I sigh, and though I hesitate, I do as he instructs. “I don’t know.” I pause. Then I see it. “It’s kind of amorphous. No, not really amorphous so much as a giant flesh-colored blob peppered with trash.” But as I describe it, it changes shape. “No, wait, it’s large and hairy and …” I stop because it mutates into a form that takes my breath away. “It looks like my dad.”

“What would you say to this being?”

“I’d tell him that I’m so fucking mad at him. For all the times he said I was too chubby then ditched the word chubby for fat. Said I needed to lose weight when I was ten because I looked like a potato. He started calling me Taters in public because it was the only way he could make sure I wouldn’t reach for an extra slice of cake. When I heard him tell Mom that I’d never find anyone to love me because of how I looked, I cried myself to sleep. He said the way I chewed when I ate made me look like a garbage truck. Then, when I started to take laxatives and purge, he told me I looked good, and I thought he was proud of me, so maybe I was finally doing something right. But I was destroying my body to make him love me.”

I don’t realize that I’m crying until I open my eyes and my vision is blurry and my cheeks are wet.

“How do you feel?” Sweatervest asks.

“Like shit.” I pause. “But a tiny bit better.”

“Have you ever thought of writing your father a letter? You don’t have to send it, but it could be a way to say everything you might not be able to in person.”

His suggestion makes sense. My old therapist told me something similar. I’ve started one a zillion times but always gave up and deleted it because it feels like nothing will ever change.

“It’s something to consider. Also, it may help to think of your body dysmorphia as a separate personified being or creature. It could allow you to identify and separate it from yourself so that you can identify some of the compulsions to act on the way you feel and instead develop healthy coping mechanisms.”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you cope with how you feel about yourself and your body?”

“Now, or before?”

“How about before your recent relapse?”

“My old therapist tried to get me to work on changing the language I used. She had me stand in front of a mirror and describe my body.”

“How did that make you feel?”