Look at it. What do you see?

Uh, what do you mean.. The mirror?-

Yes.

Well, uhm. I see myself.

Amy begins chucking at this

What?! That's what a mirror does!

No, be more precise. What do you see?

My face?

You say that, but that face is unfamiliar to you. What do you see?

My reflection???

Yes! Exactly. You don't see yourself, you see a reflection of yourself.

Really?! That's it, that's what your "realization" is?? Are you stupid???

... No. You see, when anyone looks in a mirror, they can't see themselves how others see them. They see a mirror image, themselves flipped. But that's not the only thing they "see".. They see themselves slightly different; whether a deeper voice, a different haircut, or in your case, a different body. When you look in a mirror you see everything you wish you didn't see. You don't see what you like nearly as much as what you don't. You see what you want out of yourself, not right in front of you, but in the negative space. You see everything you aren't.

Alright? I guess that makes sense. What's your point?

Your issue is not that there's anything wrong with you, nor your reflection. The issue is the mirror. Your problem is that you have a magic mirror in your bathroom. It mocks you, it degrades you. "Look at that pimple and that blemish!" "And that mistake you made a year ago!!". You're seeing yourself, not in rose tinted glasses, but in jaundiced ones. You see yourself worse than how you are. However, you can fix this. When I say "magic mirror," I don't literally mean your mirror is enchanted. No, it's just some glass; but the effect is the same, seeing yourself different than how you are. You need to assure this "magic mirror," or rather, your Inner Critic, that its voice is heard; otherwise, it'll just scream louder until it gets your attention. You need to tell it why you disagree with it, instead of what you're currently doing, which is just denying it. You need to take its criticisms seriously-

What?! You.. oh my fucking god, What, are you telling me to just listen?? To listen when it says "KILL YOURSELF" and "YOU'RE A WASTE"? Do you want me dead??

No, no no, I don't mean to take its words as gospel, of course not, but to figure out why it is saying these things. When it screams at you, it's not doing it because it hates you, (although it is rather angry at you,) it wants to be heard, so it screams whatever it thinks will make you listen. What you need to do after is ask it what it wants to say. It's like a baby crying; that's the only way it thinks it can communicate with you, by screaming and crying. Instead of trying to mentally smother it with a pillow (because, sadly, you can't imagine killing your mental illnesses to cure them), you can try to figure out why it is "crying". Why is it calling out to you? It'll be surprisingly cooperative, mainly because you're giving it what it's been screaming for, your genuine feedback to its feedback.

I guess that makes sense, but I don't exactly like the idea of having to suck up to something that tried (and still tries) to get me killed.

That's fair, but you need to realize what you're fighting. You aren't talking to some other, fully formed person that you could cut off. You're talking to your Inner Critic. This thing is a vital part of you, just misshapen and wounded. When someone gets pneumonia, they don't rip out their lungs for being filled with fluid, they try to get their lungs, (and by extension, themselves,) back to health. At its core, this thing has genuine, honest concerns, it's just that you ignored it so much to the point that it feels like you won't listen to those. It believes that you only will listen to it if it screams at you, and so it screams at you. And, once you start screaming back, it only thinks of you as even harder to reason with than before, and so it ups the ante. It's not evil, it's just neglected.

Huh.

Anyways, that's all the time we have for today-

Pff, what do you mean "that's all the time we have"? We're the same person, you have no other clients.

I know, but I think you have the gist by now. I'll be on my way.

What do you mean "my way"? Where are you going?

I'm a character, a character you play when you realize things like this. A character you play that explains this to you after you realize it yourself.

Alright, nevermind, Ames. Nevermind. I'm not a philosopher.

But you came up with all of this, didn't you?

they both chuckle

Alright, S̷i̵p̴i̵k̸i̸, see you soon.

Bye!