BDD Archives - Page 9 of 10

Can God Help You Overcome Body Dysmorphic Disorder?

November 1, 2012 By Stephen

I started going to church again this week.

It has been a while… Certain things happen in life and I am not sure if there is a reason for them or not.

But my recent trip to Haiti landed smack dab in the middle of the worst depression and anxiety I have had over my image concerns in quite some time.

I was extremely excited to fulfill a lifelong dream of providing much needed medical care in a third world country.

The recent facial laceration I sustained sent me over the edge and I had trouble leaving the house, not to mention going to work and seeing my patients.

As I have mentioned before, I started to perform all the same positioning routines, mirror checking and obsessive rituals. I had to place myself for the first time on antidepressants; I started to have suicidal thoughts.

I treat a lot of people with anxiety disorders. My situation may or may not be unique but I am talking about it because I want you to know that even those of us who sit on the other side of the exam room table experience these types of illnesses. Even though I have an awareness of my body dysmorphic disorder it doesn’t mean it is any easier for me to cure it.

Seeking God

On our trip to Haiti we prayed several times every day.

We would pause and take a moment to thank God for things that I normally take for granted:

Things such as good health, access to good food and clean water, a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head, a family that loves me, a chance to receive an educations, a chance to live life with a goal of more than day to day survival.

Taking time to recognize our blessings can have a powerful effect. It makes you ask the most important questions: Where do these blessing come from? And what did I do to deserve them?

When you realize you don’t have an answer to this, you are required to look beyond yourself.

Up to this point in time, at least for the last month all I could think about was how hard my life was now that I had this facial scar. All I could think about was how the world was unfair, how my looks were God’s way of playing a cruel trick on me.

In the face of extreme poverty, starvation, homelessness and despair it became increasingly hard to feel sorry for myself.

It was a reminder of the many blessings I have been given, a chance to stop blaming God and be thankful. Thankful for the little things I take for granted, which in comparison were not so little after all.

What People Say Matters – Can we be Convinced of our own Delusions?

October 28, 2012 By Stephen

One of the hardest parts of overcoming BDD is that it is extremely hard to separate reality from my distorted self images.

Even if I know my self image is distorted it often doesn’t make a difference.

All the self help books advise family members to avoid providing reassurance against a perceived image flaw.

I understand why this is the case and it makes sense. I advised my wife to do the same thing.

But upon returning home, dealing with my new facial scar over the last 1.5 months, nothing was better than having my mother-in-law stop and take time to tell me that my face was still beautiful. And you know what I could tell she meant it.

I had been traumatized by several comments that were made a few weeks ago by a colleague in response to the healing of my facial scar.

This stuck to my ribs, and is one of the reasons I fell into a deep depression. My mother in law really helped by giving me something else to frame my thoughts.

Reaffirmations

I think affirmation from loved ones in this case were exactly what I needed.

I know the books say not to do this, but I think to a certain degree well timed affirmations can help people with BDD.

One thing we need to work on is accepting compliments when we get them. Also it is better if we don’t seek them out. Not needing to hear these positive affirmations over and over again… Also believing people when they say things that they really mean.

I am thankful then for this gift from my mother in law, whose opinion means a lot to me. Who has helped me see that maybe some of my body image concerns just may be my own delusion.

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.

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