"I'm tired of letting my thoughts win,," I said.
She met my eyes and said, "That's a good place to start."
Chapter 17: The Shape of Healing..
She didn't say anything for a while. Dr Hale never rushed me, which somehow made it harder.
"I know it's not logical," I said finally. My voice sounded too loud in the silence. "I know I'm not actually hideous or whatever. People say I'm pretty sometimes. Or that I have nice eyes. I smile and nod, but it never... lands. It just slides off."
Dr. Hale nodded, "What do you notice in your body when someone compliments your appearance?"
I blinked, "Tension. I go stiff. My chest tightens. I want to disappear. Like they're looking too closely and any second they'll realize they were wrong."
She didn't respond right away. Just watched me with that calm, unreadable expression of hers. It wasn't judgmental. Just... present.
"I think it started with my mom," I said. "She always had something to say about how I looked. "My weight, my hair, my skin. If I wore something she didn't like, she'd say things like, 'Are you sure you want to draw attention to your thighs in that?' And she always compared me to other girls. Girls from church. Girls from school. Nicer girls. Girls who didn't have acne or bite their nails."
Dr. Hale tilted her head slightly, "How did you interpret those comments when you were younger?"
I let out a humorless laugh, "I thought she just wanted me to be better. But now? I think she wanted me to be someone else."
She didn't argue. Just let that sit for a moment. Then she spoke, slowly. Gently. "When a parent constantly evaluates a child'sappearance, it does more than hurt their feelings—it rewires how they understand love and worth. Children absorb messages not just through what's said, but through what's repeated, emphasized, and left unspoken."
She paused, making sure I was still with her before continuing.
"The home is the first mirror," she said. "And parents are the first reflection a child sees. When that reflection is full of criticism, comparison, or shame—especially about something as personal and visible as appearance—it teaches the child that love must be earned. That approval is conditional. That their body is something to manage, to fix, to apologize for."
My throat tightened. I stayed quiet.
"Even when the comments seem small or 'well-meaning,'" she went on, "like your mother's, about your thighs, your skin, your clothing choices, they add up. Because they're coming from someone whose love is supposed to be unconditional. The result is often a child who becomes hyper-aware of how they look, constantly measuring themselves against others, desperate to be good enough but never feeling like they are."
I nodded, slowly, "I remember standing in front of the mirror before school and just... dreading it. Not because I didn't like how I looked, but because I already knew she wouldn't."
Dr. Hale's eyes softened, "And that dread becomes internalized. Eventually, it's not even your mother's voice anymore. It's your own. You take over the job of criticizing yourself, because it feels safer to catch it before someone else does."
I felt a rush of cold air inside my chest, like a door cracking open somewhere I hadn't been in years.
"I think that's what hurts the most," I said. "That I believed her. I let her decide what was wrong with me, and then I made it my full-time job to fix it. Even now—if I gain a little weight, or break out, or wear something I actually like—I hear her. Not out loud, but in this... tight, shaming way. Like I've done something wrong."
"That voice didn't come from nowhere," Dr. Hale said. "It came from repetition. From being shaped by someone who struggled to see you without changing you."
She paused, "You weren't supposed to earn love through compliance. Or shrink yourself to fit someone else's definition of worthy. But that's what conditional love teaches children to do. They adapt. They contort, and in the process, they lose the ability to see their own reflection clearly."
I swallowed hard, "I don't even know what I look like without her voice in my head."
"That's okay," she said softly. "We're going to help you find out."
I swallowed hard. The words made something inside me ache.
"It got worse in high school," I said. "I was never the 'pretty one.' I was just... there. A girl with too much eyeliner and weird boots and bad skin. People would whisper things when I walked past. Or laugh just loud enough that I'd wonder if it was about me. Boys made jokes. Some of them said I should feel lucky anyone looked at me at all."
I paused.
"I have these voices in my head constantly reminding me I'm not enough for anyone. That I'm a burden. That I wasn'twanted. That people only tolerate me out of pity. That I'm not pretty enough, not gentle enough, not lovable enough. Just... not enough."
I paused, but the words kept rising in my throat, hot and heavy.
"It's like... even when something good happens, my brain finds a way to twist it. If someone compliments me, I think they're just being polite. If someone likes me, I assume they'll leave as soon as they see the real me. If I make a mistake, I spiral, like—'There it is. That's the proof. That's why no one stays.' It's like I'm always waiting for people to realize I'm defective."
