She’s now one of the most successful models in the business, but Kendall Jenner used to be ashamed of showing her face due to acne.

“Where it really impacted me was how self-conscious I became about it,” the 19-year-old writes in a new post on her website. “It completely ruined my self-esteem. I wouldn’t even look at people when I talked to them. I felt like such an outcast; when I spoke, it was with my hand covering my face.”

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kendall jenner

Kendall in 2009 vs. 2015.

It didn’t help that the brunette beauty was going through her adolescent phase under the harsh glare of a thousand spotlights. But luckily, her famous siblings were there for her.

“I was thankful we always talked about it in my family,” Kendall says of her beauty problems. “They would help me work on my feelings about it and how I would move past that stage of my life.”

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Having all gone through it before, sisters Kourtney, Kim and Khloé Kardashian encouraged her to “keep my hands off my face and to never pick.” Visits to a dermatologist for Laser Genesis (a treatment to help reduce redness and scars) has left her with nearly flawless skin.

“Slowly, I’m working towards not caring and I’m just in so much of a better place about it all now that I’m older,” Kendall, who’s three years acne-free, says. “I realized that it’s a part of life for some people and it doesn’t define who you are.”