BDD SUCKS

Overcoming Body Dysmorphic Disorder - My Story of Living With BDD

"It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see."
~ Henry David Thoreau

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This is the Story of My Life Living With Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Archives for July 2014

Scars are permanent and (Sometimes) People Suck

By

After last years meet up between surfboard and face life has not been the same.

I haven’t left the house without some amount of anxiety for over 18 months.

Things were getting better until out of the blue this mysterious red, round irregular lesion appeared on my nose.

I reluctantly made an appointment with the dermatologist because I knew it was the right thing to do.

He told me it needed to be biopsied to make sure it wasn’t cancerous, so I agreed because he assured me that this would just be a “little scrape” off my nose, no big deal.

3 months later I am left with a dime size red, depressed scar on the tip of my nose.

I can hardly put into words just how much this one-two punch of the facial laceration, followed by this new scar has affected me.

I am back out doing the things I love but I have definitely cut myself off from many things because I can’t bear the anxiety I feel when I am out and about.

I scan everyone’s faces not to see if they are trustworthy, but to see if they have scars.

I want to meet someone who may know what I am going through. Know that it is possible to have these things happen and get over it.

The good news, and the hope that I have right now, stems from the fact that we are leaving the country in 10 days for the rest of the year.

Both my wife and I have quit our jobs, and we will be traveling with our kids.

This is as much about experiencing life as it is about getting some perspective on it.

I find when I am zeroed in and trapped in a loop of self loathing or depression I need to get out the proverbial paddles.

I couldn’t think of a greater way to shock myself out of this than to just go… anywhere.

I am lucky to have a family who is equally as supportive.

Also, while doing research on volunteer opportunities abroad I came across a volunteer center that helps kids with facial deformities.

It is in Bali Indonesia, the second stop on our trip.

I was thinking I might volunteer there, when you see people making it day to day with truly horrific facial afflictions it makes one realize that ones situation is not really that bad.

I have so much anger that I am holding onto against the dermatologist who cut my nose.

I also hold onto anger against the ER PA who before suturing my face made the comment “oh he is a medical provider (speaking about me) I hope he isn’t a complainer”.. Excuse my french, but what a bitch.

Anyway, it is neither here nor there, it is in the past.

One last note.

I attended a lecture on Buddhism this week, it is part of a world religions course my wife is taking through the church.

Having all this anger inside me against the nature of things I found the way the Buddhists approach life to be refreshing.

Basically life is a big bundle of suffering, even in joy there is suffering because the joy will end.

We can find peace by identifying with the changing nature of things, and when we understand that everything is impermanent we can find peace.

Our looks are impermanent.

Our loved ones are impermanent.

And of utmost important we are impermanent.

So really worry is a huge waste of time!

So why can’t I let it go?

A Book That Will Change Your Life and Help You Overcome Your BDD

By

Hap-Trap-Front-Cover-300dpi-2Sept10Maybe you are like me.

You are on your 100’th self-help book and you are sure this one is the one that is going to make the difference.

You have once again been sold a bill of goods that you control your thoughts, and that the way to beat depression or to overcome your BDD is to simply change your thoughts.

News Flash, You Cannot Control Your Thoughts!

This was news to me.

I can control many things in my life:

  • I can control what clothes I put on in the morning
  • I can control what I put in my mouth each day
  • I can control my exercise routine
  • I can control my children (NOT!)

Commonplace notions of happiness are misleading, inaccurate, and can actually make you miserable.

For example, positive thinking often does NOT work — and research shows that positive affirmations make many people feel worse!

WTF!

[easyazon_link identifier=”B004TGFE3O” locale=”US” tag=”4hourlife00-20″]The happiness trap[/easyazon_link] is based on (for me at least) a new type of training.

We all like to feel good, but desperately trying to avoid painful feelings dooms us to failure.

The author describes four myths that make up the happiness trap:

Four Myths:

Myth 1: Happiness is the natural state for human beings – Our culture insists that humans are naturally happy. Yet, the scary statistics regarding mental illness (1 in 10  has clinical depression, 1 in 5 is depressed at some time, 1 in 4 has or has had an addiction, 30 percent of the adult population has a recognized psychological disorder and of all those people you know almost half of these will seriously contemplate suicide at some point… and 1 in 10 will actually attempt it) tell another story.

Myth 2: If you’re not happy your defective – Our society tends to assume that psychological suffering is abnormal: a sign of a weakness or illness and a mind that is Faulty or defective.

Myth 3: To create a better life, we must get rid of negative feelings – The current trend of a “feel-good” society tells us to ELIMINATE negative feelings and ACCUMULATE the “positive.”

Myth 4: You should be able to control what you think and feel – Many current self-help programs subscribe to this myth by REPLACING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS WITH POSITIVE ONES.

These 4 basic thoughts set us up for a battle we can never win.

Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT)

Act is based on two main principles:

  1. Mindfulness
  2. Values

1. Mindfulness is a special mental state of AWARENESS and OPENNESS. Mindfulness involves three skills.

  1. Skill 1: Diffusion – When you learn to defuse painful and unpleasant thoughts, self-limiting belief s and self-criticism, they have less influence on you.
  2. Skill 2: Expansion – This means making room for painful thoughts and feelings and allowing them to flow through you, without getting swept away by them.
  3. Skill 3: Connection – This means living fully in the present instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

2. Values are your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being; what you want to STAND FOR in life.

  • In ACT, you use values to give life MEANING, PURPOSE, and DIRECTION.
  • You translate values into COMMITTED ACTION: you do what really matters to you.

Why this book helps with Body Dysmorphic Disorder

You may be asking what this all has to do with overcoming BDD.

I certainly didn’t buy this book with this goal in mind, I heard about it in passing and was lucky enough to download a copy.

BDD is all about fantasies and fairytales that have developed in our mind.

These fairytales can be based on expectations we may have or stories that we have made up about ourselves.

For me they are about the way I look and the way people perceive me.

They are stories of how these perceptions of others will affect the outcome of my life.

They hold me back, they stop me from pursuing a rich and meaningful life, they hurt my wife and children.

They are useless.

As hard as I have tried to put them aside I cannot, the thoughts are here to stay.

This book is teaching me how these thoughts, these “fairytales” are simply stories. They hold no real truth, they are simply made up fairy tales, and how to diffuse these hurtful stories is the key to understanding and overcoming BDD.

And for that reason this may be the very best book ever written on the subject.

Even though it was never meant to be.

The Happiness Trap

You can download and read the book [easyazon_link asin=”1590305841″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”4hourlife00-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT[/easyazon_link] or check out the author’s website. I have also recently purchased the [easyazon_link asin=”1611801575″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”4hourlife00-20″ add_to_cart=”default” cloaking=”default” localization=”default” popups=”default”]The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living[/easyazon_link] and I really like it. The cartoons are a great summary of the book and I plan on sharing it with my children.