For a lifetime, I was made to believe I was an ugly child. My mother often spoke of how beautiful she was. She would recount how everyone admired her beauty, bringing the subject up again and again. She never directly called me "ugly"... But she frequently said I resembled my father and aunt so much, and then she would mention how ugly they were. Over time, these words became ingrained in my mind. They led me to believe that I, too, was ugly.

Every time I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see anything beautiful in myself. I always thought to myself: "How can such a beautiful mother have such an ugly daughter?" Years passed. I grew up, started university. My friends would tell me, "What a charming and beautiful girl you are." But I always interpreted these words as fleeting compliments, ordinary politeness. No word, no sentence, could convince me that I was truly beautiful.

Years went by, and I got married. My husband always told me I was beautiful too. But these words also felt insincere to me. "He's saying it to make me happy," I would think to myself. Believing I was beautiful was always something distant, unattainable for me.

When I turned forty, one day I looked in the mirror and said to myself: "Think carefully. Will you believe your eyes, or the words that have been said to you?" I looked at the mirror for a long, long time. I focused on my eyes. And for the first time, I realized how beautifully I was created. My eyes were beautiful. My nose was straight. My face was symmetrical. For the first time, I saw myself as beautiful in the mirror. From that day on, I wanted to believe this truth. Every day, I started looking in the mirror and telling myself, "You are very beautiful."

And how painful it is that I realized I was truly beautiful only after the age of forty. It turned out that the feeling of ugliness I had carried until then was a reflection of the emotions my mother had instilled in me during my childhood. Thanks to my therapist, Lara, I was introduced to Carl McBride's book, "The Empty Mirror." As I read the book, my old wounds resurfaced. I confronted deep emotions. How painful it was to have a self that was not allowed to be, a self that was "shaped" by her mother…

And today, I learned that my mother was actually a narcissist. This was a very painful truth. But confronting this truth was the first step towards healing. I now believe that I will heal. I wanted to write down these experiences as a memoir, to be a voice for myself and for others who feel the same way.

Thank you,

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