Again, your thoughtful comments - agreeing and disagreeing and face-punchy or whatever - are fine with me.
Let me get back to the issue with "the doctor who has more right to her own ageing". Yes, this is pretty awful - and I hate that I feel this way. However, I'm not an MD so possibly if I were I'd still want the damn Botox - I don't know.
OK bear with me again - if Botox is a sort of narcissistic add-on (it would seem that I view it this way) then my logic, if I examine it honestly, is that the letters MD after one's name would be a sufficient narcissistic add-on to replace the Botox. Yes, this is not a healthy way to maintain one's ego integrity, but guess what, your friendly neighborhood shrinks are probably not the most intact people psychologically speaking (oh I am sorry to disillusion you! but I'm sure you knew this!)
This is not necessarily an impediment to doing good work if said shrink remains as honest as she can be.
The way the world seems to work (and this is only MO) is women are seen as interesting beings either when they are young, or when they have achieved above and beyond what other beings have managed. Someday I would love to feel badass enough to have an FU-and-your-opinion face full of wrinkles and sagginess. For now, I am badass enough to admit that I have a problem with feeling a tad inferior to my doctor friend and that I regret I couldn't deal with math and biochemistry enough to go to med school.
In any case, I love it here on this forum - and though I have trouble with my competitive streak (and poor narcissistic resources) I can still take and appreciate your criticism.
I'm sure you are aware that female MDs experience just as much insecurity as any other females. Those two little letters don't do anything in and of themselves to protect anyone's self esteem. I just spent a weekend with a female surgeon, who is a normal woman with normal insecurities just like the rest of us.
The pit of trying to obtain self worth through vanity is never ever full. There is no level of outside approval that can make anyone feel even remotely good about themselves if internally they do not believe their own intrinsic worth.
The women I know who feel good in their own skin don't feel so because they have something that makes them interesting to other people. These women feel comfortable because they feel satisfied with who they are as human beings and how *they feel* about what they've done in this world. They're too busy with focus elsewhere on things that give them a sense of life satisfaction to be concerned with what others think of the appearance of their skin.
This isn't necessarily limited to people with great recognition and accomplishments either. Some of these brilliantly self actualized women are hyper focused on pretty pedestrian loves like gardening, coaching their kids gymnastics, or a friend who dedicates herself to caring for her mother who had a major stroke. These aren't world-class accomplishments that garner attention or approval, but they are rich lives filled with deep satisfaction .
I've also gone out of my way as a medical professional to cultivate an appearance that sends a very strong message of "I'm not here for your gaze." I used to have big, wavy, waist-length blond hair, and after a few years of practice, I chopped it all off to about 1 inch and dyed it black. Well, my patients had some OPINIONS on that. Countless men gave me their unsolicited opinions about my hair. Even worse, they often dictated to me that I should switch it back, as if they had some say over my body.
I experienced this day in and day out for nearly a year until I switched jobs and it was such a relief to no longer have to have multiple conversations daily about the sexual preferences of my male patients, because that's exactly what it was. They were dictating to me that I should return to a state that they found more sexually desirable. It really got to me.
So, at my new job, I ditched all of my flattering "professional" wear, high heels, makeup, underwire bra, etc and switched to an entirely functional and comfortable uniform of sports bra, merino wool athletic gear, and running shoes with orthotics in them, and no makeup. I endeavor to be basically as nondescript as possible, and I have actually found that I really prefer the way patients treat me. The level of respect is actually higher in many ways, and they don't see me as unprofessional, they just assume I'm really really outdoorsy.
Maybe you truly do need to look a certain way, but maybe you've also adapted yourself to practice in a particular way that benefits from looking that way? Maybe it's all self fulfilling? I know I used to think that looking "polished" was a key part of my professional identity since I work in a very fancy clinic, and it was easy to find evidence to support that because I was generating a professional identity that was tied to that appearance. Once I changed the appearance, I adapted the professional identity and no longer needed to look a certain way, because I was no longer generating the expectation that I should.
[ETA: Not saying you should do what I did, I'm suggesting you examine critically how much of the pressure to look a certain way professionally is coming from behaviours that self-perpetuate the need to look a certain way, vs actual objective pressure on all female professionals. Added thanks to kris's comment.]
You have openly discussed a lot of distressing internal scripts you have, probably largely influenced by your mother, which is really sad.
I'm genuinely sad for you that you see yourself through this lens, where you devalue your professional validity compared to others of different credentials (not better, different), and where you feel shamed by one of your closest loved ones for natural and unavoidable changes in your body that don't in any way affect your health.
Your mom should be so proud of you. You should be so proud of you.
The appearance of your neck in a photo should have no influence over either of your perspectives on your self worth.
You could quit the botox and fillers, get in an accident, lose a limb and have burn scars across your face, have your hair fall out, and you would still be worth exactly what you are today, perhaps more, because you would have to be pretty badass to survive all of that.
What you do with your appearance is how you choose to express yourself externally, but it does not and cannot determine anything about your value.