Seeing my reflection

As I have mentioned before, I do not have a full length mirror in my house so I dont see my entire reflection very often which i have found really helpful in my recovery. This has meant that although I am obviously getting bigger, I havent really had many chances to notice my weight gain. Although I can obviously look at certain parts of my body (i.e. my legs, stomach or arms) individually and notice differences in them, I dont really see my whole body at any one time.

Sometimes however I do see my entire reflection and when I do see it, I am usually quite shocked by how much bigger I look. Yesterday I was walking up the street in a pair of jeans and I caught a glimpse of my reflection in some shop windows. Compared to how my relection once looked wearing jeans in those very same windows, I looked completely different. Me legs seriously looked twise as big as they once did and I started feeling incredibely upset and anxious about this.

I sarted feeling a bit down about the fact that I no longer look super skinny, like I once did but eventually I started to see that this was not a bad thing. I may not look noticeably thin anymore but I do look healthy! So what if people dont look at me anymore and instantly think about how skinny I am, I should be happy about this, not upset. Although we may not always realise it whilst we are underweight and sick, being underweight is not attractive. While recoovering we need to try and see our weight gain as something possitive, that makes us look a lot better as this is the truth.

I know that people would now see me and notice how much weight I have gained and this does make me feel uncomfortable, as Weight gain is something I have seen as negative for so long now. But the people would not be thinking, 'Karly has gained a lot of weight, which looks bad.' They would be thinking 'Karly has gained a lot of weight and she is finally looking better/healthier'. in recovery we really need to start trying to see weight gain as a good thing and something we can be happy/ proud about, instead of somehing to be asaimed of upset about.  

Mirror Mirror

The year my eating disorder developed I was away at boarding school and I distinctly remember looking into the full length mirror in my bathroom each day as I was getting in the shower and absolutely hating what I saw. Before I left home a few months ago, I would see myself in my full length mirror on my wardrobe every time I entered my bedroom which just created many opportunities for my anorexia to lie to me about my body.

Last night as I was getting into the shower, I wondered about whether I look much different now that I have gained weight. The truth is i'm not really sure how my body looks because I dont have a large mirror to stand in front of and access how I look. I think that not having a large mirror in my house is a big part of the reason why I have coped relatively well with my weight gain. While I can obviously still see different parts of my body, I cant see my whole body at any one time as you can when you look into a full sized mirror.

I didnt make a conscious decision to not have a full sized mirror in my new house, it just worked out that way through chance but I believe it has been the best possible thing for me. It has stopped me from looking into the mirror and picking faults in my body, which I believe has been especially helpful at the moment as my body is changing. I still havent seen a huge difference in my body, which I think is due to not having a mirror and I therefore do not worry as much about gaining weight as I would have otherwise.

If it is possible, I highly reccommend taking your mirror away while you are in recovery. In fact, if looking in the mirror makes you feel negative about yourself, Why dont you take your full length mirrors away, regardless of whether you are in recovery or not. If your mirror cant be taken away, cover it up. If it is in you bedroom, why not cover the bottom half of the mirror with photos or posters.

I dont think I will ever have large mirrors in my house again as it is just too tempting to stand in front of it and start picking out what you dont like about yourself. I just use a tiny mirror on my bathroom cabinet to do my makeup in and have never needed anything bigger then that. What is the point in having large mirrors in your home if they dont work properly anyway?


If you realised you had a faulty thermometer that gave false readings, would you continue to use it every time you were sick? Of course you wouldn't. I know I cant trust that what I see when I look in the mirror is real, so why should I keep looking in the mirror? So many people have distorted body image issues but I honestly believe that by taking the mirror away, you are eliminating a large part of the problem.