not our own beauty.

My mother recently told me that she read a study on anorexia that said that anorexic people often lose their ability to distinguish facial expressions on other people after a while. At first I was shocked, but then i began to see the connection.. Clara turns my gaze inward, on what i hate about myself. And when I'm focusing on what i hate about myself, i begin to believe that other people are thinking of what they hate about me too.. I've already seen that happen in my own case. It's almost like paranoia! Clara forces us to look only at ourselves, at all the bad things and not even see the good things. my beautiful sister Laura once told me that whenever i'm sad or feeling insufficient, i should just think to myself, "I am a child of God." Clara wants us to forget that. She wants us to think that we're on our own, if we don't have merit and worth by ourselves, we have nothing... we are nothing. she wants us to forget that on the sheer strength of being beloved children of God, we are beautiful. Clara goes along with the popular idea in this day and age that we have to be perfect.. she just takes it to a whole new level. Knowing Clara is like wearing sunglasses in a dark room... and it's already dark enough in this world.