Mental Health Body Dysmorphic Disorder(BDD)

[Retrodat]

^^ I don't see that as mocking the disorder, and many people use drugs that can effectively cover up problems or numb them for a short period of time.

The OP said this -
Is anyone here currently struggling with, think they have, or has overcome this?

Just because you may think you have it 'worse' doesn't mean you shouldn't show empathy to someone coming in here with their concerns.

you're right i was just bugging

 

[Stoned Immaculate]

I left the house yesterday for the first time in a week. I went to the mall to look for an outfit for an upcoming rave(a friend finally convinced me to go, I haven't raved since new years, I feel because of my increasing BDD), I should've known as soon as I walked through the doors that things were just going to go downhill from there. I went to a few stores and while at the last store of my trip, I could feel the anxiety welling up inside of me very much like the tears were welling up in my eyes. Everything I found wasn't right. The vision of what I want to look like in my head never ever translates to real life. Dressing rooms should come with a warning label because it seems every time I'm in one, any tiny piece of confidence I ever had in myself is completely demolished there. As a result, I left the mall in tears.

Today, I feel just like I expected to. I can't even stand the sight of myself in a mirror. I'm so disgusting it makes me want to be sick. I will not be attending the rave now, because no one should have to look at how repulsive I am after paying for a fun night out.

 

[opiateslut]

---

 

[versd]

I left the house yesterday for the first time in a week. I went to the mall to look for an outfit for an upcoming rave(a friend finally convinced me to go, I haven't raved since new years, I feel because of my increasing BDD), I should've known as soon as I walked through the doors that things were just going to go downhill from there. I went to a few stores and while at the last store of my trip, I could feel the anxiety welling up inside of me very much like the tears were welling up in my eyes. Everything I found wasn't right. The vision of what I want to look like in my head never ever translates to real life. Dressing rooms should come with a warning label because it seems every time I'm in one, any tiny piece of confidence I ever had in myself is completely demolished there. As a result, I left the mall in tears.

Today, I feel just like I expected to. I can't even stand the sight of myself in a mirror. I'm so disgusting it makes me want to be sick. I will not be attending the rave now, because no one should have to look at how repulsive I am after paying for a fun night out.

Im so sorry to hear your story. i can relate to another viewpoint of your situation, a close friend of mine goes through the exact same feelings when she is planning to go an event like a rave. she loves going out and having fun, clubbing and big events, but almost every time she gets terribly anxious beforehand and sometimes decides not to go because she can't find the right outfit that she herself thinks she looks ok in.

while everyone around her including myself just see a stunningly beautiful woman who would look good no matter what she wore. so it is also a struggle to cope with someone with BDD, as it so blatantly defies any outsiders common sense.

 

[n3ophy7e]

bro what are u talking about. you're like mocking the disorder. You either have it or your don't. It ruins lives, people on the verge of suicide, weed aint gonna do shit. what are u talking about???

I appreciate your opinion but you need to understand that with mental illnesses/disorders there can be varying degrees of symptoms, and that even though someone might not yet be diagnosed they could still be suffering with the effects of the illness. And also, everyone deals with their problems in different ways. Weed might work well for this particular person, and might make it a whole lot worse for other people.
Try not to be so judgemental in sensitive threads like this


Stoned Immaculate I am so sorry to hear you're struggling so much at the moment. I can imagine it would be like hell having to deal with that type of anxiety in a big public situation. Have you ever seen a therapist about this? How long has it been going on for? It sounds like it might be getting worse as well, and these kinds of problems are not fun at all. Do you think you might seek some help sometime soon?
Take care hun

 

[Dave]

SI-- I used to absolutely HATE clothes shopping, both because of BDD as well as social anxiety. Hell, I still do to an extent; the social anxiety is all but gone, but the BDD is still lurking around.

The worst for me was when I had enrolled at a local community college in a university transfer program. Long story about that-- short version is that working full-time while trying to maintain a decent average in an honours degree program in a field in which I had lost all interest was much harder than I thought. Anyway, this CC was my ticket back into university. There was a lot of pressure on me to succeed, which raised my already high anxiety level through the roof.

The day before classes started, I head over to the campus to buy books and any lab gear that I needed; my old lab coat was ratty and I needed a new pair of safety glasses. I get in to the bookstore, and it is not only packed, but packed with (mostly) highly attractive 18 and 19-year-olds (I was 23 at the time) who I was later to find out made up 99% of the population of the college. At the time I was pretty well at my heaviest, and my BDD focus was at the worst it has ever been. It looked like every single person there was staring at my focus, and thought me a freak (heh, I'm sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that I was a 6' 2" terrified-looking sweaty guy dressed in an oversized raver t-shirt, 36" cuff phat pants and with blown out spiky/curly hair). I didn't even make it 6 feet into the store. I turned tail, and all but ran out of there, back to my car, and just drove away. It took me about 10 minutes to 'snap to' and realized that I had no clue where I was going, at which point I pulled over and had a good cry. Then went home, cleaned up, and took some things to put me to sleep for the night. It was maybe 2:30 in the afternoon.

While I've never had a reaction that bad since, still to this day I think that I catch people checking out my focus and my anxiety level spikes. Much as I loathe the idea, with each passing year the thought of surgery becomes more and more attractive. If for no other reason than to treat the physical source of the obsession and hope that it doesn't shift to something else.

 

[Retrodat]

I appreciate your opinion but you need to understand that with mental illnesses/disorders there can be varying degrees of symptoms, and that even though someone might not yet be diagnosed they could still be suffering with the effects of the illness. And also, everyone deals with their problems in different ways. Weed might work well for this particular person, and might make it a whole lot worse for other people.
Try not to be so judgemental in sensitive threads like this

You're right. Next time im gonna think things through before posting,

 

[Stoned Immaculate]

Im so sorry to hear your story. i can relate to another viewpoint of your situation, a close friend of mine goes through the exact same feelings when she is planning to go an event like a rave. she loves going out and having fun, clubbing and big events, but almost every time she gets terribly anxious beforehand and sometimes decides not to go because she can't find the right outfit that she herself thinks she looks ok in.

while everyone around her including myself just see a stunningly beautiful woman who would look good no matter what she wore. so it is also a struggle to cope with someone with BDD, as it so blatantly defies any outsiders common sense.

I'm sure its hard for friends to deal with. As I have personally seen, it can take a toll and destroy friendships, which I believe is what contributed to alot of my failed friendships. All you can do is support your friend. As someone who is feeling this way, it's not that we don't believe what our friends say to us when they tell us nothing is wrong, it's just hard to really hear it when you have a war raging on the inside drowning out everything else.

 

[Stoned Immaculate]

I appreciate your opinion but you need to understand that with mental illnesses/disorders there can be varying degrees of symptoms, and that even though someone might not yet be diagnosed they could still be suffering with the effects of the illness. And also, everyone deals with their problems in different ways. Weed might work well for this particular person, and might make it a whole lot worse for other people.
Try not to be so judgemental in sensitive threads like this


Stoned Immaculate I am so sorry to hear you're struggling so much at the moment. I can imagine it would be like hell having to deal with that type of anxiety in a big public situation. Have you ever seen a therapist about this? How long has it been going on for? It sounds like it might be getting worse as well, and these kinds of problems are not fun at all. Do you think you might seek some help sometime soon?
Take care hun

I used to be in therapy a few years ago, and while we did touch on my body issues, I was being treated only for depression. I have not officially been diagnosed with BDD, but after doing more research on the disease, I feel I 100% have it. From the common symptoms to the compulsive habits. I remember feeling like this for as long as I can remember, my mom tells me I've pretty much acted this way since 6 years old. I do feel it is getting worse. In the last year, I have pushed all friends out of my life and have completely isolated myself. I don't feel like its normal for a 20 year old girl to be perfectly alright with spending day in and day out in her bedroom. I would like to seek help, but don't have any sort of insurance or income. No one in my family is able to help. I'm feeling like I'm stuck right now...

 

[Stoned Immaculate]

SI-- I used to absolutely HATE clothes shopping, both because of BDD as well as social anxiety. Hell, I still do to an extent; the social anxiety is all but gone, but the BDD is still lurking around.

The worst for me was when I had enrolled at a local community college in a university transfer program. Long story about that-- short version is that working full-time while trying to maintain a decent average in an honours degree program in a field in which I had lost all interest was much harder than I thought. Anyway, this CC was my ticket back into university. There was a lot of pressure on me to succeed, which raised my already high anxiety level through the roof.

The day before classes started, I head over to the campus to buy books and any lab gear that I needed; my old lab coat was ratty and I needed a new pair of safety glasses. I get in to the bookstore, and it is not only packed, but packed with (mostly) highly attractive 18 and 19-year-olds (I was 23 at the time) who I was later to find out made up 99% of the population of the college. At the time I was pretty well at my heaviest, and my BDD focus was at the worst it has ever been. It looked like every single person there was staring at my focus, and thought me a freak (heh, I'm sure that it had nothing to do with the fact that I was a 6' 2" terrified-looking sweaty guy dressed in an oversized raver t-shirt, 36" cuff phat pants and with blown out spiky/curly hair). I didn't even make it 6 feet into the store. I turned tail, and all but ran out of there, back to my car, and just drove away. It took me about 10 minutes to 'snap to' and realized that I had no clue where I was going, at which point I pulled over and had a good cry. Then went home, cleaned up, and took some things to put me to sleep for the night. It was maybe 2:30 in the afternoon.

While I've never had a reaction that bad since, still to this day I think that I catch people checking out my focus and my anxiety level spikes. Much as I loathe the idea, with each passing year the thought of surgery becomes more and more attractive. If for no other reason than to treat the physical source of the obsession and hope that it doesn't shift to something else.

I'm really sorry you had to go through that Dave. I know what you mean when you say you're anxiety level spikes when it looks like people see your focus. I feel the same. I know they see what I see and I feel the look ont heir face is almost mocking me. Does that sound crazy?? Surgery sounds better with every moment. My mom tells me that I could get a billion surgeries and I still wouldn't be satisfied, but I feel this is untrue. I know these things can be improved, I just know they can. I'm not looking for perfect, I'm just looking for normal.

 

[StigmaShadow]

Wow, BDD sounds more like myself, put I think I suffer through depression for a completely different reason as well, besides my physique. And I'm not overweight at all...
I recently started taking Prozac 20mg daily, and really haven't noticed a difference in my mood/thought (BDD-related). What else will they RX me for a mood disorder such as BDD? I believe someone said Zoloft, but doesn't BDD sound more like an anxiety disorder? Would they write you benzos for something like BDD?

 

[Dave]

Anxiety disorders and depression don't often respond well to medication. For those that it works for, it works well, but for everyone else it doesn't. YMMV. Something like BDD aught not to be medicated, but rather treated.

 

[belfort]

^^ive always wondered this, you take someone with mild BDD issuesalready and just say they suffer from nasty burns on their face..obviously their face is now disfigured and now they are completely BDD...their scars arent going anywhere so how would a therpist possibly treat a person like this??

 

[Dave]

That's a bit different. BDD is thinking that an aspect of one's body which appears to most people as being normal or nearly normal is in fact deformed, blemished, ugly or what not. With facial burns there is no disconnect with what other people see; everyone sees a burnt face. I'm no clinician, but I'd say that the bulk of the therapy would be spent in getting past the trauma which involved the burn itself. Perhaps involving medication, perhaps not.

 

[Perpetual Indulgence]

My therapist suggested reading The Broken Mirror by Dr. Katharine Phillips when I was being treated for long standing binge eating disorder a few years ago. After reading it, I knew that I didn't have BDD but had some traits. Those poor people. I felt like my issues were nothing in comparison.

 

[Roger&Me]

Have you read the DSM IV before?

The DSM is a clinician's manual aimed at practical application, to help physicians classify people according to their behavioral abnormalities under the assumption that similar behaviors will be modified with similar drugs. That's all. It's a clinician's tool like a scalpel, that can either help or harm depending on how skilfully it is utilized.

Its not a scientific or reference text! It doesn't claim to be, ever. The disorders in the DSM have not been classified empirically, they are voted into the manual by committee based upon what APA members think might be useful in clinical practice.

IMO the DSM should be your doctor's territory. Reading that thing can make your problem worse, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just like you wouldn't do surgery on yourself, don't go using the DSM on yourself either.

 

[Dopamine_Cowboy]

^I agree completely.

 

[Jester-Race]

I thought I should let everyone know my big secret, I was diagnosed with eczema skin for quite some time in my life (not going into details) and my BDD literally had changed me as a person. I have had some skin disorders.

I'll never forget the times I used to just stay in a single place for so long the room would get very bright from not wanting to focus, I would sleep constantly and look at myself for hours in different mirrored lights, and such bad depression my body wouldn't work. Its taken almost 23 years to even gain enough self confidence in others to allow myself to be open, because ive only ever been hurt.

BDD is something I will always live with, regardless of what happens I've learned to accept the behaviors which mimic the likes of OCD. I've probably spent more time in the bathroom than most women.

*proud of it*

Oh, and by the way, Body Dysmorphic Disorder has caused so much grief in my life and in my mind its made me forevermore clinically depressed. Almost all day every day still having to put up with the anxiety of knowing the responses to human interaction that happen based upon an exciting number of components during that first scene. Each time something happens in this sea of chaos having those intense thoughts and expectations go south your entire self is literally changed because of self-made scenarios of what MAY happen or what WOULD happen or what you think WILL happen, probably wont happen though. The fact that this is how BDD works, at least to me on a daily basis. I think about this 24/7 and my world revolves around my disorder.....because even though I don't have many skin problems anymore after thousands of dollars of spent money on random bullshit, but because this was a big part of me for a very long time.



thanks for reading.

 

[Asclepius]

^jester, thanks for sharin that. Wouldnt it be cool if everyone with this could just get together and talk openly about it. Depression/Anxiety go hand in hand with image disorders alright. Did you get any therapy at all hun?



I remember being 7-8 and staring at myself in the mirror with an open magazine featuring a pic of Paulina Poriskova(80's Supermodel), comparing my features to hers...thinking 'I might grow up to look like her. This became a frequent endevour, my family used to mock about how vain I was(if only they knew).

I always felt akward, misshapen and cumbersome. I hated photos of myself and as a kid tore up photos of me from the family album. To sum it up, I thought I looked like a boy, in girls clothes-I felt like a laughing stock.
Alot of physical/emotional abuse started around the time I turned 8. I was never beaten badly but thumped, hair pulling screamed at. I was a very quiet kid. I was constantly being told/screamed how selfish I was. I had no motivation for anything and my mother couldnt stand that. She was afukin controlling psycho and my Dad was a weak man always putting her first. All she wanted to do was make me 'look nice'. I was afraid most of the time, especially when I heard her stomping about the place. It was hell.

When puberty hit(early) 9yrs, I despaired, I really thought that I was a freak of nature, feeling I wanted to cut my developing parts off. Anxiety got worse and I would wear 2 pairs of swimsuits, tapered at each side with safety pins to make me look flat chested, I also started to fast at this stage. I would go one or two days of the week without eating. I still stared in the , mirror frequently, imagining that I could will myself to look different..look like someone else. At school I spent most of my time daydreaming(it was mainly boring) and I started imagining a parallel life where I was someone else more frequently.
In secondary school I wore my hair down over my face(which only drew attention to my oddness) my personality was strong but I wasnt authentic, I was constantly trying to people please, work people out, strategise, make up stories about my imaginary social life and and make friends, instead of just being a kid. Alot of my early years there were a few kids who made snide comments about how I looked, and I asorbed them and couldnt forget them.

I had NO male realtionships-at all-till I was 17 and could get drunk enough to be uninhibited.
I started to cut my mouth in order to alter the shape of it(I know crazy) I was obsessed with trying to control my most hated feature. I was in despair about how I looked, it seemed to be the cause of all my problems, as I saw it.
After drugs and drink helped numb my self-hatred. School suffered as I cheated on everything as it took up most of my time devising ways to cheat and gave me some sense of control.

Cutting, burning, sleeping pills, staring in the mirror with two others set up at the side to scrutinise my flaws. Drawing peoples faces, hoping someday I could get surgery to look like them. It was like a constant, obsessional project. Icould function with my ability to imagine myself looking like someone else while in public but could only carry this off for small periods.
I over ate from14(probably way before but it became far more noticable then), also constantly drinking bloated me terribly. I gave up on my futile effort to try and control my looks, I came to the realisation that if I lost weight it would take the focus away from my face and also alter my face shape(again delusional thinking). I developed anorexia/bulemia. I hated my face even more because I looked so gaunt and my features were too sharp.
god im depressing myself now.
I missed out on SO much because of all this shit.
I just try and ignore my image obsession tendencies now. I dont think I will ever be one of those women who can go out and accept how they look. I still put off meeting people because I cant handle them judging my looks, its an strong voice but I beat it now, much better than before.
Funnily developing an eating disorder kinda distracted from the attention I put on my face. I gave up on that! lol
Im still afraid of being around mildly pretty women because I will look terrible beside them.(I hate yself for being that way but I know this is a sickness).
I focus on my character. its all I can work with. I also keep my mind busy because If I float into the image obsession It will crush me-that part of me is dead. She couldnt survive.
I cant afford to feel too sorry for myself because of this, it is crazy and destroys any quality of life so Im tryin to work at bein useful in this life any way I can. Im lucky in a sense that I know Im fucked up and know I can fight it.
rant/sorry this is so fukin long.
My worst fear, will I pass this shit on to kids?...
very self indulgent but its good to get it out here, I dont like dwelling on it much anymore, but comforting to know there are others in a similar boat.

 

[n3ophy7e]

Jester and Asclepius, thank you both so much for sharing your stories