Help, I Can't Stop Staring at My Face

Could “mirror work” be the antidote to my pandemic-fueled facial dysmorphia?

- Aubree Nichols

The great poet Sylvia Plath once wrote, “My face I know not. One day ugly as a frog the mirror blurts it back.” I feel you, girl.

While many people channeled their anxiety into canning and puzzles during the pandemic, I took it out on my face. Some call it facial dysmorphia, but I call it FaceHate. Instead of dealing with the extreme isolation I felt as a single woman who moved across the country to a new city a few months before COVID shutdowns, I obsessively picked apart my reflection. In Zoom after Zoom, I found myself confronting a litany of internal critiques: The right side of my mouth is slightly downturned. The family jowls have finally caught up with me. When did my right eyelid get so droopy? Faced with such thoughts, I would often decide I was too grotesque to be seen and keep my video off. My Self View, however, was always on.

As the pandemic stretched on, my FaceHate worsened. I developed a habit of immediately grabbing my phone after waking up and snapping a selfie to see whether I looked as repulsive as I had the day before. Were my eyes red? Lopsided? Was my face swollen? Did my skin look…older? I would identify a choice defect of the day and walk back and forth to the bathroom mirror every 5 or 10 minutes checking, checking, checking on it. I was relentless, but I couldn’t make myself stop. I knew I needed help.