Thanks to my recent e-mail from Abby, the first item on the list was “libido, and saving the Jewish nation.” Next I wrote out the various ways that mirrors have been used for therapeutic treatments, particularly for eating disorder recovery. Called “body exposure” or “mirror confrontation” therapy, eating disorder sufferers stand repeatedly and for prolonged periods of time in front of mirrors, which has been shown to reduce body image disturbances and avoidance behaviors. Often, this therapy involves asking the patient to look into the mirror and describe her body as precisely and as neutrally as possible, while avoiding subjective and negative statements (i.e., by saying “I have brown hair and freckles” instead of “I am a big fat nobody”). This type of therapy helps eating disorder sufferers reconnect with the reality of their bodies while reducing self-objectification.
I was also fascinated to learn that mirrors are frequently used to help amputees manage phantom limb pain, and to help stroke victims regain use of paralyzed limbs; using mirrors to track limb movement during physical therapy helps the brain reconfigure itself. Although not considered therapy, per se, childhood development experts recommend that infants spend time in front of mirrors, which helps them learn how to focus, track images, and “explore all the wonderful things a face can do.”
I also revisited the research I’d read previously about how mirrors impact behavior. Seeing one’s reflection prompts self-consciousness and self-awareness. As one psychology text put it, it serves as a reminder of the difference between a person’s ideal self and the person’s actual self, promoting behavior more in line with the ideal. Thus, the presence of a mirror influences people to be more honest, more helpful, and to express less prejudice—all good things, to be sure. Of course, this is a mixed bag, seen in cases when mirror exposure causes self-objectification, and in the fact that women eat less food when exposed to a mirror. I would try to focus on the good aspects for the time being.
A website in which people were able to pose questions to physicists revealed an inspiring list of scientific technologies that made use of mirrors, from Newtonian telescopes and solar panels to periscopes, searchlights, floodlights, flashlights, spotlights, and single-lens reflex cameras. Car rearview and side mirrors protect our safety, and both dentists and auto mechanics use mirrors to examine hard-to-reach places.
And finally, without mirrors, how would pet parakeets ever keep themselves company?
Coming up with my Mirrors for Good list was both motivating and entertaining. Yet I kept coming back to one of the most basic uses of mirrors I was looking forward to the most: making sure I didn’t have anything in my teeth!
• • •
IN THE FIRST WEEK OF MARCH, I GAVE MY FIRST ABOUT-FACE media literacy workshops of the year at the University of California San Francisco Young Women’s Health Conference. I was excited, but nervous. More nervous, in fact, than I’d felt on my first day teaching my own lecture course at UCLA. The conference had been steered by high school girls, and was known to be a high-energy and high-impact event. I would be representing About-Face in two workshops, and it was a big-enough deal that Jennifer decided to accompany me to the conference to help out, in case I needed it. I hoped I wouldn’t need help, but was frankly relieved to have her there. I was still sick as heck, and worried that I’d have a coughing fit or lose my voice before finishing!
As I set up the room and my projector, Jennifer brought me a cup of tea. I mentioned that I was worried about keeping my audience of high schoolers engaged and (hopefully) participating. The workshop I was running focused on giving girls tools to understand and resist unhealthy media messages. I’d built my slide deck so that it included a lot of (hopefully) current and hip media examples—like print advertisements, commercials, and even a rap music video—but I feared the ultimate embarrassment: showing an outdated (by teenaged standards) media clip that unknowingly revealed my unhipness. Engaging my audience would be key if I hoped to keep their attention for forty-five minutes. I whispered these concerns to Jennifer as the room began to fill with girls, and she told me to just relax and have fun.
I popped a cherry-flavored throat lozenge into my mouth and got started.
Thankfully, it went well and I enjoyed myself! After reinforcing the three questions that About-Face encourages students to ask when thinking about media (What is the product being sold? How is it being sold? How does the media-maker want you to feel?), I was thrilled to see the girls quickly pick up on the nuances of these questions when faced with media examples. My favorite oft-repeated tropes were advertisements in which the product being sold wasn’t even pictured in the advertisement (perfume ads featuring naked and kissing couples are notorious for this), followed closely by hyper-objectifying ads in which the models’ sexualized body parts are emphasized and zoomed in on to the extent that their heads end up being cut out of the image entirely. “If there’s no face, there’s no humanity! Objectification at its worst.” I lectured, finding my rhythm. The girls laughed at my jokes, participated enthusiastically during the activities, answered my questions, and waited patiently and politely during an inevitable coughing fit. The forty-five minutes flew by, and by the end I found myself energized, invigorated, and inspired.
After my first presentation, Jennifer gave me a high five and a few tips for improving my talk in the next round. That one went just as smoothly, though my energy barely held out until the end. My cough was quickly outpacing my throat lozenges, and I was relieved when Jennifer offered to drive me home. I was exhausted but content. This is why I teach, I thought to myself, feeling satisfied that I was well on my way to fulfilling my goal of engaging more in my community. I made a note to myself to write You’re a good teacher! as one of the messages I’d see during my first look.
• • •
A FEW DAYS LATER, THE GOOD VIBES I’D COLLECTED FROM MY workshop presentations hit a wall. After almost a full month battling my cold/cough, my body finally gave in. I woke up with an excruciating pain in my side; it hurt to breathe in or out too deeply. Coughing or sneezing caused an agony so sharp and severe that I saw spots in my vision. I’d avoided a doctor’s visit up until that point, wanting to evade unnecessary antibiotics, but I knew it was time. I managed to get a same-day appointment at the family practice where Hanna worked (thank goodness for family connections!) and prayed for some relief.
I left the office with prescriptions for cough medication, pain medication, and a fourteen-day round of Ciproflaxen. My diagnoses? My first-ever sinus infection, along with a strained muscle in my chest wall.
There was also good news: Other than the cough/cold/sinus infection/strained chest wall muscle, I was given a perfectly clean bill of health! I’d decided to bring along the six-page printout of my complete results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. My doctor looked over the myriad report findings, which included body measurements of my height, weight, BMI, and body fat percentage, blood pressure and heart rate, oral health, hearing, muscle strength, lung function testing, urine tests, STD tests, a complete blood count, and blood tests for measuring over fifty substances/enzymes/whatever.
Guess what? Other than the measurements of my body size (and an oddly high level of mercury in my blood—damn that sushi habit!), every single test came back normal or excellent. Even my kidney function was decent (just a teeny smidge below normal, but better than it was years ago!). My doctor complimented me on having excellent health. I even tempted fate by asking her about my BMI, waist circumference, and body fat percentage, since these were identified as issues to talk to my doctor about. She responded that I was obviously healthy and that I shouldn’t worry about this stuff as long as I continued to eat well, get adequate sleep, and exercise regularly. Huzzah!
• • •
I HOPED TO FEEL BETTER QUICKLY, THANKS TO MY NEW DRUG cache. Indeed, my pain and cough responded well to the meds, and whatever was going on with my sinuses seemed to be improving. My physi
cal health seemed to be on the rebound, but my emotional health was threatening to collapse. (Mind you, this happened less than ten days before my “first look” party! Not a good time to have a mental breakdown.)
It started with anxiety, and got worse with insomnia. Soon I was downing coffee throughout the day to stay awake through my haze of exhaustion and codeine. After two days of this, the bad dreams began. Even if I managed to fall sleep, I’d wake up in the middle of the night bathed in sweat, fighting to forget the latest nightmare. The worst part? Every dream seemed like a warning that something awful would happen at my First-Look Party. Most of the nightmares are lost to memory, but two were too vivid to forget. I look back at these and am able to laugh at their ridiculousness, but they felt terrifying at the time.
In the first, I was wearing a dress that was at least two sizes too small; I couldn’t actually see the dress, but it was so tight that I was literally trapped in it. I felt physically uncomfortable, horrified to have so completely misjudged my physical size, and desperate to escape. Yet I was unable pull the dress over my head because my body was so constrained and my arms were too weak. The dress was, essentially, a straitjacket, and I indeed felt insane. (Ugh, I’m getting yucky shivers just thinking about it!)
My second dream was less horrific but similarly telling: In this one, I was about to look into a mirror and I felt really nervous (weird, huh?). I stared at my feet, urging myself to look up, until I finally found the courage to do so. Staring back at me was . . . A NAKED DUDE. Yeah, I was a dude. Thankfully, I was an incredibly good-looking dude, so I liked what I saw. But it was still completely weird. While admiring my chiseled jawline and Abercrombie abs, I wondered, Why didn’t anyone tell me that I’m a guy?!?!
They sound funny in the daylight, but I seemed gripped by a fear that I had, or was at risk of, greatly misjudging my body. What did this mean? Was my subconscious trying to warn me of something? And what had happened to all of the confidence and calmness I’d been enjoying? Had I actually made any progress at all? Was I about to have a breakdown?
The only good news was that having these nightmares forced me to acknowledge the very fact that I was fearful, which allowed me to try to process what was happening and why. For example, I realized that part of my anxiety was rooted in the irony of having a “first look” at all. Building up suspense around the first look was in some ways an inappropriate (and false) end to the project. For one thing, looking in the mirror again would actually mark a transition, rather than a climax. Further, emphasizing the moment of looking at myself in the mirror for the first time felt eerily evocative of a cheesy reality TV makeover. (Would I squeal with joy? Should I delicately touch my hands to my face to see if it’s really me in the mirror? Will my husband say something lame like, “Aww, man, you look soooo good, baby! I’m gonna feel like I’m cheatin’ on my old wife with a new lady!” I mean, this is the asinine behavior we’ve all come to expect from the “first look in the mirror” scene, no?) It felt utterly off-putting to conclude this project by emphasizing my appearance, but I couldn’t bring mirrors back into my everyday life (which, by the way, I was genuinely looking forward to) if I didn’t start with a first look.
Angst and fear abounded, but a few things helped me.
First, I reminded myself that the success of the project wouldn’t be determined by my reaction to the first look; the days, weeks, months, and years after would be more telling as to whether I’d changed for the better. Also, unlike a reality TV makeover, my metric for deciding whether I’d changed for the better would be based on internal cues, not the extent to which my looks had changed. (Indeed, much of my project had been a calculated physical makeunder, which I was proud of and hoped to continue!)
I also reminded myself that I would be in control, and that I wasn’t responsible for meeting anybody else’s expectations. If I wanted to, I could decide at the last minute to never look in a mirror again. (I was fairly sure that this wouldn’t happen, but giving myself the choice felt good!) Or I could kick everybody out of the room and count my pores for an hour or two until only my closest friends and family were left waiting for me. With luck, I’d have a glass or two of champagne in my system, a cherished friend on each arm, and it would simply be silly and joyful. But if I started freaking out, I could make up a plan B on the spot!
Finally, I became determined to replace the memory of my nightmares with a new visualization. I chose to envision the emotional experience of seeing an old friend for the first time in ages. When we greet our oldest friends after a long separation, we’re excited to see them in person because we love them. We might notice physical changes, but we don’t pass judgment or change our feelings for that person based on their looks; we’re just so glad to finally see them. I tried to wrap myself up in happy memories of hugging cherished friends and relatives at airports, bus stops, and train stations. I hoped that, by really cultivating these memories, I’d prime my brain to have a similar mind-set for the first look.
• • •
ON DAY TWELVE OF MY ANTIBIOTIC REGIME I HAD ANOTHER nightmare (involving cupcakes and the inability to stop eating them. Yes, it was a nightmare, I swear!). I woke up feeling really anxious and generally lousy. In the midst of bitching at Michael over something petty, it hit me: This did not feel like me. Something was up. What—other than an impending First-Look Party—might be going on? (Cue suspenseful music.)
An exhaustive Google search of all the cold/cough/allergy/sinus-infection meds I’d been taking landed me on a place I like to call Planet Duh. It turns out that Ciproflaxen—the antibiotic that had finally banished the last of my symptoms—has some very interesting side effects, including “restlessness, insomnia, nightmares, dizziness, tremor, headache, or irritability. . . . Such symptoms can be made worse by coffee.”
You read that correctly: insomnia, nightmares, and irritability (oh my!). Add to this the fact that I’d been chugging the joe, and suddenly we had a hypothesis. To test said hypothesis, I cut out the coffee immediately and slept through the night for the first time in ages. I was still pretty anxious during the daytime, but my last dose of Cipro a few days later marked the end of my almost-meltdown. It was a relief to figure out that it was chemically induced rather than rooted somewhere deep in my damaged psyche. And it resolved just in time, a mere two days before my First-Look Party. My positive visualization exercises helped chase away the worst of my lingering fears.
• • •
THE DAY BEFORE MY BODY-POSITIVE BONANZA AKA FIRST-LOOK Party went by in such a rush that I barely noticed that it was my last day living mirror-free. I was too busy running around with my family and throwing together last-minute party-planning ideas to really absorb things. I decided that I was okay with that. I mean, by that time really I ought to have been able to run around frantically for a day without worrying about mirrors or what I looked like in them—that was the whole point of this project! I decided to just go with the flow, with plans to overanalyze everything later.
In the mail that day I received two gifts that warmed my heart, and tickled my funny bone: from my maternal grandmother, a beautiful card wishing me luck at my “coming out party,” and from Sherry, a magnifying mirror.
• • •
THAT EVENING, THE BODY-POSITIVE BONANZA WAS EVERYTHING I could have hoped, with the exception of a torrential downpour. The venue, the San Francisco Women’s Building, felt perfect for the occasion. My friends and I had decorated the room with mirrors and colorful phrases from my year, including my Top Ten Ways to Be Kjerstin list, plus some of my most memorable “aha” moments. About-Face, Volluptuart, and Marilyn Wann had all set up colorful tables filled with body-positive activities, art, information, and souvenirs. It looked like my friends and family were all having a good time.
I’d had some help with my makeup and hair from Laila and her sister Rana, so I knew I was a step above my everyday look. I was glad; why not dress up a bit for myself? (I st
opped short of wearing my wedding gown, though I was tempted!) My friends had set up a table with huge Post-it notes and colorful markers, asking all of the guests to write a positive message for me to read during the first look.
Even with all of this I was still pretty nervous. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I was still scared that I wouldn’t like what I saw in the mirror. I worried not only that I’d feel horrible about what I looked like, but also that I’d feel horrible about feeling horrible. For a moment I considered backing out of the public first look and retreating to the coat closet we’d designated as my plan B. I mentioned this to Michael, who reminded me that it was completely my choice. “But,” he said, “I promise that you won’t be disappointed, and neither will anyone here.” Somehow being told that I had the choice (as though I hadn’t already had the choice) made me feel more relaxed. I would take my first look in the main room of the party. The lighting in that coat closet looked dreadful, anyway.
Jennifer came by to tell me I had ten minutes. “I’ll start gathering people, and we can move your mirror to the center of the room!” My heart started pounding.
Jennifer made an announcement, and everyone started coming in toward the center of the room, where my enormous and completely BeDazzled mirror stood waiting for me. Shaking, I accepted the microphone from Jennifer to say a few words of thanks to everyone who had supported me, especially Michael, who had been beside me for the entire year, and who had also talked me through the final minutes of that evening. I asked everyone to keep in mind that—as exciting as my first look might seem—it marked a transition rather than an end point in my journey.
Somebody shouted out, “It’s midnight!” and I shrugged, saying, “I guess it’s time to get this over with!” I had asked my mom and Hanna to help me move the positive messages from the mirror to its frame, and the three of us stood in front of the mirror while Michael started chanting a countdown.
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