Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

by Kjerstin Gruys

  Even worse: In addition to affecting my happiness, my poor body image was having a ripple effect. I’d recently read that a woman’s body image accounts for almost 10 percent of her husband’s overall marital satisfaction and 19 percent of her own marital satisfaction. My thoughts about my body weren’t just confined to myself, but had seeped into my relationship with Michael, too. Michael and I weren’t married yet, but we would be soon, and I didn’t want my issues to continue to cause problems.

  Numerous studies have shown that our partners almost always see us as more attractive than we view ourselves (another type of positive illusion), and this was certainly the case in my relationship. But rather than appreciating this, I frequently treated Michael as though he had bad taste for finding me attractive. To borrow from Groucho Marx, I acted as though he were the club I oughtn’t join precisely because it had accepted me. To make matters worse, I almost always refused to make love if I “felt fat” (i.e., “Honey, sorry, but I can’t get frisky right now; I ate that entire plate of pasta and I feel enormous”). It’s no surprise that married couples in which the wife has a healthy body image report more frequent and more satisfying sex than couples in which the wife has a poor body image. It frankly surprised me that Michael had been so understanding and patient with these issues. Growing up with close relationships to his mother and younger sister had certainly taught him the futility of calling a woman beautiful when she didn’t believe it herself. And yet he said I was beautiful anyway.

  Michael, a biomedical engineer, and I have a wonderful relationship, filled with respect, appreciation for each other’s geeky ambitions, lots of laughs, and mutual love for camping, animals, Law & Order: SVU, local hamburger joints, and California’s amazing gastronomic culture. We like to joke that we met on craigslist, which was true, but not in a creepy “casual encounters” sort of way: I’d advertised the second bedroom of my condo for rent, and he’d responded to the listing. Michael was spending four months in Los Angeles for an internship at a local medical device company. When he came to my place to check out the second bedroom, I was smitten at first sight. We hit it off immediately, spending almost an hour chatting about what it was like to live in Los Angeles, having both grown up in the Midwest.

  By the time Michael left, I’d developed a huge crush. As tempting as it had been to offer him the room, I decided against it. What if he turned out to be a bit of a lothario, bringing his conquests back home to my place?! Besides, I didn’t want to feel pressured to look like a cute future feminist trophy wife at all hours of the day and night. But in my e-mail giving Michael the news of his rejection as a rental applicant, I casually asked if he wanted to join my friends and me for a beer at a local Irish pub. He responded enthusiastically, which of course meant I had mere hours to pull together a group of friends to go out with! We had a blast that night, and he asked me out on our first solo date by the end of the evening.

  Two years later we became engaged in epic style, by winning my engagement ring in a local event called the L.A. Diamond Dash—an Amazing Race–style scavenger hunt in which the grand prize was a beautiful diamond engagement ring. An embarrassing video of the proposal is still floating around the Internet somewhere. Being engaged to Michael was a dream come true, not to mention evidence that being “cute” was lovable after all. I owed it to myself and to him to stop obsessing about my looks, but I didn’t know how. Years of therapy had strengthened my resolve to take care of my body, but I still didn’t know how to accept it.

  I reflected further on my recent wedding-dress(es) saga and felt increasingly ill at ease. Hoping for a distraction, I put away my laptop and opened a new book, The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant. I looked forward to losing myself in the adventures of a feisty young female protagonist coming of age in Renaissance Italy.

  Within two paragraphs of the prologue, a seedling of a plan was planted in my mind. Here is what I read:

  No one had seen her naked until her death. It was a rule of the order that the Sisters should not look on human flesh, neither their own nor anyone else’s. A considerable amount of thought had gone into the drafting of this observance. Under the billowing folds of their habits each nun wore a long cotton shift, a garment they kept on always, even when they washed, so that it acted as a screen and partial drying cloth as well as a night shift. This shift they changed once a month (more in summer when the stagnant Tuscan air bathed them in sweat), and there were careful instructions as to correct procedure: how they should keep their eyes firmly fixed on the crucifix above their bed as they disrobed. If any did let their gaze stray downward, the sin was a matter for the confessional and therefore not for history.

  A lifetime spent without seeing oneself. The concept made me pause, my brain whirring. What a different life those nuns lived, compared with my appearance-obsessed world of Los Angeles! I thought. Could I go even one day without looking at myself in a mirror? Maybe I should. Hell, why not a year?

  I didn’t have a vision for exactly where the idea would lead, but my values and behaviors had clearly been at odds. Shunning mirrors would force me to do something about it. It might be the step back from vanity that I needed, a way to refocus my energy toward worthier things, like my relationships, my research, my students, and ultimately my health and happiness. But could I do it? How? And with what effects on my life, self-image, and personal and professional relationships? Was it possible that removing mirrors from my life might actually cause me to become more obsessed or insecure about my appearance? Would I completely lose the ability to apply makeup, style my hair, or select flattering and chic outfits? Would my appearance change, and—if so—would Michael still find me attractive? Despite these looming questions, I knew that I was on to something important.

  • • •

  NATURALLY, I COULDN’T KEEP MY EXCITING PLAN A SECRET. I called my mom as soon as I stepped off the plane. I wanted her to tell me whether I’d stumbled upon brilliance or insanity. Her reaction was exactly what I needed: “Kjerstin, that sounds great! It’s a perfect project for you.” And then: “But you’ll wait until after the wedding, right?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. On the one hand, it was all the “beautiful bride” pressure that had precipitated my moment of inspiration, and in the coming months, more than ever, I would really need help resisting the extra pressure I was feeling. On the other hand, my mom had always been the first person I called when I needed advice. She’d rarely led me down the wrong path, so if she had concerns I wanted to take them seriously.

  The next person I called was my sister. Hanna is my closest friend and my most sensible confidante. A medical assistant with dreams of becoming a nurse-midwife, Hanna is smart, funny, and strikingly beautiful, yet refreshingly unconcerned with her looks. Her attitude toward fashion and makeup had always been the down-to-earth San Francisco yin to my high-maintenance Los Angeles yang (a particularly apt metaphor given that we each actually lived in these cities!). Unsurprisingly, she liked my plan to forgo mirrors, as long as she wasn’t expected to do my wedding makeup. This was fine with me. I’d long known that her maid of honor duties would involve emotional rather than cosmetic support.

  Michael picked me up at LAX, and after I gave him a quick hug and kiss, I immediately launched into the same hurried explanation I’d given my mom and sister. He seemed bemused. When I told him that my mother had suggested I wait until after the wedding, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, I’m sure your mom wants what’s best for you, but I think that all of the wedding pressure is the exact reason you should start now!” He was so right. Perhaps it was lingering teenage rebellion, but this was the deciding moment. I knew I had to proceed, and right away. I needed his support, and his next comment didn’t disappoint. “What’s the game plan? I think we need to lay out a strategy!” We. He was in.

  Michael was right about my need for strategizing. In fact, it seemed pertinent that I strategize about my strategy. Succeeding at this projec
t would require more than just making a decision. Staring at myself in the mirror had become a daily, sometimes hourly, habit since puberty, one that I’d never thought to break. Mirrors were embedded within my routines. They hung on the walls of almost every room in which I lived, worked, played, and peed. To say that avoiding them for a year would test my willpower was an understatement.

  I stared out of the passenger’s-side window and watched reflections of my face bounce back to me in both the window and in the side mirror. Straight blond hair, brown eyes, pale skin, round flushed cheeks. Would I miss this sight? I surprised myself by thinking I looked lovely, happy even. Then my surprise saddened me. Did I view my face as lovely only in the prospect of not seeing it again for a long time? I watched myself frown at the thought and then reflexively noted a few new wrinkles, cringing at the fleshiness of my neck. Ugh, I hate my chins, I thought. I’m so ugly and gross. Yikes. This was not a healthy way to think. Was I lovely or ugly? I didn’t know, but it was time to stop constantly asking myself the question and move on to more important things.

  • • •

  I RESOLVED TO GO A YEAR WITHOUT MIRRORS THAT EVENING, AND by the following afternoon I’d accumulated an impressive collection of books and academic journal articles to help me achieve my goal. My first priority was to learn how to maximize my willpower and aptitude for personal change. I’d never kept a New Year’s resolution in my life, and giving up mirrors seemed dramatically more ambitious and complicated than my usual plans to “stop picking at my cuticles” or “remember to write thank-you notes.” Given the challenges ahead, I needed to learn as much as I could about how to be successful at changing myself. A quick search of Amazon’s vast book inventory promised an enormous amount of self-help titles on the topics of personal change and willpower. I wanted this information in my arsenal, but needed my books on a budget; time for a trip to the library!

  The titles I amassed from the self-help section of my local library branch ranged from pop psychology texts on the interesting topic of change itself (such as Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, and M. J. Ryan’s This Year I Will . . . : How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True) to inspiring narratives of other women’s yearlong personal change adventures (including Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search For Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, Judith Levine’s Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, Vanessa Farquharson’s Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days, and Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun). After stumbling across more options through some online research, I tracked down the syllabus of a Stanford University course, “The Science of Willpower,” and requested an advanced copy of Roy Baumeister and John Tierney’s soon-to-be-published book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

  Finding room for my new collection of readings was an adventure in itself; my desk at home was already covered with tangled piles of bills, my treasured collection of Anthropologie catalogs (hence the bills), and a smattering of interview transcripts for my dissertation, which examines how appearance shapes workplace discrimination. After some rearranging, I managed to squeeze the pop psychology texts onto one corner of my desk and decided to stack the narratives on my bedside table; I would research by day and then lull myself to sleep with uplifting and inspiring stories of other women’s real-life adventures in change and transformation.

  • • •

  MY READINGS ON WILLPOWER TAUGHT ME THAT I COULD DO much to improve my chances for success. Of primary importance was setting the right kind of resolution in the right kind of way—something I’d already begun, but needed to refine. For example, the very act of making an official resolution was important in itself. A psychologist at the University of Scranton studied two groups of people in 2002, both of which had identical goals and comparable motivation to change. At the six-month mark, the people who had made formal resolutions were ten times more successful at achieving their goals than those who wanted to change but hadn’t made specific resolutions. Only 4 percent of the non-resolvers succeeded, compared with 46 percent of those who made formal resolutions. Further, it turns out that the act of resolving is further strengthened by telling others of your goals. After reading this, I turned to Michael and—in my most formal voice—said, “I resolve to not look at myself in the mirror for one year!”

  “Yeah, I know,” he responded, with a puzzled look, “but thanks for reminding me.” With a shrug, he turned back to his e-mail, and I turned back to my journal articles. The statistics I’d read were compelling, but still a bit depressing. Even with a formal resolution to go without mirrors for a year, I had a less than 50 percent chance of successfully making it to the six-month mark. I clearly had more work to do to improve my chances.

  So far I’d told only my mother, Michael, and my sister about my plans, but the literature on resolutions suggested that broad social support would further strengthen my resolve. (Well, actually, it suggested that telling a ton of people might make me too embarrassed to quit.) So I looked over my calendar and made note of every upcoming opportunity to tell my friends, students, and mentors. I hesitated on the last category: I wasn’t a hundred percent certain that it was a good idea to share my plans with the members of my dissertation committee. It was important to me that these people took me seriously as a scholar, and sometimes that meant keeping my personal life . . . well, personal. I “resolved” to play that one by ear.

  What I learned next, from my readings on the science of willpower, really surprised me. I figured that I already knew plenty about willpower, thanks to my experiences with anorexia. What I thought I knew about willpower was that I either didn’t have much of it or had all the wrong kinds; willpower was an elusive stubbornness that couldn’t be trusted or counted on.

  In high school, what had started out as a bad habit of skipping lunch (because I didn’t want to run into an ex-boyfriend who had recently broken my heart) turned into an intentional diet, once people started complimenting me for losing weight. As a student athlete with decent eating habits, I’d been at a healthy weight before this happened, but being admired for my new skinniness felt good, and at sixteen I craved approval.

  My anxiety and heartache made it easy to continue skipping meals, and I started to pride myself on having what I thought was an admirable trait: willpower. I added additional rules and strategies to my secret diet: Each morning my dad would make breakfast for my siblings and me, and I would take mine to go but throw it away before I arrived at school; lunches were skipped, save for a side of Tater Tots eaten by myself in the library (eating small portions of junk food made me feel indulgent); two hours of basketball practice or track-and-field training each afternoon meant that I could eat a normal dinner with my family and use this as an excuse to brush off my parents’ concerns about my weight loss. If I wasn’t light-headed during practice the next day, I’d decide I’d eaten too much the day before.

  But then I lost control; my willpower broke down. I began alternating restriction with episodes of binging. Suddenly I was a failed anorexic. Some weeks I dieted, while other weeks, racked with guilt, I indulged in “bad foods.” I hated my inability to stick to my strict diet and mourned the willpower I’d once had. This cycle of binging and restriction would continue for years, until I finally committed to recovery in college, after several bouts of kidney stones and being diagnosed with borderline osteoporosis. Looking back, I know now that what felt like an unexplainable and unwanted loss of willpower was simply my body’s refusal to be starved; an unwelcome survival instinct had kicked in.

  To recover, I called on willpower once again, but this time it was to stop restricting, t
o stop binging, and to stop purging. These behaviors had become so ingrained that they felt irresistible even as they made me miserable and unhealthy. As before, I sometimes had willpower for recovery and other times it eluded me. As always, when I didn’t have it, I felt like a failure.

  Most people who, like me, struggle to keep their resolutions blame themselves for not having enough willpower; we assume that our failures in self-control are largely an issue of character. Contemporary research disagrees with this. Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal, who created the “Science of Willpower” course I mentioned earlier, wrote the book The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It as a guide to understanding the science of self-control. In it, she argues that willpower should be regarded as a mind-body response rather than as a test of character; it is not so much a virtue, but rather “a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep.”

  I learned even more about willpower after talking with my cousin, psychologist Holly Miller, who conducts lab experiments examining how glucose levels effect the willpower of dogs (really, imagine the canine self-control required to “stay” for ten minutes with a doggie treat a few feet away! I couldn’t do it). Holly helped explain that willpower is not an unlimited resource, but is in short supply physiologically. We fail when we literally run out of it, similar to how an amateur marathoner’s muscles run out of glycogen at mile twenty (or mile eight, in my half marathoning case). Indeed, much like our muscles during exercise, our brains require steady supplies of glucose in order to work at their best during mental tasks, including the exercise of willpower. Even seemingly small mental tasks deplete our brains of available glucose, reducing our self-control, willpower, and capacity for responsible decision-making skills.