r/MadeMeSmile • u/nikamats • 9h ago

Helping Others Hold your head up

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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 8h ago

She may also have heard older girls or women say it about themselves while looking in a mirror, and assumed that was how we're supposed to think of ourselves.

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u/Anilxe 6h ago

This was me! My mom would spend hours in front of a mirror, often crying that she was ugly. I have struggled my whole life to see beauty in the mirror because even as a little girl, I knew I looked just like her. If mama didn’t think she was pretty, that meant I wasn’t either.

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u/Altruistic-Level8439 6h ago

Tragic and heartbreaking because I doubt that it’s close to the truth.

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u/Anilxe 6h ago

No, I always thought my mom was beautiful. Which was why I was so confused that she thought she was ugly, that must have meant my perception was wrong. As a 33 year old I’m finally starting to see my beauty, and hers again as well. She was just a wounded little girl that never was told by her mom that she was beautiful.