Around my Junior year of high school, maybe earlier, some kind of illness came over me that I couldn’t identify. At the time, I brushed it off as just being a teen and thought that maybe I was a very shallow, vain person. But, as time passed, these nonstop obsessive thoughts grew, and I began to panic whenever I’d be in public.

When it came time for college, it got out of control…

I missed college classes because I didn't want people to stare at me, leading to me failing courses and being on academic probation. I went into large amounts of credit card debt to buy creams and things to get rid of my freckles, change my skin color, and slim my arms. I cut into my face multiple times to try to change it, only to make it worse and create scars that took months to heal (and some never did). I got quotes for aesthetic surgeries to have my jaw broken and restructured so my face would be more symmetrical. I stopped wearing t-shirts and tank tops because I believed my arms offended people. I got irritated at doctors that told me I was too young or slim for a Brachioplasty (arm fat removal). I tried to stretch one of my nostrils out to make it look like the other because I believed people would stare and be disgusted by my two slightly different nostril shapes. I asked my dentist to do unnecessary cosmetic procedures on my teeth because I thought they were too uneven, and people were focused on them when I talked. I stopped taking pictures of myself, and I wouldn't let anyone take photos of me (which is why I don't have many between the ages of 17-20). I almost got into car wrecks trying to avoid the sunlight shining on my face in certain ways because it would “expose” me. I stopped going out during the day and only agreed to hang out with people at night when it was darker outside. I started tanning excessively to change the color of my skin because my natural complexion was “so white and ugly.” I had two different tanning memberships to get away with going more than once daily. I bleached my teeth so much that I stripped them of all the enamel and essentially made them see-through. I thought my eyes didn’t have color, so I bought green eye contacts…even though I already have green eyes. I started working out most of the day, attending dance classes, teaching dance classes, and then only eating turkey bacon and a small portion of edamame. I chewed my food but then spit it into the trash, so I wouldn’t swallow it. Then, I would binge-eat whole bags of chips and pints of ice cream when nobody was around and go work out again to try to make myself throw it all up. I lied to my partners and said I had things to do early in the morning so I wouldn’t have to stay over and have them see me in the morning and realize how gross I was. I shaved every part of my body every day because I thought having hair on every part of my body as a female was not normal. And so, so many more things that are just too personal to post.

My process for getting ready to be seen in public increased as I added things like hair extensions, fake eyelashes, fake nails, and a freaking at-home airbrushing device for my whole body. If I had an important event the next day, I’d have to make a list of all the things I needed to do to fix how I looked, and I would be so stressed that I couldn’t do anything else the night before. If I didn't have at least 3.5-4 hours to get ready, I couldn’t go. I remember not being able to get myself to go grocery shopping. Life was becoming so painfully exhausting; I didn't know how I was going to be able to keep doing this, so I constantly dreamed of suicide. I began to give up my dream of being a performer, and I stopped singing and going on film auditions because I was so stressed about people looking at me. I couldn’t look at my audition tapes without tearing myself apart. At some point, it became so overwhelming that being at home alone became the only time/situation I could breathe because I knew nobody was looking at me. I knew what I was doing was psychotic, but I couldn’t stop the endless, obsessive thoughts. I started becoming a recluse.

One day, at the height of it all, my Mom handed me a book called “The Broken Mirror.” She said she had been at a loss and was trying to understand what was happening to me. The book is a series of patient interviews with people suffering from an illness known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder. As I read the book, I began to find myself in the stories, and I agreed to see a therapist and psychiatrist for the first time. That was 12 years ago, and I knew that someday I’d want to create a project around body image, thus inspiring our current project’s name: “The Midwest Broken Mirror Project.”

So. Hi, I’m Laura, and I am clinically diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic Disorder and OCD. I have never publicized this for fear of ridicule because I think it’s easy to hear stories like mine and chalk them up to extreme vanity, the way I did when it was happening to me. We all have distorted ideas about our bodies and struggle with our image, but when it gets to the point of severely affecting your life, that’s when you realize it's beyond societal pressures or vanity; it's a mental illness.

Unfortunately, the manifestation of these illnesses gets worse if societal standards back up those obsessive thoughts. So, the airbrushing, the filtering, and the diet culture make it harder to see the illness.

There is no full “recovery” with this, but with desensitization therapy, CBT, and medication, I have drastically reduced my obsessiveness and no longer do most of those things. Although, some of the decisions my illness made, like incessantly tanning, have long-lasting effects that are now showing up and putting my health at risk.

Today, I’m not striving to see myself as beautiful. I’m striving not to place so much importance on beauty in general. I want to see my body for what it is and to lessen my only view of it being through a lens of subjective westernized beauty standards.

Coming full circle, I leave you with this: The Midwest Broken Mirror Project is not a campaign asking people to view everyone as beautiful and to love their bodies or be attracted to people they aren’t. The slogan is “See Bodies Differently” because there is mental illness, sexism, racism, trauma, etc., behind our bodies that contribute to the way we live in our skin. And quite frankly, we haven’t provided enough opportunities for people to share these broader perspectives within current body image movements.

So please consider being a part of that change with us.

- Laura E. Swanson
Producer/Videographer, The Midwest Broken Mirror Project