The Lying Counselor’s Eloquent Reasoning - Chapter 52
“I-If plastic surgery makes the face look better, so be it! What mental illness! That’s nothing but a lie made up by the opposition to plastic surgery!”
“No, it’s not that simple. As I stated a week ago, cosmetic surgery is not magic that can bring anyone their ideal face. Patients with dysmorphophobia will never be convinced that cosmetic surgery is enough to alter their face slightly. Consequently, they end up seeking surgery over and over again, which is financially draining for them. Furthermore, since they cannot escape the belief that they are hideous no matter what they do, they avoid exposing their appearance to others. For instance, when they go out, they wear heavy equipment such as hats, sunglasses, and masks, and when they go to places like schools where such equipment is not permitted, they do not show up and tend to stay at home.”
“…”
Isn’t that exactly what I am doing right now?
“At the root of this disease is a distorted and biased image of the ideal self. People who repeatedly undergo cosmetic surgery in an attempt to regain their youth, despite being middle-aged, are a perfect example of this. The changes in appearance due to aging are unpleasant for everyone, but most people accept it as a natural part of life. However, in the mind of a middle-aged person with dysmorphophobia, there exists a strong belief that there is a younger version of oneself and that this is the ‘ideal image’ of the person. That is exactly the distortion. Nothing we do today with science and technology can rejuvenate us. It’s all about asking for what you can’t have.”
“I-I’m not middle-aged! That topic is irrelevant!”
“No, it has a lot to do with it. You also have a distorted image of your ideal self. Right here.”
Uroma took control of the spy mirror tablet and brought up Moeka’s SNS account again. The header of the account was still Moeka’s over-the-top selfies.
“I’ve said it over and over again, this face has been overly modified to the point where it resembles an alien. Anyone who really wishes to have a face like this would be suspected of suffering from a mental illness. Right, Tomomi?”
“Eh?”
Tomomi seemed to be taken aback by the sudden change of subject.
“Well, I guess so. This face is overdone, no matter how you do it…”
She easily identified Moeka as having a mental illness. It was indeed a shock to hear a former classmate of the same age claim so. The damage was too different from being told by a man in a shady white coat.
“W-Why, Ayasaki? This face is so cute!”
“It’s not cute. It’s weird. The original Tsubaki is way better.”
“Lies!”
What exactly was the cuteness that she had been pursuing until now? Moeka was so overwhelmed that she stiffened.
“B-But I have these creepy, narrow eyes. My face is unbelievably ugly. Bigger eyes are absolutely cuter… I-Isn’t that obvious…”
Her mentality had reached its limit. Moeka began to burst into tears.
“Before getting emotional, Tsubaki, try to recall and think carefully. About when your obsession with your ugly face first started.”
“When?”
“At least until you were in junior high school, you were able to live a normal life without worrying deeply over your face, weren’t you? From what I heard from Tomomi here, you weren’t particularly absent from school in middle school.”
“But at that time, I was still??”
Because I didn’t have a smartphone. I didn’t realize that my face is hideous??Huh? Could it be that if I hadn’t noticed that, I could have had a more comfortable life? That’s when Moeka finally recognized that there was something wrong with her.
“You probably started to have concerns about your face after your parents bought you a smartphone. According to your personal information on social networking sites, it was shortly after you entered high school. Soon after that, you started taking selfies and realized that you could erase your slight complex with image correction, and became obsessed with enhancing your selfies. And gradually, you developed a feeling that your enhanced face was your ideal self and your actual face was ugly… Isn’t that right?”
“Y-Yes… All of this is true.”
What is this guy? The whole story is sickening on point.
“Then you must be suffering from the new type of dysmorphophobia, the snapchat dysmorphophobia induced by constant selfie modification. Through repeated self-correction, you’ve developed a distorted image of yourself in your mind, and you can’t embrace your face as it really is. This is already an illness of the mind.”
“H-Hah…”
After so much explanation, she was able to somewhat understand the logic behind it to a certain extent. But only theoretically.
“But when I was told I have a mental illness, I didn’t feel it at all…”
“Well, that’s how it is with mental illness. Most people are not conscious of it, and when someone explains to them that they have a mental illness, their face usually turns red and they scream that it can’t be true. Right, Tomomi?”
“I-I guess so…”
Tomomi looked away from Uroma awkwardly. Was there something going on?