Mirrors

A/N: Body Dysmorphic Disorder [BDD] is something which I personally relate to. Google it if you want a definition, I'm too lazy to summarize it.

Look closer, are you like me?

Are you ugly?

- Ugly, The Exies

I stare into the mirror, cross legged on the floor of my room, watching wet tears spill down my cheeks. It’s dark, my curtains are drawn because I cannot look at myself in the light. I touch the mirror, covering my ugly big nose with my hands, watching more tears roll down my fat cheeks. I close my eyes, not even wanting to look at my deformed, ugly face. I remember the words of one of my closest friends, ‘Nobody sees what you think you see.’

But of course, my friends are just trying to make me feel better. I’m ugly and their all beautiful. Why do they hang around with me? Probably because they look like princesses when they stand next to you, the ugly duckling, a voice inside my voice says. I open my eyes. My eyes are too small for my fat face, my lips are always chapped and my nose is like a mountain.

I’m supposed to be getting ready to go out with some friends. But I don’t want to go. I’m too fat and I’m too ugly. I don’t know why they asked me – why do they want to look at my ugly face? Every time I walk down the street, I feel like apologizing to everyone I see, I feel like telling them that I know my nose is massive, I know my hair is curly and messy, I know my teeth are horrible because they aren’t perfectly straight, I know I look like a monster when I smile and even worse when I actually laugh, and I know that I don’t look good in anything that I wear, I just look like a blob because I’m so fat. I feel like telling them that I’m sorry, if I could change my face so that I looked like somebody pretty, I would.

I’m sorry they have to look at my ugly face. I’m sorry for my parents because they have such an ugly, fat daughter. They deserved a skinny little girl with a cute face that didn’t spend all day in the dark, shying away from them because she doesn’t want anybody to see how ugly she is.

My family must all be thinking to themselves: Oh God, I’m actually related to that thing. Maybe I’m adopted, maybe I’m the result of genetic engineering gone wrong, maybe one of my parents was a horrible witch with a crooked nose.

I can’t take my eyes of the mirror, I’m just watching myself break down and hoping that somehow, my fairy godmother will appear just like in a fairytale and make me beautiful. Normally I would avoid mirrors or anything that I can see my reflection in at all costs, when I start looking in the mirror, it is nearly impossible to take my eyes away. It’s painful just to look at my face.

My friends keep telling me to be more confident, but how can you be confident with a face like mine? How can you be confident when you’re so fat? How can you be confident when you’re the only girl in your year that isn’t going to the Christmas Dance in two weeks time just because you couldn’t find a dress that didn’t make you look like a blob?

People tell me that I should go out and be social, but that’s only because I am the freak that makes people feel good about themselves. People look at me and think ‘Wow, I thought I was ugly, but look at her, she’s hideous!’

I have given up on trying to be pretty, I have given up on trying to straighten my hair and wear lots of make up because it isn't working. I have given up on being social, the only time I leave the house is if it is dark and nobody can see my horrible face. I am going to grow old all by myself, because nobody will ever want me. I can’t blame them. If they woke up one morning next to my face, they would probably have a heart attack.

In therapy they teach you that life does get better even when it seems like it won’t, but when I look around the other people my age in group therapy, I find it hard to believe. All of us are victims of abuse in some way or another. Sexual, physical or emotional – all six of us have been touched by it in some way. We’ve all got stories of self harm, depression, OCD and attempted suicide.

It’s hard to believe that things will get better when I’m in group therapy, listening to Dana talk about how her boyfriend raped her, or Mike talk of his abusive stepfather or watching Carrie shake her head and smile like she’s happy but knowing she isn’t because there’s fresh blood on her sleeve.

But I guess there is some kind of hope, even if its only a little, I’m ugly like the ugly duckling in that story my mum used to read me every night when I was little. I never got tired of hearing that story. I hope that one day my life will turn out to be something like that – I’m hideous to look at, but maybe one day the antidepressants will kick in and I’ll look in the mirror and smile because I won’t feel ugly anymore.