Stephen, Author at BDD SUCKS

Mirror Checking, Hiding and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

October 11, 2012 By Stephen

I can’t seem to stop myself, last night I woke up at 3 am and turned on the bathroom light.

This is an activity assured to bring great distress.

But I did it anyway even thought I knew deep down I shouldn’t have.

There it was, the scar. It looked horrible at this time of night. With the hard overhead light it further revealed all the details, and I picked up on each of them.

Yesterday at work a colleague (a surgeon) couldn’t help himself from commenting on my new scar.

I don’t blame him. I think doctors are just this way, especially surgeons.

Many of us in the health care field are perfectionists.

And when my colleagues comment on my scar it is not because they want to hurt me, but their super-analysis always does.

Last night was no different. I was doing fine before his comments and analysis. Afterwards all I could do was eye the cars in the other lane on my drive home. With a blank stare, I felt rather hopeless.

The Power of Talk

Thank God I have my wife, who was there to listen to me debrief upon returning home.

I can’t imagine not having her there, and if I didn’t have somebody to talk to about this I don’t know where I would be.

But expressing my concerns to her makes me feel like a million bucks (OK not a million but at least better).

Even after last nights 3 am mirror check and that sinking feeling of hopelessness that followed, this morning when I awoke, I felt much more positive.

When You Can’t Hide

All I really want to do is hide for a couple weeks and see if my scar will get better, lose some color and I can devise a plan to deal with it. In reality I just want laser surgery, which may or may not be a good idea, but I have to wait at least a year. For me and my BDD this seems an eternity. I am trying to devise a plan to make it through this year.

I have to be a good dad and husband, and I have to be there for my patient’s.

To top it off I am headed out tomorrow on a trip to Haiti to provide free health care.

Hard to believe this is what I am thinking about as I near my trip, the way people will look at my face. Meeting the team and a good friend I have not seen for 7 years, with this scar and my face petrifies me.

But I can’t hide, I just can’t although really this is what I want the most.

Assessing The Cost of Appearance Concerns and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

October 9, 2012 By Stephen

This is my first exercise from Feeling Good about the Way You Look: A Program for Overcoming Body Image Problems. Kindle location 1109 at 24%.

What is My Poor Body Image Costing Me?

Having struggled with poor body image for quite some time I have adjusted life to accommodate my problems. I was no longer aware of the huge toll my problems have taken on my life. Here is my list of disadvantages of being obsessed with my appearance. I will use these to help motivate me to make change.

Dissatisfaction
Shame/embarrassment
Guilt
Anxiety
Concern that my children will become preoccupied with appearance
Loneliness/isolation
Jealousy of better looking people
Self hate
Disgust
Anger
Fear of rejection of abandonment
Fear of being ridiculed
Avoidance of intimate relationships
Stress on relationships due to avoidance behaviors or comparing
Making excuses or lying about the problem
Not being fully present at work because of appearance concerns
Being late because of rituals
Avoidance of body focused activities (swimming, gym, sun)
Refusing overnight trips
Avoidance of social activities
Feeling horrible in certain clothes
Avoidance of getting your picture taken
Avoidance of mirrors
Avoidance of being seen from certain angles
Avoidance of certain tasks (for example, sitting near a window or under bright lights)
Time for rituals (mirror checking, comparing, shopping appearance fixing)
Accidents due to mirror checking
Alcohol or drugs to cope with preoccupation
Cost of beauty products suck as skin creams and soaps

Questions to Ask Yourself if You are Losing Motivation

Do I want to change? Yes
Do I want to stop being so obsessed with my looks? Yes
Do I want to stop comparing? Yes
Am I tired of being scared by mirrors? Yes

Anxiety and Fear – Overcoming Agoraphobia and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

October 6, 2012 By Stephen

It has been a while since I have been out with a group of people that I did not know well.

This has been out of fear mostly, my belief that my facial deformity would be too distracting for others to accept has kept me home-bound.

Most of this is because of a scar to my face, a recent injury that I sustained while surfing. It ended in 8 stitches and a pretty significant scar on my left cheek. At least it was significant to me.

As I have mentioned before I have had BDD since I was probably 15 or 16. I had learned to control it, but this incident sent me overboard.

All my facial concerns landed on me like a ton of bricks. And until today this is where I sat, buried under the weight of it all, short of breath, wishing for my life back.

JUMPING IN

Until today I had worn a band-aid over the scar. People at work I could tell were wondering why I still wore this band-aid after several weeks. I told them it was still healing, of course they didn’t know it was my mind I was really talking about.

This made things only worse and over the last week more and more people started to ask me about scar and if they could see it.

I hid behind this band-aid, but unlike other scars or wounds people seemed to feel they had a right to ask me to remove my cover.

Strange I thought, I surely wouldn’t ask this of another person. But then again nobody knows what goes on in my mind.

DISROBING

So today I took it off. My family told me not too, even my wife felt I may not be ready, but I did it anyway. It caused me such anxiety that I found myself in a cold sweat.

But I knew that as long as I hid behind the band-aid I made it worse. I drew more attention to the imperfection.

The problem is that when it was covered I could deal. When I looked in the mirror and did my checks there was one more step to see the blemish. Just the action of having to remove the band-aid stopped my compulsion to look. So in this sense it was a protection.

But, it also prevented me from overcoming my worst fear. And that was the fear of people having to see me with this scar. Watching their eyes draw to it. Knowing that it existed was enough, knowing that others knew it existed was more than I could bear.

THE DELUSION

Immediately when I entered the room I expected people to gasp, but they didn’t. They hardly even noticed. I looked for their reaction all night, when the lights came on I actually went into where I knew it was the worst, I looked for their reaction, but it was non-existent.

Is my mind playing tricks on me or are these people just really to kind to say anything? I sit with this question tonight. And to be honest I am still not quite sure about the answer, or maybe I am too afraid to know the truth.

But at least I did it. I tested it and you know what I survived!

Some Tips

The mind will try to prove both the delusion as well as the reality. The only way to understand the difference is to test your theories of what is real. The problem with BDD is that it is hard to know what is real, to know if your thoughts are warranted or just a figment of your imagination. For me this night taught me something: that it is possible the images I hold in my mind are not real.
You have to get out into the world. The fear at times is overwhelming for me. But had I not gone out I would never have had this brief, yet important moment of healing. The delusions in my head would continue their loop.
Put yourself in fears way, it is the only way to heal, regardless of what you may think.

How Family Can Help – Body Dysmorphic Disorder – A Letter From My Wife

October 5, 2012 By Stephen

I will wait for you. I love you. Right now you are on a journey that only you can traverse. I want to be your partner in this and try as I may.

I will always be doing the wrong thing most of the time. This doesn’t mean I’ll give up. It means I will do my best to let you go so you can come back, because you are worth waiting for. I look into your eyes and I hurt for you and want to find you. Somewhere you are still there whether you believe it or not.

We will wait for you to come back from the depths and grips of the trench you are in. We will love all of you, yes even your face and your scar. To me it’s just a mark showing the love of life you have, the love of the ocean, the love of peace surfing can bring you.

It hurts to know that something you loved so much, something that sometimes was the only solace in your life could scar you for life; inside and out.

Don’t let it do that to you. Sometimes best friends fight and it does leave a scar. We are always stronger once we come up for air from the depths of despair, for that is life. Your mental illness does not have to define you or chain you down.

I truly believe God loves you and is crying for you. You are my partner, lover, friend, father to my children and my other soul I need to enjoy the rest of my life with.

Yes, I know sometimes you feel I’d be better off without you, and yes sometimes I have felt the same in my depths of depression. But believe me, I would not. A giant hole will be left there, unable to fill but only to put a band-aid over each day.

You hurt, I hurt, but I know you can be happy again.

I will wait for you. I love you and all of you.

Your loving wife and partner for eternity,

Wendy

Hiding Places – The Shame of Body Dysmorphic Disorder

October 5, 2012 By Stephen

In My Room

There were several bathrooms on my college campus that I would frequent the most.

I preferred the handicap restrooms as I could lock the door. In here I could fuel my compulsion without the fear of others noticing.

I remember walking out of the bathroom, and within seconds returning, to deconstruct my face again. Only when I was looking closely at my imperfections and hating on myself, was I free. It is bizarre, maybe it became like cutting in a way. In the pain I could feel something, even if it was the feeling of losing my mind.

With each new class I would find a corresponding place on campus to indulge this compulsion. These compulsions would reveal themselves from time to time in my art and in my music. I remember taking an an intro to drawinng class in college, I drew a large black and white charcoal image of an anorexic woman. I got an A+. My only A+.

Although I never particularly understood what it was about this work my teacher liked so much, it is obvious to me now. The best art is an expression of our soul, and this one was honest, possibly my first truly honest piece of work.