Last week, I went four days without looking in the mirror.
Okay, technically that’s not true. I broke once or twice to check my hair quickly. And I was filming a bunch of stuff, so I had to look at myself for all of that.
But otherwise, I didn’t look at myself at all. I used blankets and towels to cover all the mirrors in my apartment. I didn’t take any selfies (except for filming and YouTube purposes), and if I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection in a window or in glass, I looked away.
I had realized that I was spending a lot of time and energy critiquing my body in the mirror every day. And so, in an effort to change that, I cut myself off from looking at myself.
I thought that not looking in the mirror for four days would allow me to feel more confident and less worrisome about what I looked like. I was hoping that I would then be able to identify when I was having negative thoughts about myself and stop them.
I had watched a video one of my favorite YouTubers posted about her own experience without looking in the mirror for several days, and her experience was what I expected mine to be like. She felt neutral about herself during those days without looking at herself, and then when she finally looked in the mirror, negative thoughts came flooding back, but she was able to identify and realize she was having them.
I was surprised to find that that is not at all what my experience was like.
During my time without looking in the mirror, I felt very self-conscious. I think even more than normal. I worried constantly about my body and I felt very bad about the way I looked, even though I couldn’t actually see what I looked like.
I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous because of how much I hated my body, and I couldn’t even see it.
Honestly, it was maybe the worst I’ve felt about myself in a while.
And then the day came that I was able to take down the things covering the mirrors, and I got to look at myself.
I expected the negative thoughts to just intensify and to be validated by what I saw in the mirror. I expected to be disgusted and to want to cover all the mirrors back up again.
That’s not even close to what happened.
I took a few steps back and exhaled the breath I had been holding onto.
Because I hadn’t been able to look at myself in the mirror to confirm or deny the negative thoughts I had been having about myself, they were only spiraling to become worse and worse. So once I looked at myself again, I was completely shocked.
I had expected to see some sort of gangling monster, with tangled messy hair and gross teeth and body parts that were just too big.
But I just saw me. And it felt like I was seeing myself for the first time. I saw an averagely-built wavy-haired brunette with blue eyes and freckles scattered about her face.
And instead of focusing on all of the things I had been criticizing, I was able to look in the mirror and feel beautiful for the first time in a long time.
It felt like I could breathe.
It’s only been a week, so I’m not going to tell you I don’t still struggle with my body image because that would be a giant lie. Sometimes I still look at my body and cringe at what I see.
But now I know that a lot of my negativity about myself is all in my head. It doesn’t come from what I actually see in the mirror. It’s just this image that I allow myself to create.
Body image is a struggle for a lot of people. I don’t know that I’d recommend going without mirrors because it really did make me sort of miserable for a few days, but I can at least tell you from experience that the negative image you’ve built in your head doesn’t match the real you in the mirror.
You’re beautiful just the way you are, and so am I.
(PS if you’re interested in watching the video I mentioned, then you can do that here! I didn’t look in a mirror for 5 days )
Kaylyn Marie 