The Body Dysmorphia Nobody Diagnosed
I’ve been at war with mirrors since I learned to recognize my face,
convinced the glass was lying, showing someone else misplaced
inside the body I inhabit like a tenant in a cage,
where every surface tells a story I’ve been trying to erase.
At twelve I started counting flaws the way accountants balance books,
documented every failure, every angle, every look
that proved I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worthy of attention,
wasn’t built correctly, wasn’t worth the world’s retention.
I declined invitations, turned down dates, avoided cameras,
built my life around the project of remaining anonymous.
Wore clothes designed to hide me, makeup meant to fix
what I’d decided couldn’t be redeemed, just covered up with tricks.
I studied other women, catalogued what made them beautiful,
then used that data as a weapon, proving I was unsuitable.
My thighs were wrong, my nose was wrong, my stomach was catastrophe,
my breasts too small, my hips too wide, my face asymmetry.
I had entire theories about which angles to avoid,
which lighting would expose me, which positions would destroy
whatever fragile confidence I’d managed to construct
from compliments I didn’t trust, from evidence I’d reconstructed.
The photos show a woman who looks fine, looks normal, even pretty,
but I can’t see her, can’t connect her to my interior committee
of critics who’ve been cataloguing failures since my teens,
who’ve convinced me that the mirror shows exactly what it means–
that I’m deformed, disgusting, fundamentally unworthy
of being seen, of taking space, of existing here at thirty
or forty or whatever age I’ve reached while hating skin
that’s kept me functioning, kept me alive, kept holding damage in.
I’ve missed opportunities, turned down promotions, avoided beaches,
couldn’t let myself be vulnerable, couldn’t risk what being seen teaches
about intimacy, about connection, about allowing others close
when you’re convinced your body is the thing they’ll hate the most.
This is vanity inverted, pride that eats itself alive,
when self-perception warps and twists until you can’t survive
the disconnect between the mirror and what everyone else sees.
I’ve spent forty years imprisoned by distorted certainties,
believing I was hideous when I was only human,
treating flesh like evidence of some profound confusion.
I’m trying now to see myself the way that others claim they do,
but decades of distortion don’t dissolve because you want them to.