What do women see in the mirror?

Whatever our relationship with mirrors, a recent survey found that women look in them an astonishing 38 times a day.

Whatever our relationship with mirrors, a recent survey found that women look in them an astonishing 38 times a day.

Published Apr 16, 2013

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London - They can make a good day better, but a bad day near unbearable. Yet whatever our relationship with mirrors, a recent survey found that women look in them an astonishing 38 times a day. But what do you feel when you gaze at your reflection? Four very different women tell what they see when they look in the mirror...

 

THE FACELIFT ADDICT

MARY BRIGHT, 60, lives on her own in Surrey and has three adult children. She says:

When I look in the mirror, I don’t like what I see. Even though people have always told me I’m attractive, all I see is my wild bushy hair, small eyes and wrinkles.

It doesn’t matter what anyone says, that’s how I’ve always felt. Still, I’m nowhere near as tortured by my looks as I once was. For 26 years, my life was ruled by mirror-checking. I could spend hours every day looking at the mirror.

Sometimes I thought I didn’t even look human and I couldn’t leave the house. I felt like I was going mad. I’d never been confident about my appearance. As a girl I hid my insecurities by looking after my hair and make-up. For a while, life was okay. I got married and thought if a man loved me, I couldn’t be too bad. We had three wonderful children but the underlying problem remained. I went to bed in make-up so my husband wouldn’t see the real, “ugly” me, and I spent a fortune on cosmetics.

When I was 45, my marriage was breaking down, and work was taking its toll. I became depressed and thought if something didn’t change I’d kill myself. So I booked in for cosmetic surgery in October 1997, thinking a facelift would save my life. For a couple of months I looked younger and fresher but soon I started to spot flaws. I thought the only answer was more surgery.

Over the next three years, I spent £20 000 on two more facelifts, a brow lift, a neck tuck, eye surgery and lots of lasers and injectables. Not once did a surgeon ask me why I was doing it. I’d stopped working and cashed in an endowment policy so I could afford it. I was no longer with my husband and kept our split a secret from everyone, as I felt so ashamed.

Then, ten years ago, I caught the end of a TV programme on body dysmorphic disorder or BDD (an obsession about a perceived bodily imperfection) and realised I wasn’t going mad. They gave out a number for the charity OCD Action (BDD is linked to obsessive compulsive disorder), and I made an appointment with a specialist who diagnosed BDD within minutes. I then spent seven weeks in therapy at a Priory hospital in London.

The treatment was incredibly hard. I spent five months without make up - and I could wash my hair but not style it. The aim was to see myself as worthwhile no matter how I looked. Now, when negative thoughts return, I can handle them. I can’t say I’m cured, but I’m no longer tortured by the mirror.

 

THE MUM WITH A WONKY SMILE

KAREN JOHNSON, 43, has facial palsy - a condition that paralyses part of her face. She works as a web specialist and lives in Peterborough with her husband Brian, who is a print finisher, and their four children. She says:

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I can trick myself into thinking I look normal.

Over the years I’ve learned to look only at the right hand side of my face -which is my good side, my little bit of perfection - and blank out the left “bad” side. That way I can tell myself I look okay.

When I’m out and about and accidentally glance at a mirror though, I get a shock. I see the real me, with my “gone-wrong” smile, my wonky laugh, one eye that blinks and the other that doesn’t. Then the mirror makes me grieve for the face I should have had.

I was born with facial palsy, a condition that affects the nerves controlling your face muscles. At birth, I came out face first instead of head first, which left one side of my face paralysed. I can’t close or blink my left eye, smile or laugh fully.

As a child, I used to sit in front of the mirror pulling all sorts of funny faces, trying to make it work. I even Sellotaped the left side of my face into a smile and went to bed like that, hoping it would stick.

School was tough - I had lovely friends but was teased and felt very self-conscious and lonely. Sometimes I wished mirrors didn’t exist.

But when I was 18, a wonderful thing happened. A friend described me as “the girl with the sweet smile” and it meant the world to me. I started to realise that wonky could still be good, and my confidence grew.

I then met my husband, who said he wouldn’t change a thing about me, and we’ve gone on to have a lovely family.

Over the years I’ve accepted how I look but now I’ve hit my 40s I’ve found my paralysed side is ageing faster. My left eye has a scooped out, hollow look about it, and extra folds of skin. Some days that’s all I see but I tell myself not to focus on it. There are things I could do that might help - surgery or Botox -but I’m not sure I want to.

Last year, I had a real lightbulb moment when I got together with other people with facial palsy for the first time. A group of us who had met online decided to meet in London for the day. After a few minutes I wasn’t looking at their asymmetrical features - all I saw was their sparkly eyes or the way they moved their hands.

I appreciated their warmth and humour, and hoped they saw the same in me.

That day I learned a valuable lesson: what you see in the mirror is not what other people see.

 

THE MID-LIFE MODEL

Carol Dunbar, 45, is single and lives in London. She says:

I probably look in the mirror more than 100 times a day. Being a model, I have to keep a close eye on my reflection, and I’m happy to admit I’m quite vain. But even models think they could look better - I’d like to have Elle Macpherson’s body and flat stomach.

I’m almost half a century old now and can see the first signs of ageing. My skin’s marked and not so springy. But I’m not scared about my looks fading - some people look better as they age, and hopefully I can keep modelling for years.

As a young girl, appearance wasn’t important to me. I went to boarding school and was a tomboy - climbing trees instead of experimenting with make-up. How I looked never mattered, and I was neither the ugliest or prettiest in my class.

I think being happy with your appearance is all about confidence, and that’s something my parents instilled in me. They’re incredibly attractive and youthful. My father is 71 but looks barely 60. They encouraged me to be healthy - you can tell if someone drinks, smokes and doesn’t get enough sleep.

Modelling was a happy accident for me. My job options were limited as I’ve never been particularly clever, so I decided to try and get on a modelling agency’s books.

After 22 years in the business, I realise getting work is nothing to do with how pretty you are - it’s about having the ‘right’ look for the assignment. Women judge each other far too much. Who’s qualified to say who is pretty or not? Look at all the different types of models.

If you think you’re beautiful, you’re more likely to project it. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin.

 

THE ACNE VICTIM

Carol Coates, 48, has had the skin condition acne rosacea for 22 years. MOm to two adult sons, she works as a train dispatcher and lives in Newcastle with her partner Mark. She says:

When I look in the mirror I see crow’s feet around my eyes, deep frown lines on my forehead and lines around my mouth. I also see a few scars dotted on my chin and side of my face. But I don’t care.

I’ll never go in for fillers or surgery - I’m happy with the way I look. In fact, when I look in the mirror these days, I feel a great sense of relief that I no longer look how I used to.

For years, I hated my reflection so much that I only allowed one mirror in the whole house - in the bathroom. Every morning, I’d brace myself to start covering up the angry, red, swollen skin and horrible spots, blisters and scabs that confronted me.

But no amount of make-up could conceal the truth - I looked horrendous.

My skin first became angry and inflamed 22 years ago. It happened almost overnight. My nose and chin were covered in huge, blistered spots and I looked so bad that people asked if I’d been in a fire or a car crash. It was very upsetting, and my reflection became a source of misery and hurt.

I felt ugly and I withdrew into myself. I stopped taking any pride in my appearance and wore baggy clothes and let my hair go.

I visited a doctor, who told me I had acne rosacea (a condition that can be triggered by many factors, including sunlight, stress, exercise and some foods). I was prescribed some cream, which didn’t help, followed by tetracycline tablets. The side-effects were horrendous, so I couldn’t stay on them. I was dizzy, had hot flushes, suffered from diarrhoea, and if I drank even a drop of alcohol I’d be violently sick.

I started to investigate natural remedies and tried all sorts of lotions, but with no luck.

Finally, four years ago I came across a cream called Kalme, and after about a month of using it my skin started to improve.

I couldn’t believe it at first. I kept looking in the mirror to check it was really true - and it was.

I now have a mirror in my bedroom and a giant one in the living room. For the first time in my adult life I have nothing to fear from my reflection. - Daily Mail

* Additional reporting: India Sturgis

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