seeing myself through shifting glass

body dysmorphia is a quiet thief. it slips into the room without a sound, bending the light around every mirror until nothing looks the way it should. it does not announce itself with sirens. it waits in the reflection of a storefront window, in the accidental photo someone tags you in, in the pause between words when a friend compliments your outfit. it whispers and twists, convincing you that what you see is truth, even when the truth is something gentler.

for years i believed the lies. i measured and compared without realizing it. i learned to catalogue every imagined flaw before i even said good morning to myself. the mirror became a battlefield. some days i would stare until the edges of my own face blurred and the only thing i recognized was the ache of not measuring up. clothes that fit yesterday felt like cages today. a single glance from someone else could unravel hours of calm.

living like this is exhausting. it steals the simple joys—pulling on a favorite shirt, laughing in a candid photo, catching your own reflection without bracing for impact. it makes you question the love offered by others. how can they see beauty when all you see is a list of what must be hidden? it turns kindness into confusion, and every compliment becomes a puzzle you cannot solve.

but healing is possible, even if it comes slowly, even if it doesn’t look like a straight path. healing begins in the smallest moments: choosing to step back from the mirror, choosing to breathe when the urge to criticize feels loud, choosing to speak to yourself with the softness you’d give a friend. it is in the decision to honor what your body does rather than what it looks like—how it carries you through long nights, how it holds your laughter, how it keeps showing up even when you wish it were different.

i began to find pieces of peace when i realized my body is not a problem to be solved. it is not an enemy. it is a vessel of motion and memory. it is the reason i can hug the people i love, chase the sunsets that save me, hold the phone that writes these words. it deserves tenderness, even when my thoughts are anything but kind.

if you know this struggle, you are not alone. you are not broken. the reflection you fight with is not the measure of your worth. there is a life beyond the glass, a life where you laugh freely, where you feel the wind on your skin without wondering what others see. you are allowed to step into that life, even if you have to take it one breath at a time.

choose gentleness. choose patience. choose to stay. the body you live in is not a cage. it is a story still unfolding, a wildflower reaching for light, deserving of love in every shape it takes.

with ink + bloom, 🌻