Chapter Eight: The Woman in the Mirror

The mirror was never just glass.

It was judgment. Memory. War.

For most of her life, she avoided it unless absolutely necessary—just long enough to do her hair, to check for bruises she didn’t remember getting, or to make sure her eyes didn’t betray how tired she really was. But she never looked in the mirror. Not really.

Because when she did, she didn’t just see herself.

She saw all of them.

The girl who flinched. The woman who stole. The inmate. The patient. The liar. The lover. The mother.

And for a long time, all she could feel was shame.

Her body had been taken, used, ignored. Her reflection bore the weight of other people’s choices—hands that hurt her, eyes that undressed her, voices that named her things she never asked to be. And so she stopped claiming it as her own. It became a costume. A disguise. Something to hide behind or use as a weapon when she needed to survive.

Sex was her weapon of choice. And sometimes, her punishment. Maggie, her executioner knew how to dole out pain. 

It blurred the lines between validation and violation. She slept with men who wanted to own her, and women she wanted. Men left her empty. Not because of who they were, but because she didn’t know who she was. Pleasure was mechanical. Connection felt dangerous. And vulnerability? Unthinkable. The world told her she belonged to men. 

But slowly, quietly, things began to shift.

It wasn’t a great awakening. It was a series of small, trembling questions:

What do I like?

Who do I trust?

Can I say no—and mean it?

Do I even want this?

The first time she said “no” and walked away, she cried—not from regret, but from the unfamiliar taste of power. It shook her, how long she’d believed she was supposed to give herself away to feel wanted.

In therapy, she talked about touch. She sought massage therapy. Worked on dissociation. About how sometimes she could only be present if she kept one foot on the floor, eyes open, hold ice cubes, and body tensing. She practiced grounding techniques, consent scripts, affirmations she didn’t believe at first but said anyway.

Every relationship she had ended in pain, loss, and the unraveling of hope. She knew she was the problem. 

One woman didn’t flinch when the darkness came. She asked questions. She listened. She touched with reverence, not entitlement. She reminded her, gently, that her body was hers—not something to be earned or endured, but something to be honored.

It didn’t last, like many things in her life. But it was real. And that was enough.

Because now, when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t just see the scars or the weight or the years she’d lost.

She saw survival.

She saw a woman who had lived through fire and still had breath in her lungs.

She saw softness where rage used to live.

She saw curiosity where numbness used to reign.

She saw the beginning of something sacred: self-ownership.

Not every day, of course. Some days, the old voices still crept in, whispering their poison.

But more and more, she looked herself in the eyes and said, “You’re still here. That has to mean something.”

She began dressing for herself.

Dancing alone in her.

Sleeping starfish-style in bed, taking up space she once tried to disappear into.

And for the first time in her life, she could touch her own skin without apology.

The woman in the mirror was still learning.

But she had stopped hiding.