# me, myself, and whoever the person in the mirror is



## flowingly (Aug 28, 2005)

How do you see yourself when you notice yourself in the mirror?


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## moonDust (May 18, 2005)

stranger to myself, but not always...


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## livinginhell333 (Feb 19, 2005)

i don't like lookin at mirrors i see a person who is suffering and can't get out. i see a lost trapped soul body and mind.


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## LOSTONE (Jul 9, 2005)

I feel like the little girl in the movie poltergeist when I look into a mirror.
I have talked to myself in the mirror and I have stared at myself for log periods of time before because I am trying to figure out who I am, and I think maybe I will be able to see who I realy am by looking into the mirror. I have even lined up mirrors so that I could see like 50 mirror images of myself but I still cant realy see myself, I can only see the poltergeist man that looks like me.
I always get a negitive image from the poltergeist in the mirror.
The fact is that I am the poltergeist and I have killed the man I once was.
He don't exist and I am just a monster.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2005)

It is bizarre; I can look in the mirror and understand that something is there. That something is me, and I recognize myself. What is so hard to percieve though, is that who I am seeing is a living, breathing human being.

It's hard to describe. The best way to put it: it's almost as if I am made out of plastic, not conceptually but physically. Like what I see is an inanimate object, a model of a person perhaps? Even a cartoon character.

Has anyone else experienced this?


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2005)

Sometimes it'll be normal...

But then other times, I'll be like "Whoa, is that really me?" And I'll just keep staring as if I was transfixed in myself...or whoever it is.


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## lies (Nov 14, 2005)

i see a person who makes the same moves as my body does
then it's even more weird than else to realise that that body is mine
and i make it move????


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## JossStick (Nov 8, 2005)

I know I am looking at me. It is my body and my face because I have seen it a thousand times before in mirrors and photos. But I cannot connect that image with my "self". I cannot grasp that my mind with all it's thoughts is inside that girl in the mirror. If I looked in the mirror and saw an image of what I looked like 3 years ago then I would probably feel that self recognition, but now it's too unreal. I've been through a lot in my life and the face just looks too clear and healthy to be mine.


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## lies (Nov 14, 2005)

i am already getting used to it again
the moment when i changed again (got dp)
then it was hard to look into the mirror
was so strange again, but now i'm getting used to it
also with the rest of my life
starting to get used of living like a machine again...
xxx


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## LISA NICHOLS (Sep 3, 2005)

i see a stranger in the mirror you see time passes so quickly and u forget about yourself that much u age


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2005)

I still see the chubby, messy little girl that I was 10 years ago.


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## brett88 (Sep 21, 2005)

I see a kid who looks much older than he feels. When i look at my face i get the same feeling every time that i know the person i just cant put a name to his face. Then about 10 seconds after i walk away from the mirror i forget about half of what my face looks like.


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## Larka (Dec 16, 2005)

I know the person in the mirror is me. I know it must be. She's wearing the same clothes, and her hands look the same as mine and she follows my movement, but, like JossStick said, I can't seem to understand how I can be in there. When I look in the mirror, it's like my body I look down at isn't there anymore and it's just the other girl in the mirror. My conciousness becomes that of hers in a sense. I don't feel like I exist anymore, only that girl in the mirror does. I often talk to myself in the mirror (it feels more like she is talking though) or just sit there and stare at the person in it, just trying to make the connection. I lose myself in mirrors.


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## ledganteast (May 12, 2006)

When I had DP I could not recognise myself at all,I was fascinated by this person in the mirror,it sounds absolutely crazy/mental to say it now,but I could not believe that i was her,it was like noticing someone on the street 'i like her hair/eyes/etc" i saw myself objectively or at a distance and actually had better self esteem during that time because of it! because I thought she was pretty.


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## fraddykat (Dec 18, 2005)

I see a space of nothingness ....I see the big picture. We are all spending time on earth in outer space in this huge vastness incomprehensible. I just can not grasp my thoughts enough to explain the real "emptiness" and feeling of isloation I have. I just wish I was DUMB and not so bright to know the REAL WORLD!


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## Epiphany (Apr 28, 2006)

> When I had DP I could not recognise myself at all,I was fascinated by this person in the mirror,it sounds absolutely crazy/mental to say it now,but I could not believe that i was her,it was like noticing someone on the street 'i like her hair/eyes/etc" i saw myself objectively or at a distance and actually had better self esteem during that time because of it! because I thought she was pretty.


Yes...ledganteast. This is exactly how I felt. 
It didn't scare me at all...I just found my image fascinating. I felt the same looking at my wedding photos...I would think things like "gee, she looks pretty", and yet I would know it was me and I could remember my wedding day but couldn't relate at all to the photos...just couldn't feel it and didn't recognise myself.


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## Martinique (Sep 6, 2006)

I am loving this people! I am so relieved to hear that someone else has mirror "issues". Ever since I was a little girl I have been fascinated with staring at myself in the mirror for long periods of time (okay, 10 minutes. But still, to be 11 and stare at yourself for 10 minutes, that's a little strange) in order to induce a strange out of mind experience.

It's kind of like saying your own name over and over until your own name sounds wierd and unfamiliar. Except the name thing is kind of funny, but the mirror thing is SCARY ASS STUFF. As I stare at the image that the mirror claims is me, the image begins to become more and more alien, I am profoundly aware that the image is supposed to be me, but my true self inside, begins to feel profoundly separate from the physical image, and I realize that *I *am not what I see, it is only the puppet I have been housed in. One time I spontaneously said out loud, "so that's who they put me in." The out of reality experience gets deeper and stronger and deeper and stronger until I feel I am on the cusp of some extraordinary revelation, (maybe, the mirror image will shatter and the real me will be revealed? Or I'll see the real world beyond the skin of the fake reality?).

The feeling is so overwhelming and terrible and alienating, I avoid looking too long, I've found that if I make a stupid face or stick out my tongue I can stop the process. Thank goodness I'm funny looking! Never look in the mirror in the dark, if you stare long enough you will see your own death.


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## PPPP (Nov 26, 2006)

:?


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## Lynch_mob (Jan 10, 2007)

harikata said:


> It is bizarre; I can look in the mirror and understand that something is there. That something is me, and I recognize myself. What is so hard to percieve though, is that who I am seeing is a living, breathing human being.
> 
> It's hard to describe. The best way to put it: it's almost as if I am made out of plastic, not conceptually but physically. Like what I see is an inanimate object, a model of a person perhaps? Even a cartoon character.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this?


I do.

For me, I feel like it's a fake. It doesn't look the way that it looks on the inside. Even a voice recordingof myself doesn't sound like ... me. Very Very wierd stuff.


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## ?real?ity? (Feb 18, 2007)

i look like a bunch of parts smashed together. and everytime i look in the mirror i have a curious puzzled face. :lol:


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## poodles (May 16, 2007)

I put fabic over all mirrows in house as young person-I couldnt understand what was happening- why I didnt "see self"-in my mid 20+s I lived with a man for years-he was thinking I was vain cos I would check in the mirrow to see if I was alive etc-
I hid a lot-

Mirrows are still not my friends- 

may be one day


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## bricoleur (Jul 15, 2007)

I share this experience with many people. I also cannot stand photos of myself.

Why is this? Anxiety over the apprehension of one's physical identity?


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## Urushiol (Jul 8, 2007)

Hello,

This is my first post on this forum; I'm glad that I stumbled across it, as I have felt completely alone sense all this started (as I gather, most people with dp/dr do).

I can remember having episodes of intermittent DP/DR when I was very young, even back as far as 4 years old.

I remember asking my parents "Mommy, Daddy, who drew us??" As if we were cartoons. I honestly felt that the concept of reality was, frankly unreal.

I also had acute periods of linguistic dissociation, when I was in elementary school.

About 2.5 months ago, I had a change in religious perspective (from devoted Judeo-Christian to agnostic). The implications of this stuck me so hard when I had my "epiphany" about it all, that I was nearly incapacitated. After recovering from what I honestly think was a seizure, or perhaps intense panic attack, I was dp/dr, and I have been almost 100% of the time, sense then.

Now, that feeling of being a "cartoon", fake, or maybe even ghost like, is back, I feel it when I look in the mirror, I know the image that I see, I know it is a human, I know it is what I call "me", but all I see is some seemingly empty projection of photons.

Needless to say, I do my best to stay away from mirrors :shock:

Urushiol


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## Luka (Aug 30, 2005)

Like others stated; mirrors are not my friends too. I do look into my mirror everyday to see if my clothes are okay and to comb my hair, but the reflection feels weird most of the time. Sometimes I cannot even recognize myself in the reflection of a shopwindow. Because I have DID, there are others inside me and sometimes I see a blink of them too. They look different than me (not really of course, but in my head). Their selfimage do not correlate with how the body looks in reality.


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## clm_8991 (Mar 31, 2008)

i see someone, someone that previously, i knew to be me. Now i can't stand to look in the mirror. It makes everything worse. I'm looking at someone else in the mirror.


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## Suzanne (Apr 16, 2008)

Oh my God. This post made me want to cry, in a bittersweet way. I just registered with this board tonight - I had an "episode" that made me want to find chatrooms and message boards for DPD. My episode was induced by a mirror! Mirrors have always been my enemy, for the same reason that many of you said - I almost literally don't recognize myself. I have never ever had anyone who understood what I meant or how I felt. Seeing this nearly brought me to tears. For the last 9 years I have been undiagnosed (I still am, but I decided to do research and finally diagnose myself because doctors are idiots).. but now that I found this board, I suddenly feel less crazy. Yay


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## uhavnoidea (Mar 31, 2008)

haha the mirror
thats funny
i try not to
and when i do i like to pretend im looking at my barbie doll 
and i hate barbies....
mirrors are fun though
you get to meet the person looking at you
get to know each other
i thought, at one time, that if i got to know her
i'd get better
haha yeah right.
~STARFISH~


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## szeret (Aug 7, 2007)

I don't know what i see. There's a face, its a refelction of the one attached to my skull. So if its my skull, it's my face.


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## Skylar (May 21, 2008)

I'm so glad I found this site.. I've always had mirror issues ever since I was a little kid. How they say the eyes are the windows to the soul? I would always look into my eyes and get scared because I thought I couldn't see anything there. Other times I don't recognize myself as a human being, like how sometimes I look at other humans and think they look weird or creepy. Even though it's scary sometimes I would catch myself staring at myself for long periods of time with thoughts of existence and my "self" going through my mind while looking at my physical self feeling totally unreal. Sometimes I would have conversations with myself in the mirror, I have no idea why.. I would never tell this to anyone though. :x


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## crazybeautifulll (May 9, 2008)

i look in the mirror and see a monster. butttt i feel TOOOOO real when i look in mirrors now  i dont know..when i used to look in mirrors id think back to how i used to look and compare and be like damn i grew up over __ years..now i look and i feel like a 5'6 broad that JUST popped outta the womb..with no past.


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## Guest (Jun 6, 2008)

flowingly said:


> How do you see yourself when you notice yourself in the mirror?


One hot mofo... I grind the mirror :lol: "look at meeeee" :wink: (I'm jokin! jokin! :mrgreen: )


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2008)

If you are joking then are you saying that youre not so hot after all?


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2008)

I was jokin bout the grindin the mirror bit =P. I like to be modest from time to time but not today! :mrgreen:


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## mancalledpete (Jun 16, 2008)

It's an interesting question actually... because that was one of the first things that made me realise there was something wrong. I just didn't know what I looked like... I wasn't conscious of it... I still don't... doesn't matter how many pictures I look at or times I look in the mirror, I just don't see anyone. It's probably been the hardest thing in the world to try & describe to the people I've tried to describe my DP too.

Now it could be that everybody in the world has the same reaction to their reflection... it's just the DP sufferers who are more heightened & aware of the lack of reflection!?! There's something to think about. We're almost all by our nature of DP 'over-analyzers'. Hmmm.


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## CryingDutchman (Jul 3, 2008)

Intellectually I know that person in the mirror is me, but it doesn't feel like it is. Just some other person. It can scare me because if that person isn't me...then where am I?
I don't like or dislike that person in the mirror, I just don't understand why he's there.


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