Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: Could You Avoid Mirrors for a Year?
Sociology PhD student Kjerstin Gruys spent a year eschewing mirrors, never obsessing over errant makeup, no spot-checking, nothing.
After struggling with anorexia in high school and subsequent health problems, Gruys recovered and began volunteering with the San Francisco About-Face, a group that helps women tackle body image issues.
But it was a trip to pick out her wedding dress in 2010 that started this whole project.
"I saw myself in the mirror and was being critical," she tells 20/20. "I thought, Well, maybe I should lose a little weight before the wedding, always a bad thing to focus on when you have a history of an eating disorder.... I wasn't afraid of relapsing into my eating disorder, but I felt like a hypocrite because of how far I'd come."
Six months before she tied the knot, she gave up mirrors, never even checking her reflection on her wedding day, and documented her year of avoiding mirrors on her blog, Mirror Mirror Off the Wall.
So what did she take away from this experience? Check out 20/20 on ABC tonight to hear more.
Could you do it? Let us know in the comments below.
