Looking in the mirror to reconnect with myself

Post Reply New Topic

I came to an interesting new realisation about my behaviour today. I have always been mocked for vanity because I like looking in the mirror. I always believed this and felt ashamed of it, but still found myself fascinated by my own reflection.

What I have now realised is that seeing myself in the mirrors allows me to "reconnect" with myself. After a while of not seeing my reflection, I start to feel rather like a floating consciousness, forgetting that I even have a physical presence. When I see my reflection I feel something along the lines of "Oh! That's me!", although I often also think of myself in the third person so it is more like "Oh! That's him!". I find this experience quite reassuring and from now on I won't feel ashamed of it

I have had many new realisations about myself since I was diagnosed with Asperger's/ASD last year at the age of 45.

I'm not sure if this is particularly an ASD thing or not. Does anyone else have similar experience?

I find it more difficult to look in a mirror than to look someone else in the eyes (which is difficult enough).

I'm always somewhat surprised when I look into the mirror at who I see. Our thoughts come to us behind our face, when we look at something we observe it with the brain and not "see it" with the eyes. We see the world from behind our face so to speak and for some people, the thinking "you" is different from the face. I even find it difficult to look into the eyes in the mirror.

As someone who is not very good at remembering faces, I spent a lot of time as a child studying my reflection. I had this fear that I would forget what I looked like if I didn't.

I don't really know who I am until I socially interact with someone, as I don't really feel like I have much of a self. I don't feel like there's anything there, and all I see are memories of those I've known and events I've been through. I have no real social identity that I can see, and my emotional identity is just overwhelmingly...care.

I don't look in mirrors, and I can barely look at myself in photos. Likely not Autism stuff.

My experience is different from that.
That intangible whatever it is that makes me, me, has a strong sense of integration with this body while at the same time realizing that it, itself, is not the body.
Looking in mirrors does, let's say, realign, my internal impression of what I look like with what I actually look like.
Those two things do seem to get out of sync over time.