I hate mirrors. I loathe them. Walking into a room with many mirrors is like walking into a torture chamber. Everywhere I turn, my reflection haunts me. I can't be the only person to hate what I see. I know someone else feels the same way.

I have charted out every reflective surface on campus. On the way to class in the morning there is the door to the Russell House. I enter through it, and there is another door out of which I exit. Then there is the door to the building where my German class is, and later on in the day there is a glass case I always pass on my way to computer science. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have more classes and therefore more chances to see the dreaded image. Last night my friend and I were eating in the dining hall. She was getting more soda and I asked her to get me more mayonnaise because I "didn't feel like getting up." The truth was that there were doors all around, and since it was nighttime my reflection as I went to get more mayo would have been unbearable. What is it about my reflection that I cannot bear? Everything. The way my body is out of proportion. The way my hips are wide and my legs are short and my shoulders are manly and my arms are fat. The frizziness of my hair. The roundness of my face. All of these perceived flaws eat away at my brain and I never, ever get a break. Digital cameras are the worst. Whenever I see a person pull one out to snap a picture of my friends and I together I avoid it as much as possible. I must always see the picture before the person is allowed to walk away with it. If I am satisfied I smile and offer a small laugh. If I am unhappy, which I most often am, I demand that they delete it.

This entry probably makes me sound like a psycho, but I'm hoping it will help at least one person out there. I don't hear voices telling me to burn things. I don't cut myself, I don't worship Satan. I seem pretty normal, but I can't stand to see the way I look. I go to any length to avoid seeing myself in a mirror or window. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect is the way I see myself in the mirror as looking a certain way but when I look at myself in a picture I look completely different, often times worse. Is my mind playing tricks on me? Does everyone experience this? Am I so sick and twisted that I am unable to distinguish truth from illusion? Sometimes after seeing myself in a photo I wonder how people even bear to look at me. How do people even manage? How could a guy ever be attracted to me? Such horrible things to think about myself, and it's not like I don't try and stop. But people misunderstand the mind. You can't always help the thoughts that run around inside your head. Sometimes the thoughts are running around so fast, so violently, that you can't keep up with them and you can't stop them. They move in a circle: they never end. You never get tired of thinking that you have man shoulders or that you look like an absolute disgrace. Your brain never says ok, today I won't be self-depreciating. You can't turn the feelings off, they are just always there, just varying in strength. I have a funny way of thinking. If a negative comment gets into my head, if I do something embarassing or see an unflattering picture of myself, I think about it and analyze it and replay the scenario in my head over and over again as if I'm stuck on repeat. I look at a person's picture. They look like the person I am used to seeing, yet I look so different from the way I envision myself to look. It's so frustrating. I must be crazy.