thoughts on mirrors

I think that one of the healthiest things that we've ever done in our household is decide that mirrors are not a legitimate item of decor. There's a very small mirror by our front door, a full-length one in my craft room that's used very little, and the one in the bathroom. That's it.

I grew up in a household with a mother who is obsessed with mirrors as a decor item. There is genuinely a mirror in almost every room in the house, sometimes more than one. There used to be more when I was a kid. And that shit makes you feel watched. My parents teased me one time in my mid teens that I couldn't walk past the huge mirror next to the entrance to the living room without looking at it, got me to "test" that (I failed), and then teased me for being vain (which was extremely not the problem).

Having a house full of mirrors is having a house full of eyes. It puts you under the constant pressure of being gazed upon, watched, measured and judged. 

Humans are not equipped for being watched constantly. A feeling of privacy is absolutely essential to a feeling of personal safety and security. There's a reason why the panopticon is a go-to example of the drawbacks of a surveillance culture - feeling as though you're being watched all the time can drive a person insane. Our brains aren't equipped to deal with a world full of mirrors - for most of human existence the only way to see yourself was in a distorted reflection on water, or maybe on a burnished surface if you were wealthy. Our brains don't know how to incorporate our visual understanding of ourselves into our internal selfhood. No wonder so many people look in the mirror and don't see themsleves looking back.

So if you're anxious, if you feel watched, try covering up or taking down the mirrors in your house, especially in your main living spaces. It's a small thing, but it might remove a weight that you didn't know you were carrying.