If you have severe appearance concerns, you might think others notice your flaw and are repelled by it.
I worry that anyone I talk to will look at my defect, and then I feel ashamed of it. I’m extremely suspicious of compliments, maybe that is why I hardly ever get them.
I tend to think others are talking and laughing about my flaw.
The other day when I walked out of a store and noticed two individuals of the opposite sex looking in my direction and giggling. I immediately thought, “They must be laughing about my scar.” If I can’t stop thinking about my scar, I reasoned, how could anyone else?
Even though I had no evidence to support this assumption, I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling sad and discouraged.
“I am on the inside as I am on the outside”
Many people also assume that the defect they’re sure they have is a visible manifestation of some character flaw.
Personal worth and physical appearance become commingled and confused.
When I look at my scar in the mirror I tend to think I look “really ugly and mean.” How I am on the inside, that’s how I look on the outside: bad and repulsive.
If you hold similar beliefs about the relationship of appearance and self-worth, you’re really in trouble when you think your appearance is imperfect.
As a result, you might feel sad or anxious and start to avoid social activities. Or you might engage in all kinds of activities to fix whatever you consider the appearance problem to be.
That’s where I am: locked inside my mind, stuck behind me scar, unavailable to the world, to my children, and to my wife. Afraid of the “ugly man I see”… too afraid to look in the mirror… too afraid of what I’ll see.
his is a wonderful book! Written by the Director of the MGH OCD and Related Disorders Program, and Founder of the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Clinic, this book offers individuals suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder with critical tools to understand BDD and to bring their disorder under control. The step by step approach detailed in the book is exactly what is needed for patients and clinicians alike. I have enthusiastically been recommending it to all of my clients who have BDD, and to colleagues interested in learning more about it. This book offers new hope to the millions of people worldwide who live with this troubling, but treatable disorder.
