trigger warning: this post talks about negative body image, body dysmorphia
Every night I slept with a massive dream. The dream of waking up, looking at myself in the mirror and feeling “right”, feeling “perfect”. Every morning I woke up, got myself to the bathroom mirror to find a self that belonged. But here it stood, this reflection that refused to be home. Someone flawed, someone imperfect, somebody stared back, somebody not me. Many of my sunflower friends tried, they always made me feel happy and loved; but what was I even supposed to do, when the actual thunderstorm was whirling inside my head and body?
These outer voices kept on cheering, “You are beautiful”, “You look amazing!” but I could never believe them because my inner darkness, my inner voice kept on screaming, ” They are all lying.”
We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are
-AnaĂŻs Nin
The haunting demon of body dysmorphia, an unwelcome companion, kept on clinging onto me until I couldn’t feel “right” anymore. I looked for perfection in the whole world and slowly started searching for it in the mirror. I picked apart everything that felt “wrong”, and “flawed” until I was left with nothing to be happy about. It started feeling like I was in an endless chase of trying to be “perfect”. I spent years feeling that if I could just fix this, or if I could hide that, then maybe I would feel okay. But the truth is, the “fix” wasn’t outside. It wasn’t in the mirror. It was inside me, but I didn’t know how to find it.
This demon kept on stealing away the joy from moments meant to be joyful. Every time I’d make an achievement, this cloud just would hang over my head talking to me, saying things like, “But you don’t look good enough.” I’d skip events. I would avoid pictures some times, and more than all of that: I was just afraid sometimes of being seen as imperfect, not enough, the way that I saw me.
The more I tried to control my appearance, the more I felt trapped. My mind, once a best friend to me, now started seeming like an inner bully telling me over and over again that I was not good enough.
I scrolled for hours and hours on social media, looking at everyone, it just felt so natural to achieve the standard of being “perfect”, or being a certain way that’s conventionally “attractive”.
After fighting this battle for long enough, I started looking onto the positive side of the internet. My first moment of hoping to break apart with this unwanted demon came when I read the quote “You are not your reflection”.And initially, it did not make sense. How could I detach myself from what I see in the mirror? However, that small thought was stuck in my head and over time, I realized that my worth was not reflected in the mirror. I started letting go of those impossible standards that for far too long I held to my heart. For the first time in my life, I felt the burden lifted.
 “Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.”
-William Shakespeare
To whoever reads this and is going through something similar, know that you are not alone. And it’s perfectly fine to have days when you cannot help but judge yourself in the mirror. Just know that your reflection does not paint the whole picture of who you are. You are worth so much more than what you see in that piece of glass.
Remember, the mirror is lying to you; it distorts and deceives. And yet it can’t define you. You redefine beauty, or at least rediscover what beauty within you actually means, day after day. The journey is hard, but little by little, you’re gonna start to see the truth. You will start seeing yourself with kinder eyes. And one day when you look in that mirror, you’ll see someone beautiful and strong and utterly, beyond a shadow of a doubt enough.
Yes, it might take years to get over the damage that is done by body dysmorphia. There will be relapses, and sometimes the mirror will have a louder voice than yours. But just remember, it’s not about being perfect; it is about progress. It’s about silencing the lies bit by bit until the day when you look into the mirror and finally find the person staring back at you enough.
“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop”
-Rumi
Love every fault and curve and imperfection-it’s part of the magnanimous whole that is you. The mirror may lie; however, you hold power over it. So see through it. Learn to love yourself in your entirety in all your glory and imperfection. Learn to break free.
You might be tempted to chase a certain image, to keep trying different products, diets, or routines in the hope that something will finally “fix” what you see in the mirror. But let me tell you something — I’ve tried that, too. And I learned, the hard way, that no amount of external change can quiet that inner voice that tells you you’re not good enough. The peace you’re searching for, that feeling of being “okay” with yourself, it doesn’t come from changing how you look; it comes from changing how you see yourself.
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