I don't hate myself (I don't think anyway), I don't think I am horrible looking, but it seems my deformity is such a HUGE weight on my social skills, that I fumble many would be personal and business relationships. How can I fix this? Should I get therapy?
The president of a company I used to work for had a major cleft lip. I don't know how he felt about it in his own head, but from my point of view, it didn't really matter in terms of his business relationships.
People sometimes initially noticed it, but in pretty short order, it wasn't an issue. I could see that his clients and employees just accepted him as a confident, competent professional. I'm not sure how he got to be that way (edit: in terms of the confidence, I mean, not the cleft lip) - he was always like that the whole time I knew him: he always carried himself as if his "deformity" didn't matter, and everyone around him just seemed to follow his lead.
Speaking for myself, I found that Toastmasters really helped me get more comfortable with speaking in business settings; the whole point of it is to provide an opportunity for practice in a supportive environment. My wife did Dale Carnegie... the program's different, but she got similar benefit from it.
Neither program's a substitute for therapy if you really need it, but if you just want something to help you gain more comfort in social and business settings, one of them (or some other similar program) might help.
