B.D.D subject (body dysmorphia)
- Thread starter Anonymous
- Start date
Graeme1988
Hie yer hence from me heath!
Ah've been struggling with this since my mid-to-late teen years. Still do, sadly... :sad:
Kenny1973
Active member
Hi,yes, i do think that being told your ugly/bullied can lead to you developing BDD. I experienced all of that at High School and it led to me developing severe SA, and according to some, BDD. I view myself as being hideous, a few people have said that i look "normal" just don't see it though.
grapevine
Well-known member
Been really. Really struggling with this the last three months. Right now it's making me definitely not want to go to work and on Tuesday in going to demand a doctors certificate for a week off or two because I am just horrified everytime I look in the mirror and it's so distressing and painful. When you want to be around people but you don't want to be seen because you look hideous.
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planemo
Well-known member
I think pretty much in all cases of bdd the problem is how we react to our imperfections. I'm pretty certain we don't even focus on others' imperfections, and we certainly won't for example make fun of them because of it. So why do we obsess over ours? Why do we feel one flaw (be it real or imagined) nullifies all the other areas of our face and body that aren't flawed? Why does how we look mean so much, but how others look mean so little? I think trying to answer these questions will help us to overcome our sensitivity of our imperfections. We all say that 'no one is perfect' yet we become upset when we find out we're not really perfect looking. We have to ask 'why?' Is this merely a fear of criticism and a fear of resultant rejection. If so why do we feel the need for universal approval and admiration? If we can get to the bottom of this, I think we can let go of changing our physical flaws. Do we look down on people who are poor or cripple or mentally handicapped? No, of course we don't. So why are we so terrified of being labelled ugly or fat or bald or hairy or short etc?
grapevine
Well-known member
Well i guess my issues flare up when I know I will be around mainly men - who care a whole deep about how women look and judge them on that and have their own version of what they think is attractive to them and see that blindly as universal . Because when I am around those people I feel like I have to ajust my looks to be validated and it gets me deep into bdd.
planemo
Well-known member
I feel very insecure around women for the same reason. However I am actually learning that the truth is a lot different from my pessimistic perception. There are plenty of women who don't require me to look like someone on the cover of Men's Health, to find me attractive. It's actually true, but since it's so ingrained in my thinking to think otherwise, I still think negatively. I know it's the same for men. A lot of men don't feel the need for women to look like a magazine cover model. I know for certain, due to someone working in the publishing field, that those models don't even look like that in real life.
I think you're making the same mistake I make, which is to assume falsely that others will not see you as physically up to standard. If we can change this perception of ourselves I think we can cure bdd. It's not actually how you look that's the problem, but how you feel you look that's the problem.
I think you're making the same mistake I make, which is to assume falsely that others will not see you as physically up to standard. If we can change this perception of ourselves I think we can cure bdd. It's not actually how you look that's the problem, but how you feel you look that's the problem.
grapevine
Well-known member
Everything has been evolving in mind all the time about my body - at first it was hair then face then hair and face again now mainly face and now body and it gets so severe because I seriously can't watch anything with blonde women or girls on Rv or in movies because I have this belief now that it makes a woman valued and worthy of affection that it means your a queen bee or something and I'm a brunette with blonde highlights. Everything stems from my present and history with men (2).
It's getting so out of control right now I see and think everything I don't like about my body and that I have to fix in order for anyone to love me including myself - I don't like being around people also that mention other people's looks as pretty and stuff - it's stupid I'm so sensitive and insecure.
I feel so exhausted and repulsed and above all so insecure of myself that everything around me is a trigger and a hurt - everyone around me confirms my bad image of myself -
I'm sorry for being a long negative but I'm just expressing it.
It's getting so out of control right now I see and think everything I don't like about my body and that I have to fix in order for anyone to love me including myself - I don't like being around people also that mention other people's looks as pretty and stuff - it's stupid I'm so sensitive and insecure.
I feel so exhausted and repulsed and above all so insecure of myself that everything around me is a trigger and a hurt - everyone around me confirms my bad image of myself -
I'm sorry for being a long negative but I'm just expressing it.
planemo
Well-known member
No need to apologize. This is a very difficult thing to deal with, and I know how difficult it is. I hope you don't feel I'm being critical of your feelings since I'm not. What I'm trying to point out, not just to you but to myself as well, is that bdd doesn't get solved or disappears with becoming beautiful. Hence it's not physical but mental. It goes away when your perception of yourself changes, not when your looks change. That's often why people end up going for surgery only to find themselves fixating on whether or not the surgery worked, or fixate on some other part of their body.
Our problem ultimately is our belief that everyone else is perfect and we're not. If we're blonde, blonde is inferior. If we're brunette, then brunette is inferior, etc. In many ways bdd is just a way in which our mind is focused on how others are better than us. In this particular instance it is related to our looks, but for others who weren't teased or bullied about looks, it may be related to something else. They may have been teased or belittled about being poor or not being particularly clever, etc.
My ex therapist always pointed this out to me, that "it's not about how you look, it's about how you feel about yourself". I'm sure if you asked people to judge how you look, they'll say there's no reason for you to feel inferior. So we need to understand why we feel inferior in the first place, and then understand why we are channeling this inferiority into our looks.
Our problem ultimately is our belief that everyone else is perfect and we're not. If we're blonde, blonde is inferior. If we're brunette, then brunette is inferior, etc. In many ways bdd is just a way in which our mind is focused on how others are better than us. In this particular instance it is related to our looks, but for others who weren't teased or bullied about looks, it may be related to something else. They may have been teased or belittled about being poor or not being particularly clever, etc.
My ex therapist always pointed this out to me, that "it's not about how you look, it's about how you feel about yourself". I'm sure if you asked people to judge how you look, they'll say there's no reason for you to feel inferior. So we need to understand why we feel inferior in the first place, and then understand why we are channeling this inferiority into our looks.
Saschasascha
New member
OCD is mostly a neurological brain disorder.
Check out these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TopJw83IgMk&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix2qKwhw7Y0&nohtml5=False
Check out these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TopJw83IgMk&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix2qKwhw7Y0&nohtml5=False
Saschasascha
New member
OCD is mostly a neurological brain disorder.
Check out these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TopJw83IgMk&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix2qKwhw7Y0&nohtml5=False
Check out these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TopJw83IgMk&nohtml5=False
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix2qKwhw7Y0&nohtml5=False
grapevine
Well-known member
These videos are quite comforting to watch ~ thankyou Saschasascha.
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I hate the insecurity and such anxiety and dread and severe distress this illness brings. It really internally hurts because you dont want to go anywhere to be seen - but you also feel so insecure - you want someone to hold you tight and tell you you are okay- and yet also you have loss of hope for any future- unless there is something you think can overcome and change the way you look. And I hate being around the opposite sex like this- its so debilitating for only if I wasnt like this or looked like this etc..
It hurts.
But I have hope. I mean I got over this for years- it was completely downed down- had compulsions but avoided people - well I was a hermit but I had periods of being around people. And last year I was in a balance for once.
I think it can be done again.
Cant help write about myself and these issues - I just want to get it out.
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I hate the insecurity and such anxiety and dread and severe distress this illness brings. It really internally hurts because you dont want to go anywhere to be seen - but you also feel so insecure - you want someone to hold you tight and tell you you are okay- and yet also you have loss of hope for any future- unless there is something you think can overcome and change the way you look. And I hate being around the opposite sex like this- its so debilitating for only if I wasnt like this or looked like this etc..
It hurts.
But I have hope. I mean I got over this for years- it was completely downed down- had compulsions but avoided people - well I was a hermit but I had periods of being around people. And last year I was in a balance for once.
I think it can be done again.
Cant help write about myself and these issues - I just want to get it out.
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grapevine
Well-known member
Found this artical of a woman recovering from BDD- it was a nice read:
http://https://magpiesandladders.com/2014/01/21/lets-talk-body-dysmorphic-disorder-with-emily-kay/
http://https://magpiesandladders.com/2014/01/21/lets-talk-body-dysmorphic-disorder-with-emily-kay/
planemo
Well-known member
I read the article. Again there's nothing wrong with how she looks. The article did say that at a young age her feelings of low self esteem started. I think at the root of most bdd is a very sensitive, childlike figure terrified of being deemed "not good enough", either by ridicule and/or rejection. Perhaps that's our greatest fear... being deemed 'not good enough'. So we obsessively try to attain perfection, not because we desire being physically beautiful, but because we feel anything less than perfection (for us) will mean condemnation into the scrapheap of undesirables/failures. Maybe when we were growing up we developed this false idea that if we don't become perfect, we'll always be unworthy of anything good. I think that that is at the heart of my problem. I don't know how others feel, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same.
grapevine
Well-known member
I agree to that. Def.
But right at this moment Im going on Facebook and what do I see but that guy I had a crush on that is no longer at work- in my news feed continue to post these pictures of women with blonde hair- its like a new woman every week- some model that he has somehow found on tumblr or something- and posting videos like Roxette she's got the look- and love hearts and roses and even including this woman he does not know into his banner with hearts etc..
For me that is such a trigger because he befriended me and I always wanted him to be like that to me- and it was like a length away from it- that is how it felt and yet now I just get this bombardment of a message saying that love is what you look like. And I had that message from the past from an abusive man in my early 20s. Why do I have feelings for this guy that clearly is and actually is psychotic and obsessed with women's looks. It just really really does my head in as someone with bdd. It actually really hurts because in reality he was a nice guy that was down to earth and funny, yet in his head as a woman your a reject for his love unless you look a certain way. He doesnt know what love is. Its not about how someone looks- thats just lust. I just feel like when I am confident and over him, I would like to post things like he does to make him feel insecure. I mean I know its nothing to do with me- but to be so ignorant and in a dream world it hurts to me.
But right at this moment Im going on Facebook and what do I see but that guy I had a crush on that is no longer at work- in my news feed continue to post these pictures of women with blonde hair- its like a new woman every week- some model that he has somehow found on tumblr or something- and posting videos like Roxette she's got the look- and love hearts and roses and even including this woman he does not know into his banner with hearts etc..
For me that is such a trigger because he befriended me and I always wanted him to be like that to me- and it was like a length away from it- that is how it felt and yet now I just get this bombardment of a message saying that love is what you look like. And I had that message from the past from an abusive man in my early 20s. Why do I have feelings for this guy that clearly is and actually is psychotic and obsessed with women's looks. It just really really does my head in as someone with bdd. It actually really hurts because in reality he was a nice guy that was down to earth and funny, yet in his head as a woman your a reject for his love unless you look a certain way. He doesnt know what love is. Its not about how someone looks- thats just lust. I just feel like when I am confident and over him, I would like to post things like he does to make him feel insecure. I mean I know its nothing to do with me- but to be so ignorant and in a dream world it hurts to me.
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planemo
Well-known member
I think you have to let go of him. It's obviously feeding your perception that "I'll only be deemed good enough, if I look drop dead gorgeous". Maybe there are other guys who actually think that you are beautiful and you're missing out on that, because you're fixated with this guy. I think when you're sensitive to rejection one develops this idea that everyone needs to like you. Everyone needs to think highly of you, and if one person doesn't it makes us feel really unworthy. Okay, let's say you don't fit his description of beauty, and thus he isn't into you. But that doesn't mean every man on the planet thinks the same. right?
I got rejected and belittled a lot by people close to me in relation. I then thought that no one would ever like me, but actually looking back, many people of different backgrounds liked me a lot. So I guess one rejection shouldn't make us cut off the potential of someone else accepting us.
I got rejected and belittled a lot by people close to me in relation. I then thought that no one would ever like me, but actually looking back, many people of different backgrounds liked me a lot. So I guess one rejection shouldn't make us cut off the potential of someone else accepting us.
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grapevine
Well-known member
It is what you say it is. I just, I though he liked me. For someone like me to have gone from avoiding men for a very long time and then seemingly going out with one a couple of times and being invited to his place and stuff- and working with him- seeing him most days of the week. It just got very confusing. To be treated almost like a guy, to go through so many changes in my appearance and be the best I had looked in sometime and actually you know make an effort and yet still not be good enough like what happened many years ago with emotional abuse. It just really hurt. And yeah, I just wanted him to like me like that- because he would be very gentleman like and that would make me feel special and kick at my heart strings - and yet later you realise he just does that with everyone, that he is an ill guy with schizophrenia and more concerned with his own heightened world than to even think of me really. I just dont get though why he is friends with me if he just isnt really friends. I just hate that- when your so lonely.
Tonight I showed my mother a little snippet of him that was on fb, some of the videos he posts of himself in the mirror all the time. But it kind of really hurt me when she said - 'what a shame, he is a good looking guy'.. and yeah that hurt me really - she doesnt know a thing about me and my crush or anything. But for her to say that - its like well she never says anything nice about me like that- nobody does, not anymore- and yet to say somehting about him like that - to me means that he is better in the looking stakes to me and so I am below.
It hurt.
Rejection is so hard. I feel everybody sees me in a way that even when I see my best self in the mirror including my persona- that outside is very different.
I mean for 99 percent of my life from age 17 to age 32 or so I have basically, literally been anti-social. I have been basically housebound. And to then come out of that and try to find out who I am in a a sea of people, my identity and how I look to other people - I just think that I feel like I cannot and never have been able to trust what I see in the mirror- when ever I have liked what I see- its always been the opposite to what others see.
And I just hate that I am left out too.
Tonight I showed my mother a little snippet of him that was on fb, some of the videos he posts of himself in the mirror all the time. But it kind of really hurt me when she said - 'what a shame, he is a good looking guy'.. and yeah that hurt me really - she doesnt know a thing about me and my crush or anything. But for her to say that - its like well she never says anything nice about me like that- nobody does, not anymore- and yet to say somehting about him like that - to me means that he is better in the looking stakes to me and so I am below.
It hurt.
Rejection is so hard. I feel everybody sees me in a way that even when I see my best self in the mirror including my persona- that outside is very different.
I mean for 99 percent of my life from age 17 to age 32 or so I have basically, literally been anti-social. I have been basically housebound. And to then come out of that and try to find out who I am in a a sea of people, my identity and how I look to other people - I just think that I feel like I cannot and never have been able to trust what I see in the mirror- when ever I have liked what I see- its always been the opposite to what others see.
And I just hate that I am left out too.
grapevine
Well-known member
etsveteran
Well-known member
My biggest BDD is in relation to thinning and unsymmetrical scalp hair. The above ear area is the worst, even just 3 weeks after a haircut. As is the crown.