/on top, giving my hairline a super harsh line appearance. Even the few single hairs that did happen to grow through the scar look extremely out of place since there are no other hairs around them, so they stick out visually. My hairline is also now extremely squared and looks like a rectangle/straight line from the front. She explained that this is because she just followed the shape of my natural thick hairline, and because she moved the hairline forward it is going to appear more square/straight especially as all the baby hairs that rounded my hairline out had to be cut out. This is something that was not discussed with me prior to the procedure, and if it had been I likely would have reconsidered as I went through with this surgery to get a more feminine hairline…instead I was left with an extremely masculine shape. When my hair is down and parted normally, my hair part looks super harsh and unnatural so it looks like I’m wearing a poorly styled wig. When pulled back, it looks like I quickly glued a cheap toupee on the center of my head. I would actually argue that a toupee/wig would look better because at least I wouldn’t have a hideous scar and you would have the control to make a better shape. In addition, instead of bringing the temples down a little more than the center, which was my expectation given I had said during the consultation that I didn’t like how high my temples were, she cut out the baby hairs and then moved the temples down an equal/less amount compared to the center. When I later brought this concern up to her she just said that she did lower my temples but because the middle was lowered the same amount and the baby hairs were cut out, I might feel like it appears higher. She explained that by lowering everything an equal amount this is meant to soften the temples. There are other surgeons out there who are able to lower the sides more than the center, and I wish she would have properly explained to me before the procedure that she wasn’t able to do so so I could’ve looked into other surgeons. It makes no sense to me to lower it the same amount all throughout if I stated I didn’t like how high my temples were. It would be like going in for a nose job saying you don’t like how high/large your nose bump on the bridge of your nose is, and your surgeon shaves the bump down but also shaves the rest of your nose down an equal amount, effectively making things look even worse. Because this is essentially what was done with my hairline, my temples now look higher than ever when comparing to the rest of my hairline, and are now sharply angled instead of rounded out as before. You can take a look at my before/after pictures and decide for yourself which looks softer. I think it’s pretty clear. Ever since getting this procedure done, I have received multiple comments/questions about my “receding hairline” and “hair loss."
Aesthetics aside, another major issue I’ve been having is that there are hard lumps under my incision site, and touching the incision such as when brushing my hair or running my hands through still causes pain. My scalp and especially the incision site still get extremely itchy even over 13 months post-op, and I can do little to relieve the itch since touching the hairline causes pain. When the itching gets severe, I will try to bear through the pain and scratch it for some relief, but my fingers will catch into the raised areas of the scar or fall into the indented regions while getting caught on the higher surrounding edges, causing even more severe pain. If my results were decent, then the pain is something I can deal with, but since I had bad results it just serves as a constant reminder of how this procedure ruined my life. When I brought up the concerns about my terrible scarring, she told me she felt I actually scarred very well. Again, you can take a look at the photos yourself and see what you think. Just know that if you get your procedure done here, you may end up with similar scarring results since this is what she considers good scarring. She also tried to explain the scarring as some people being more susceptible to keloid scarring or raised scarring. However that is not the case with me. I do not have that kind of history, actually quite contrary as out of everyone I know, I heal the best/quickest and have never had a raised scar before. For example, I have had deep moles removed for biopsy where the dermatologist told me that I WILL scar from the procedure (not that there would be a risk, but that I will be guaranteed a scar), but I was left without a single visible mark. I have also spent my whole life picking/digging at all pimples/acne/ingrown hairs on my face and have never once scarred. Obviously a forehead reduction is a much larger and more invasive procedure, but the explanation just doesn’t match up to my history. I have also seen other surgeons state that this area is extremely unlikely to have keloid scarring, so I’m not really sure what to believe here. 
This procedure has had so many negative effects on my work life and personal life. I have been late to work now on multiple occasions due to spiraling or having a breakdown when getting ready in the morning and seeing my ruined face in the mirror. When I am actually at work my performance has been subpar because all I can do is think about how this procedure destroyed my face and left me with permanent pain and other complications. In terms of my personal life, I have received so many negative comments (such as my hair looking like a wig, or that I look like a boy) about my appearance from people who have no idea I got this procedure done. With a well-performed procedure, people should be able to tell that you look good, but shouldn't be able to tell you had work done on a specific area. Almost everyone in my life who has known me pre-op has been able to immediately tell and has made some kind of negative comment despite me not telling them I had this procedure. Forehead reduction isn't very commonly known, so instead of commenting on my forehead specifically, I'd usually get asked what happened to my hair. My hair used to be my pride and joy and I would receive compliments on it from complete strangers on a regular basis. Not only did this procedure ruin my face but it ruined my actual hair too as I now look and feel like my hair is just a poorly applied cheap wig, and the texture around the hairline is completely off. All the negative remarks have also been too much for me to handle so I had to make the decision to permanently cut off any in-person contact with friends who haven’t seen me since before the procedure. I have become depressed and withdrawn as it is humiliating for me to show my face in public or even to those who have seen me hundreds of times since the procedure. I now spend most of my time alone in my room hiding my face from others, and spend most of my free time sleeping since that's the only way I can get away from the physical and emotional pain. On the occasion that I do find the courage to go out, I find it hard to even have a good time because I’m too embarrassed about how I look and I spend the whole time hoping nobody takes any photos or videos. Before this procedure, I felt beautiful and confident most of the time, and I was only insecure about my hairline/forehead about 5% of the time (such as when going swimming, going out on a windy day, or when pulling my hair back), but not so much that it would ever stop me from doing anything and it was never bad enough where anyone would comment about it. Now, after the procedure, I feel hideous 100% of the time and even when I am at my best, I still look worse than I did at my worst before. The terrible results of this procedure have pretty much consumed my life. It’s left me with so many restrictions as I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable pulling my hair back or going swimming/wetting my hair in front of anyone ever again. I don’t feel comfortable dating and don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable doing so unless this can be fixed. I also now have severe anxiety doing simple things such as going to a hair salon (where they’ll see my fake looking hairline and scar when they pull my hair back), walking outside on even a mildly windy day, or doing anything that might displace my hair such as running or doing any kind of physical activity. I hate having my hair in my face so I used to always tie it back in a bun or ponytail, but now I’m way too self conscious to do so in front of others because I know I will get stares. I used to love working out but I now avoid the gym or running because it means I’d have to tie my hair up in front of others. My hair looks and feels so fake that I regularly have intrusive thoughts about just shaving it all off, only to realize this would only make things worse because the horrible scar I was left with would only be even more visible. This procedure cost me 10 years of savings only to ruin my life and I’ll likely need to spend hundreds of thousands more for revisions or other surgeries in an attempt to salvage my face, as well as therapy costs if I ever feel comfortable admitting to someone in person that I paid to destroy my face. This is also not like other overdone procedures that can be more easily fixed or revised using implants, you cannot do the same with this procedure. Because the forehead is too small and the baby hairs are now gone, there is no way to make it bigger again or give it a soft natural look again. This is why I specifically stated during the pre-op appointment that I did not want to go too small, but somehow it still ended up happening. Because there is no way to reverse or fix this, I’ll be left forever with a harsh, uneven hairline. I’ll never look like I have real hair again as it’ll forever look like a wig. Not only that but because I’m left with the hideous scar going across my whole forehead, it’ll only look even worse as I age and my hair starts to thin. There’s also no way to round out my temples with transplants now without shrinking my forehead even more, since it would have to be blended into the middle which is already too low.  I doubt transplants would even be feasible anyways given the amount of pain I have around the area. The main advantage of this surgery over a hair transplant is supposed to be that hair transplants may give you a harsh unnatural look, but I ended up with that anyways in addition to a terrible scar and permanent pain, itching, and dandruff/flaking. 
People generally go by the rule of thirds for facial harmony, but this is just a general guidance and not a hard rule, as some people may look better with foreheads bigger than 1/3 of their face, depending on their features. I've never seen a case where someone looked good reducing to smaller than 1/3. I have larger features (my mid third is pretty long due to my nose, I also have a wide bottom third). After measuring hundreds of times, each time my forehead had been over a centimeter less than 1/3 of my face. I know there are other things taken into consideration when mapping the lines, but considering 3cm of removal took my forehead from too large to too small, I don’t know how the mapping could have been this off. This past year I have been clinging to the hope that a revision could be done to somehow raise my forehead by 1-1.5cm to bring balance back to my face, but she told me she didn’t think this would be possible (not without plucking the hairline which obviously would be a terrible choice given how bad my scarring is). My only choice now is to get a few more opinions and see if any other surgeons may be able to salvage things. I can’t help but think the only way to fix my face otherwise would be to get additional invasive procedures to shrink my nose and jawline to balance them out with my too-small forehead, although again there is nothing that will fix the harshness and fake wig-like look of the hairline now. When comparing pictures from before and after the procedure, there isn’t a single after picture that looks better than my before. In Dr. Attenello’s before/afters of my forehead, she took the after photos with my hair down which isn’t a good representation of the results. But even then, I still look way better in the befores. My forehead is now clearly too small and it has shortened my face and given it a round/fat appearance. Because my forehead is too small, this now draws attention to the lower portions of my face which now appear too large, again giving me a more masculine look. I wanted a subtle change to improve my appearance but instead I got an obvious terrible change. I had such a pretty face before with so much potential and now all of that is gone. When looking at photos of myself when I was younger and comparing it to myself now, I don’t even look like I’m the same person anymore. I have been researching this procedure for over a decade and have seen thousands of photos, and this is one of the worst results I have seen.
When I brought up my concerns to her at a follow up appointment 13 months post-op, I noticed there were some things she had stated as her “standard procedure” that didn’t seem to be the case with me. First she stated that it is standard procedure for her to show patients photos of the mapped lines prior to the procedure, but these were never shown to me. The first time I got to see these pictures was after the procedure was complete and it was already too late. Later at my ~10 month follow up, we had discussed that these photos would be sent to me after the appointment. They were still not sent until I emailed a reminder almost a month and a half later asking for them again. The second thing I noted was that she said she has never had a patient think that their results were too low, as if they are on the fence, she will usually advise them to go with the higher mapped line as you can always go lower later. Again this is not something that she advised me when I was clearly on the fence and had even said I thought the mapped lines were too low. Even if she had advised such, my forehead would still have been too low as there was only a 0.5cm difference between the two mapped lines but my forehead is at least 1 cm too low. Lastly, she explained that she tries to take as much time as possible so as to not rush patients into a decision, and I had the opportunity to see the mapped lines on 3 separate occasions before the procedure (the consultation, pre-op appointment the day prior, and right before the surgery). I only remembered being shown the mapped lines on 2 occasions, and I did not remember going in for an appointment the day before my procedure. So when I got home I double checked and my consultation was actually virtual due to COVID, so obviously there was no mapping done then. My pre-op appointment was about a week and a half before operation day, and this is when most of the mapping was done. But again as I mentioned earlier, we were not able to come to a decision on the lines and she told me I could decide later. Which again as mentioned, put me in a position where I had to make a rushed decision on surgery day with the rest of the staff waiting on me. Not sure why I had these “deviations” from her standard procedure, and she has probably done hundreds of other surgeries and consultations in the >1 year since mine was done so it makes sense that she would not remember. But for me, with this being the absolute worst choice of my life, I remember the details very clearly, and I did not receive certain steps of this standard procedure. 
One of the reasons I decided to go with Dr. Attenello over other surgeons was due to the multiple positive remarks about her bedside manner. I do agree that she has great bedside manner (this is the only reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1 star), but unfortunately in the end the results are more important and I walked out of the surgery with my face ruined and I now have to live with permanent pain. My advice to anyone looking into this procedure is to look elsewhere unless you have an extremely straightforward case where you only want to lower the whole forehead but keep the shape exactly the same, and you are okay with scarring that is similar to mine. I would also recommend mapping your own lines and not letting the surgeon’s opinion sway you into going smaller than what you think would look good. The surgeons are supposed to be the experts in facial proportions and facial harmony, but every face is different and nobody knows your face better than yourself. Again while not ideal, if you didn’t go low enough you can always get another procedure to lower it further, and even a slight lowering would at least be an improvement. Lowering too much, however, such as what happened in my case, is a step backwards, and not only ruins your appearance in a super obvious way, but is also likely irreversible. Lastly, I would recommend that you don’t leave your pre-op appointment without having come to a consensus on the mapped lines and how much you would like to lower by. Having a patient make that decision right before surgery on the day of is a terrible practice. 
If anyone has any questions or would like more information about my experience or photos (I have hundreds of photos throughout the past year), feel free to message me. I will do my best to answer any questions and/or provide more details about my experience and results if it means I could potentially save someone else from a lifetime of pain, depression, and negative comments about their appearance. 
(Photos will be added after this review posts because I am unable to add them all without being flagged as a bot)

I have had a ton of questions both here and on other forums about my experience, and I realized I didn't post enough photos to show the extend of my bad results in my original post, so I am including more pictures here.

*Posting in chunks because for some reason I always get errors trying to upload many photos at once

I am now one year and 4 months post-op and am still severely depressed because of my terrible results. The hair still looks extremely unnatural and when I leave my hair down it looks out of place along the hair part as if I just threw on a cheap wig. The pain has also not improved at all which does not seem to be normal this far post-op. The incision site will still flare up, turn very red, and swell up with huge lumps. I have not seen this be an issue in any reviews I have read so I'm really wondering here what went so wrong with my procedure. The rule of thirds was also clearly not followed for my procedure, and my forehead is way too small for my face now, it's laughable. For reference the height from my chin to the bottom of my nose, and my nose to the center between my brows are both 6.5cm. The height of my forehead is only 5.5cm. Seeing as most people look best with the forehead being the same height as the other thirds, or slightly larger, it's obvious my forehead was over-reduced and should have been at least 1 cm higher. 5.5cm is also smaller than the average female forehead height, and clearly going from a forehead that is too large to one that is too small is an extremely obvious change which explains why everyone in my life who doesn't know about the surgery has commented negatively about my appearance ever since my surgery. I would also like to add that the line I was rushed into "agreeing" to was supposed to have been 6cm, not 5.5cm. It seems to me that instead of using the measurement of the forehead height, she used the measurement while following the curved portion of the forehead which is probably why it ended up being lowered too much. If you look into the rule of thirds, it should be based on height. Following the curves makes no sense because that would mean you need to do the same for the nose and chin area. I suspect the overlowering also probably contributed to my horrible scarring and chronic pain.

I've updated my review to a 1 star after thinking more about the bedside manner aspect. Looking back, it feels like she tried to pin all the bad aspects of the results on me. I work in healthcare myself so I understand not admitting to bad results for liability reasons, but blaming it on the patient is just so wrong. Some examples include:
- When I first mentioned the pain along the hairline during my 10 month follow-up, she tried to say it could be unrelated to the procedure. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a joke because honestly what surgeon would listen to a patient telling them they have pain at the incision site when they've previously never had any pain, and suggest that it could be unrelated? I later mentioned it again at my 1 year follow-up and she told me unfortunately there's nothing I could do but wait and hope the pain improves. Like I mentioned I'm now 1 year and 4 months out and it has not improved.
-I asked why the new hairline was so uneven and why there's a portion that suddenly goes up higher (you can see photos in my original review, where I mention it looks like something just slipped during the surgery). She said it was because she followed my original hairline and that was how my original hairline looked. I posted photos of my original hairline before and you can see that that is not the case. Even if it were, you would think the surgeon would ask beforehand if the patient wanted to keep it uneven or have it evened out a bit during the procedure
-When discussing how to possibly fix these results, she mentioned she doesn't recommend transplants and I probably wouldn't be happy with the results of transplants because of my "keen eye," implying that the only reason I'm unhappy is because I have a "keen eye" and not just because the results are bad. This could not be further from the truth since as I have mentioned earlier, most people in my life, and even strangers, have noticed and commented or asked me what happened to my hair despite me keeping this surgery a secret. Either everyone out there has a "keen eye," or I just have bad results.

I do not want anyone to have to go through the nightmare of the physical and emotional pain I deal with on a daily basis because of how this procedure has ruined my appearance. I urge you, please go elsewhere and do no hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.