I feel like there are spiders under my skin. 

Every piece of fabric simply feels wrong somehow. 

A glance at the mirror reflects back the mania in my eyes and I know. I know this familiar demon that lies beneath the surface of my dermis, waiting to bat it’s red eyes at me. It’s my body dysmorphia. 

I’m on outfit number seven today. On any other Monday, it might seem like I’m simply a diva that loves her own closet’s runway show. Oh, for it to be that…Body dysmorphia is a mental health condition in which we see flaws or defects in our appearance others do not see. Flaws that are not rooted in reality. Yet here I was, on my floor, surrounded by a heap of clothing so tall it cast a shadow around me. While the flaws or defects are not “real,” they feel very real to me. The shadow of the clothing and the beady eyed demon inside me took turns leaving me in a darkness. Then, a knock on the door. How long had I been in my own world? The glow of my iPhone’s screen told me mere minutes. 

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Each knock louder than its predecessor. It was only my son, ready to go do something. The weather was a soothing 70 degrees and I remember wanting to take the top down on my Jeep. That thought seemed like a lifetime before. 

“Gimme a few more minutes!” I said, in what I hoped was a cheerful tone. My son is very empathetic and can spot a phony emotion across a football field. My acting held up as I heard his little feet skip away. 

My body feels weak. My temples were tingling, there was a cold sensation in the back of my head, and there was the sensation that all the butterflies that danced inside of me had suddenly stopped fluttering. In a dissociative state, I recognized I was having an anxiety attack. How could I take my son anywhere with the idea that I’ll somehow embarrass him? Who’d want to be seen with a fat mother? Yet, somehow, at my core I was still myself. I recognized the thoughts for what they were, intrusive. Intrusive thoughts are like unwelcome visitors to a party, like Maleficent crashing Aurora’s party, but without the sharp cheekbones of Angelina Jolie. 

I slowly pulled myself up from the floor and stared into the mirror. I was staring down my dysmorphia. I was staring down my personal demon. A shift slowly came over me, enveloping me. The body in the mirror was merely a body. Inside the body were swirls of thoughts and words. Inside was a heart that beated and organs that kept me alive. I was still in the throes of my anxiety attack, but I saw the light beaming from the other side. 

I finally settled on an outfit. The spiders no longer crawled under my skin. The fabric felt soft against my skin. A glance at the mirror reflects back an ordinary body. 

I like to wrap my life in a pretty bow in a pretty box that will simply sit on the shelf, never to be opened. Yet, I find it harder to keep the lid on the box and like the horrors of Pandora, I find I have my own monsters to battle. I don’t pretend to have an answer. Sometimes I can pull myself out of my dysphoria and other times, it stays with me all day. 

Today, I fought back the monsters in my head. It’s the first days of spring and warmth is returning. The crackle of electricity is in the air with the promise of blossoms and thunderstorms. A new season is upon us and with it, a new opportunity to keep the darkness at bay. For now, it’s goodbye as I have a top to put down and a promise to a little boy to keep.