My body is a doll to dress up and play with

[Cauliflour]

A few years ago I was ugly: had a haircut that really didn't suit me, wore clothes that didn't really suit me and overall was having a bit of a gender identity mess because I wasn't sure how I was supposed to be expressing myself. Well, now I'm pretty: I have a nice haircut, a clothing style I love and I figured out how to hide my mediocrity with bold makeup. Problem is, now when I look at myself in the mirror, I feel like I'm looking at someone completely different. Mentally I'm still a teenager with shitty hair and pimples but physically I'm an elegant young woman, it's so disorientating.

It's not like I'm doing worse either, mentally I'm at the best I've been since I was like 12 (mostly down to me not looking like a sack of potatoes anymore and my crippling self harm addiction!). I go about my life like I'm controlling a character in a video game, to the point I view my life as such. I rationalise how I do things with video game logic, which may also be a sign for me to put down the controller but my autism will not allow that. It's hard to explain as it's become so ingrained in my thoughts that it doesn't really stand out to me anymore. Although seeing myself in the mirror does make me feel uncomfortable due to the direct eye contact. All I can think of for this happening is the fact that I've objectively improved as a person but my self esteem is still about as low as it's been for like the past 8 years, probably even lower actually, so the thought that me, myself, the brain behind this whole operation, is actually decent at stuff and doesn't look like the dork to end all dorks anymore, probably caused my brain to crash and it's been buffering ever since. And this isn't simply a case of a little "self love" when it's like, what even counts as "personal" stuff anymore? I don't see my creations (such as my art) really as a personal thing anymore: it's a creation of the character I'm playing. How can I be "true to myself" when I don't even know what the fuck I'm supposed to look at?? Is presenting like this being "true to myself"? Was it ever? Have I been delusional my entire life???

Weirdly enough, I see the scars on my arms as still very much "me" and I don't think that's gonna change anytime soon. God I have so many mixed feelings about self harm but you can't deny it's one hell of a coping mechanism. Does make me feel more guilty at the thought of suicide though cause then I'll be killing off a character that I put a lot of time and effort into, it would be like deleting a save file you put thousands of hours into and then setting your copy of the game on fire.

My fucking mental health rubbish has become "cool character writing" in my brain, you can't make this shit up!

And I'm willing to just let it spiral cause it'll be too hard to go back now! Might as well see how well the snowball rolls!