Introduction
We have a tendency of blaming the way we turned out as adults on our parents. It is true they do deserve some of the blame, but there is plenty of blame to go around. If you are looking for whom to blame for you, the adult, you do not have to go much further than your bathroom mirror. Why the bathroom mirror you ask? Because throughout our lives the only really private place we can count on to be private and no one, or thing can enter this personal space. In this personal space is always a mirror and this mirror not only reflects our image as the world sees it, but it also reflects our self-image as we see it, and feels it.
The bathroom mirror is our window into all the imaginary places we have been presented that represents: “Never Neverland,” “OZ,” “Gotham City,” and any other places that take us through the looking glass, so we don’t have to deal with that person creating the reflections looking back at us.
I grew up in front of my bathroom mirrors. In the beginning, I had to stand on something to get to it, but as I got older I could get to it very easily. I say plural because I relocated many times and even though they were a different size or shape, it was the same mirror only in a different place. Goes along without saying, “Wherever You Go, You’re there”. Anyone who claims to have never spoken to them in the mirror is just plain lying to themselves, and the rest of us.
There are so many things we start to learn from our reflection. As an adolescent, we learn what our face looks like when we move it a certain way, and we learn how to comb our hair, put on make-up and shave. However, after a while, we start to look deeply into our own eyes. This is where the problems begin. This is when our sub-conscience starts to take what we are learning in the world and being applied it to our imaginations.
If we are receiving loving and positive influences than our imaginations will show us beauty and safe thoughts. On the other hand, if we are in a bad situation than our imaginations will go towards the dark side. Whatever side we are on we will reflect it in the bathroom mirror. Now if it was cut and dry and we could identify the good and the bad and then we can help change the horrific imagery that we are getting, and replace it with good. Nonetheless, it is not cut and dry!
As we get older we begin to get more and more influences that totally change our reflective conversations. The initial place is kindergarten. This is where we get a new adult, and many more kids who all have been working on their bathroom mirror stories. We learn how other children can be mean and spiteful, and how additional adults can like someone better than you. At home, I was the star of that show. There I could do wrong, but at school, I was treated differently and someone else got to be the star.
So, did this change my bathroom mirror conversation? You bet it did! I was no longer spending as much time on how the world was peachy and bright. I was asking: “Why does she like him more than me?“, “How come Betty doesn’t like me, I like her?“, “Why is Herbie always hitting me?“. Then it moves to statements like: “I am going to tell Herbie to stop hitting me.” ” I am going make Betty like me” or “Going to ask my teacher why she likes him better than me.” and then we move to: “If Herbie hits me one more time I am going to flatten him”, I don’t care if Betty doesn’t like me she is such a witch” and “My teacher is a witch and I am going to put a tack on her chair”, and as we get older the witch turns to bitch and the tack turns into something much more harmful.
These are just simple examples of very complex situations. I was able to remain sane in my adolescent years because my bathroom mirror saved me from my father and the negative noise he and the world were throwing at me. And this leads me to the demons that exist in others who try to bring everyone around them down into their darkness. They need some company that they can manipulate and control. I was the perfect person to be controlled by others. I had no protectors. Only the people that were controlled by the person that should have been my protector.
