My therapist once asked me what I thought when I heard the word “beautiful”

I cringed and sank back into my seat and uttered one simple word - disgust

She wasn’t talking about the beauty in the sunflowers on a summer’s eve

Or the beauty in the stars

She was talking about the beauty in me

Although, I’m not so sure there is beauty in me

From years of starving and binging and purging and starving again I can tell you the honest truth - there is no beauty in me.

When someone calls me beautiful I want to curl into a fetal position and hide from this world and its lies because… it has to be a lie.

Right?

There’s no beauty in this body that has more scars than the Eiffel tower has steps

There’s no beauty in a body that has seen the inside of more toilet bowls than alcoholics ever will

So my response to my therapist would be this -

I find beauty in nature

In fields of gorgeous flowers.

The kind you could write poems about

I find beauty in music that explains how you feel just right

I find beauty in a child taking their first steps because oh my god look how innocent

I hope they never get tainted by this world

I find beauty in the way my girlfriend looks at me with love in her eyes

Or the way her smile looks when she laughs at me

I find beauty in everything

But when someone calls me beautiful, I have no other want but to not exist in that moment

Because after 18 years of being taught that I was not beautiful nor worth anything, how could someone actually find me beautiful?

It has to be a lie

Because this body

This person

Will never be beautiful

So please stop lying to me