“Have you ever felt like everything—from the way you walk, talk, play with your hair—it was all learned over years and years of studying other women you considered more attractive than you? Sometimes I thought like that. It was a big problem for me, actually, thinking. It’s not that I compulsively compared myself to other women, but more like I was constantly questioning whether my movements, my style or my vernacular, were actually mine.

You could go so far as to say nothing was all mine. Or that no quirk was really original. Most women pick up little ticks from their friends, their teachers, actresses on TV, and especially their mothers. I really really don’t want to talk about my mother though—not yet anyway—but I think about this a lot. How strange it is, having your mother’s voice in your head one moment, guilting and shaming you over the smallest things, then the next moment raising your eyebrows and pinching your mouth in the exact same way she would while scolding you.”