Do you ever look in the mirror and not recognize yourself?

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Yes, every time I look in a mirror, which I tend to avoid.

Something about me just seems off in the reflection. The same applies to pictures.

I don't like how I look in pictures either (hence the "symbol" avatar). It took a while for people to finally understand that.

Oh, thank god, I thought I was the only one who didn't recognize themselves.

Am I the only one who is drawn to their reflection? Not to change the subject, but I've just noticed people saying they avoid mirrors. For some reason when I see a mirror, I feel compelled to look at myself. I don't know why. It's not good when I'm driving and I keep getting distracted by the rearview mirror.

I dunno about not recognizing myself but I'll look different to myself depending on how I feel at the moment. It's hard not to be self concious sometimes, sometimes something about yourself will catch your attention it and it'll stress you out and other times you'll think you look good.

Finally, people who know what I'm talking about! I asked my therapist about this once and if it was simply a symptom, and she had no idea what I was talking about. Like, I'll look into a mirror or see a picture or video of me* and bee like, "Huh. That's how I look to other people." Not, "that's what I look like", but "that's how people see me". You guys seem to at least perceive yourself as a body, though. With me, I think the best way to put it would be the C. S. Lewis quote, "You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." In my case, though, I don't see it as a religious statement, as the soul to me is the sense of self. I'm a half-decent artist. One time I drew a self-portrait. My boyfriend says it's uncanny. I think it just looks like some person, but with the nagging voice in my head going, "That's me, huh?" I guess to me, I almost see myself as faceless, because my face is never something I've seen for myself.

http://www.dana.org/News/Are_Face-Blind ... isorders_/

Like many people have reported, I also am surprised by how I "look a little different" each time that I look in the mirror, as though my features had subtly rearranged themselves in some indefinitely minor but jarringly noticeable manner. I wonder if part of this, though, has anything to do with my elaborate inner-fantasy world that occupies much of my mental space; in that world, my "self-insert" character/avatar is, well, an anthropomorphic, bipedal wolf with red eyes and white fur, which is obviously quite different from the image that I would see in a mirror.

Does anyone else who has an elaborate inner-fantasy world or who is prone to daydreaming have this dissonance between seeing the imaginary self in the mind's eyes and seeing the physical self that one sees in a mirror?

My opinion about the relative attractiveness of the image that I see in the mirror also shifts quite a bit, although I am under the impression that this is fairly normal. Sometimes, I'll look in the mirror and think, "Since when did I become a supermodel?!"; the same day, I can look at the same reflection at a later time and think, "Wow, I look hideous! Eeyuuk!" I think it depends on the lighting and the angle at which I am looking at myself. In general, I neither avoid nor am drawn to my reflection (although the doors to my bedroom closet are sliding doors whose entire outer faces are mirrors, so I am exposed to my reflection quite often).

i always recognize myself in the mirror. even when i turn the mirror upside down, i have no trouble telling who i am.

I am so glad this thread exists. I have been trying to figure out exactly which of my psychological/neurological traits match a pattern of autism vs. indicate something else, and I have felt like my difficulty identifying with my reflection, recordings of me, etc. must be linked with my other autism symptoms, but I do not really see this described in medical literature. At most I see things about prosopagnosia, which this is not... I can recognize other people fine. Just not me. I also second the person who mentioned staring at themselves in the mirror a lot. On the one hand, if I'm having a bad day then mirrors make me really uncomfortable, but on the other hand, most of the time I find mirrors fascinating. It's like maybe if I stare at myself just long enough I will make the connection between the person I see and the person who's in my self-image.

Q) Do you ever look in the mirror and not recognize yourself?

A) I avoid looking in mirrors, because I know for a fact that the person on the other side of the glass is not me.