The ugly effects of a cruel comment

Men and women both struggle with their opinion of themselves and especially how they look, but sometimes these thoughts have a root in something that happened to us in our past.

John in Clacton talks about his mother calling him ‘ugly’ at the age of 16 shortly after he came out as gay. With a follow up comment of ‘if it’s that you are too ugly to find a girl, we will give you the money for a prostitute’, a remark that has had a devastating effect on his self-esteem and has led him to seek therapy to unravel this hard wired belief of himself.