An anonymous commenter in my personal journal expressed, in an anonymous secrets meme, that they were cool with how their body looked in the mirror but they saw a photo of themselves sitting down, taken from the side, and they could not recognize themselves.
Oh, man, do I sympathize. You get used to seeing one vision of your body and when you’re presented with an alternate view, it can really blindside you.
That’s because we carry a certain image of ourselves in our heads. We have this “normalized” vision and anything that deviates from that? It’s a shock.
The key to combating this, though, is to normalize those other views. What do I mean? I mean, check out your other angles. It probably took you a while to get comfortable with your front view in the mirror – keep that in mind right now. Give yourself a little bit of sympathy.
And then? Then you have to start the work of it. Isn’t that always the rub?
So, next time you go try things on, sit down in front of the mirror in the fitting room. You should be doing that anyway, actually, to test the fit of the clothes. After all, bodies change shape a lot when they significantly change position. This is, I have found for my body at least, especially true for pants.
Oh, dude, pants. Trousers. Whatever you want to call them.
Anyway. Check out that view in the mirror and let yourself get accustomed to it.
When you’re getting dressed at home and checking yourself out in the mirror, take a minute to check out the side view as well. Remember, the more you see it, the more “normal” it will look to you. It just takes some time to adjust.
There are some folks on the fatshionista livejournal community who include side views and back shots in their outfit pictures. I LOVE this. It really helps to see the 360 like that – especially when it comes to viewing my own body. Photos are such a great tool for this sort of thing.
If you hit a place where you’re doing good with mirrors, get a friend you trust (or a loved one who meets the same criterion) to take some pictures for you. Next, trust me on this one, leave those pictures alone for a little while. Give yourself a little bit of distance and time to wind down from the stress of having your pictures taken. It can be hard to have pictures taken of areas you aren’t comfortable with – respect that and treat yourself well. When you’ve gotten a bit of distance, go through the photos and be as nonjudgmental as possible.
It’s going to take a little while to be okay with this. You aren’t starting totally from scratch but it’s still kind of rough. Ride out the bad days and keep giving yourself room to feel better. It WILL get better.
16 Comments
Wow, this is timely. My new house as of a few months ago has mirrors on the closet doors – which occupy most of the wall directly opposite the bed. When we were house shopping I just thought “ha ha that’ll be fun.” But catching unplanned glimpses of myself in various moments of dishabille every day has been surprisingly difficult. Among the most traumatic moments are, just like you say, when I’m almost fully dressed, sitting on the side of the bed and bending over to put on socks. First I get alarmed. Then I get alarmed that I’m feeling alarmed, because it’s just my body, right? Then I look away and don’t look back until I’m standing up and facing the mirror, and can reassure myself that I’m still me, and go on to think about other things.
I hadn’t given it much thought beyond those occasions until now. Maybe those mirrored doors will ultimately be a good thing, if I can get sufficiently used to it.
oh, man. this is my life. i always think i look fine in the mirror and when i take the picture. but, when my friends post pictures of me which could be from any angle, it blows my mind. “do i really look like that?”
oy!
its been taking a while to accept that it is me too, and thats okay too.
Karen, when my husband first moved in with me, the getting dressed thing was actually a real stress point for me. It was the transition stage that freaked me out because my body was bending and moving and not doing things I was used to anyone seeing. But you really do get used to it. Those mirrors sound awesome – I think they’re going to give you a totally new view of yourself.
sarady – YES. It’s totally okay, too. *grin* That’s such a much more succinct way to put it than my giant entry. *laugh* Awesome!
This is why I hate having photos taken of me. It’s always an unpleasant surprise. Ones I take of myself are usually better, maybe because I already know how they’re going to look.
Timely for me, as well. I tried on bathing suits yesterday. I was feeling so cute. Cute enough to, well, you know, try on bathing suits. I guess I haven’t seen that much of me in a mirror from behind in an awfully long time. My legs were so distressing to me. I thought I was doing so well, but I was really knocked for a loop. Then I breathed and remembered I just need to get used to it. I just don’t see this, much, that’s all. I need to make a point of seeing it more.
Tammy, I just wanted to say that lighting in pretty much all stores is awful. From personal experience, I know it washes me out and hilights every lump and skin imperfection like, woah.
Also, some part of me is still convinced that there’s a chin-adding module built into cameras. I’ll see pictures of myself and be like “wtf. where did those chins come from?”
Anoif, cameras definitely have those chin-adding module. At least they suddenly aquire one when my picture is taken. It took me years to get used to that but now I can look at pictures of me in all my chinny glory and not freak out, or at least freak out less.
My new gym has way more mirrors than the old one, I am not quite used the seeing me from all sides while stretching yet, but it is interesting. But I definitely need a new haircut, the back of my head looks strange.
Another one for “This is timely.” A friend put up photos on Facebook of me. Most are fine, but there’s one from the side where I have an obvious double chin (I usually don’t, due to my large jaw) and another where I’m asleep so my head is right back in my neck.
I FREAKED OUT.
I untagged the one of me sleeping, and I’m slowly coming to terms with the one of me from the side. A friend of mine, who is crazy attractive, has the same chin when she holds her head back like I’m doing in the picture.
But yes, I’m sued to the front on photos. The ones where my large jaw and long neck are obvious. To not see those? Totally jarring.
If you’re getting your photo taken and you don’t want to show your chins, make sure the person taking the picture is as taller or taller than you. I take passport photos as part of my job – one of my co-workers is under 5′ tall and her photos have improved greatly since she worked this out and started standing on a stool to take the pictures! It’s not just a fat issue – anyone’s face looks strange, distorted and full of chin when photographed from beneath.
Thanks for the good advice! I have to work on getting used to seeing my ass. I know it’s there and it’s big and round, and I sometimes even like the side view. But seeing it in photos from behind is a different story.
About chins and photos: I have a thin friend who jokes about how in photos of her when she’s happy she always has a double chin- or if she’s reeeally happy a triple chin! I think it’s often hard to see pictures of yourself in your unguarded, uncomposed moments – but I trust that your friends and loved ones will see you being happy and natural. I’ve pretty much accepted that I will have my mouth wide open and my eyes squinted shut in every candid picture of me, because I’m too happy to freeze in a “flattering” pose for the camera.
For a while, I was at this point where I felt really positive about myself and how I look.
Then I saw all of these candid photos of me taken while volunteering at my kids’ school. Yesterday was the last day before summer break. My daughter received a CD full of picture files and my son received a little photo album filled with pictures.
What I saw (though luckily did not mention to the kids) was me looking happy…and progressively fatter throughout the year.
I wanted to feel okay and good about it. I wanted to bring the enlightened me out and parade her around. I wanted…to go hide in the closet and not go out in public for a while.
So while I hate admitting this a bit…it helps me to know that a different angle, a few surprising pictures, throws everyone for a loop and that it’s okay. I can breathe and it will pass.
And it’s also important to remember what I told the kids as we saw each photo. “Look at that! It’s us!” That’s really the most important thing…not how I looked, but that it’s me, with my kids and their classmates, being together and enjoying each other.
Anyway, this is a lot of rambling to say thanks, I needed to read this post.
I think, while the advice is well-intended, manuevering and fussing around until the camera is at just the right angle or the photographer is above you or whatever is kind of…. Well, it defeats the purpose of the exercise. The point is being able to look at candid shots. That means the picture of you on the couch with your friends at the party isn’t something to be avoided any more than the posed shot is. Our bodies move and change as we change position – get to know that and you can relax a lot more when someone pulls out a camera!
I don’t know if this would help others, but it may. When I started doing yoga, it was kind of shocking to be in a studio with mirrors on 2 of the 4 walls, but the more I got used to looking at myself (starting with that “soft focus” thing that yoga teachers are always talking about), the more I got used to using the mirror to check form and see what I looked like without making judgements. It was definitely about normalizing the images, for me.
It can also help to remember that mirrors do distort ones form– it’s just inherent in the rendering of a 3-D form in 2 dimensions. So they are best for making objective assessments only (like, that your pants are zipped, nothing is crooked, your face is clean), and not so useful for size and shape assessments, because even the best (ie, least distorting) mirrors still distort a little, and that little can feel like a lot in comparison to reality, or among different angles.
I feel this, hardcore. Maybe because people look a bit skinnier from the front?
But it still pains me to remember a picture my friend took of me, sitting down and bending over a bit.
This is SUCH good advice, and I am too chicken to do more than peek. But peek I will.
Another good thing to do is the 365 project on flickr. Taking a self-portrait every day gives you the opportunity to not only see yourself from various angles every day but then you have to go through your photos and pick one out so it’s like you have this moment of approval of your own image every day as well. Very affirming.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/365days/pool/
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[...] the meantime, I’ve been dipping back into the Fatosphere feed and loved The Rotund’s post this morning about getting used to seeing your body from many different angles. An anonymous commenter in my [...]