"Reflections" by Jasmine (Poem and Art)

Poem:
I don't look at mirrors anymore.Not because I don't want to clean it Or because I forget toIt's because when I do I get this gut wrenching feeling, because I don't know if who's staring back at me, is really me. I don't know if who I'm seeing in the mirror is who's staring back.

So I avoid the mirror or any reflective object, I don't want to see it, because sometimes I know it's not who I think it is, and it scares me. It makes me feel physically disturbed and sick.Sometimes it's hard to differentiate who's thinking, moving or who's watching tv, I say watching tv because I know that's not an activity that I frequently do. I don't watch tv because of my attention span, I'm never able to get past the first 15 seconds, but younger me could. so who's watching tv?I don't have interest in religion, I never liked going to church, it made me uncomfortable. yet I research about rituals, god, and satan with bad intention. Who's really researching it?

There's times where I'm not sure who I am.Usually during alarming or unexpected uneasy events is when I start to feel it. Start to lose my power, my control. As if I'm stepping back, and someone else is stepping forward. they stand in the light for a while before deciding to let me step upfront again when the issue is lightened, and they then step back, switching places every now and then.

It's not only me who avoids the mirror, it's everyone else who can step forward. They don't like it either, because they know that they are in a body that is not actually theirs, that they are just a person in my mind that a mirror can't reflect upon. it sets as a reminder that the person who is standing in front of the mirror Is only me.Standing alone in the mirror.


Description of the art and poem:
This artwork and poem represents the disorder of having OSDD/DID. In the poem, it talks about how unsure you can be of who you are and how it causes identity problems which can feel uncomfortable, and cause confusion and conflict.In the artwork it depicts in the middle mirror a visual representation of present me, drawn in with marker which I regularly use in present drawings. on the left shows a younger child-like version of me, with colored in with colored pencils as which a child would use, and also the one who was “watching tv”. on the right side, another person/alter with dark coloring is shown to represent his bad intentions and was the one researching about religion. This artwork correlates with the experience it is to look in the mirror and how it’d be to see the alters people with OSDD/DID deal with, and the difficulty of not being able to physically see them. It shows how it feels to look in the mirror and see the reflection of every person/alter all in an upset state because of the situation and realizing that it’s all in your head, with only you really being in the mirror alone.