Triggered Truth: The Mirror Lied To Me!

Scrolling through social media, I saw endless profiles filled with beautiful bodies — so unlike my own plus-size frame. Then, in my mirror, I found every imperfection, every flaw I had been taught to see as ugly. Confidence slipped from me like steam from a kettle. I was evaporating into a sea of everything I was not, choking on doubt, tears twinkling as they fell.

I had rewritten my narrative of self-worth so many times, always editing myself down. Since youth, I had felt like less. They say the journey to self-love begins with knowing yourself — but I had spent years searching for confidence in someone else’s reflection.

Maybe it was because I didn’t hear I was beautiful until I was eleven. Maybe it was growing up poor, wearing ragged clothes that never fit right. Or maybe it was the fear that having confidence meant being conceited. I remember the sting of a slap the one time someone called me beautiful and I dared to reply, I know.

Childhood trauma lingers. Negative words clog a person’s sense of self. I didn’t grow up with affirmations or kind voices cheering me on. I grew up with reminders of what I wasn’t. Those words echoed into adulthood — repeating mistakes, pointing out flaws, dimming my worth. I became someone who looked for the gloom of doubt instead of the sunlight of praise.

Then came the weight gain after the birth of my children, the hardness of life that crept in when I stopped practicing self-care. The criticism of my changing body didn’t just bruise my confidence — it devoured my spirit.

At 51 years old, I’m still fighting to be confident, bold, and sassy. Still standing in front of the mirror — searching, reaching for the woman who knows her worth. In the silence of self-doubt, I’m learning to stand tall and accept the imperfections. To stop letting society — or others — define what beauty is for me. To speak up, even when I want to shut down.

Confidence, for me, is a sprint — not a marathon. It’s messy. It’s exhausting. It takes years of unlearning all the lies you believed about yourself. Confidence means closing the chapters on old wounds and silencing the voices that echo without permission.

As I share this, I know I’m not alone. As a mature woman still wrestling with self-doubt — the gnawing voice that says I’m not good enough, not pretty enough, not sexy enough — I’ve learned that voice is a lie. One society taught us. One we’ve too often repeated to ourselves.

There’s nothing wrong with you. We all carry battle scars hidden beneath polite smiles, especially when someone makes a joke about our weight, our looks, or our clothes — shattering the fragile image we’ve worked so hard to rebuild.

But we’re still here. Still standing. Still learning to love the reflection that was never broken to begin with.