Body Dysmorphia
The mirror is polished, light refracts, hitting every crevice with a bored precision. I force my eyes down, and my heart sinks. In my head, my flesh pours from the seams, calves tight from the weight of angry red and blotchy thighs, facing outwards, hair stubborn where it should not be, like a murmur of crows. My stomach curves at the bottom, and the outline of my body is…not right. It wobbles uncertainly, not sliding over polished muscle, not curving even, but undulating. Scars, freckles, a face pockmarked and sore from the abuse of my desperate fingers. a rash which tickles across my chest and all over my back. Bone (macabre, unapologetically so) forces it way from my brow to settle underneath my ragged hairline and it burns when the musty air of the changing room hits it. My ears, hot and red, with an itch coaxed on by limp, mousy frizz tucked behind, hear a murmur from next door, a shuffling of socks slipping from tiny, delicate (I imagine) feet. There are no butterflies-just thunderclaps-in my stomach. My mind’s eye is stormy red, with flashes of lightning that fork just between my eyes, sounding with the fury of scalded charcoal, smouldering at the bridge of my nose, slick with moisture but dry as bone. Everything overlaps at the very corners of my eyes, colours bending zigzagging intertwining, moving to my faint heart beat. Now I feel that heartbeat in my throat, a queer pulsating just between my collar bones. I should get changed-my friends are waiting outside.
This is what it feels like to look in the mirror and hate what you see. Body acceptance is so important, and it’s time to stop looking to outside sources of validation. No-one sees you the way you see you, and while that is hard to imagine when you suffer from body dysmorphia, the way to get people to love and respect you is not through shaming yourself but through loving and respecting them. You cannot go through life hiding yourself behind loose clothing because you are afraid of what is underneath, because the ones who appreciate you how you are are the ones really worth your time.
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