An article about a psychological disorder responsible for many people going under the knife, often with disastrous results.
This article has been published as submitted by the writer without any editing by Chillibreeze so you can critique it, in its original format. Please feel free to rate and comment on this article.
Scroll down to the bottom to rate this article.
Author: Radhika M. Tabrez
I recently got to know about a widely unknown psychiatric disorder called Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). I credit myself with a little above-average interest in psychology but I had never heard of such a thing. It was in one of the recent episodes of Oprah. What I learnt in that episode was not only quite informative but also immensely upsetting.
Let’s start with a definition first.
According to medterms.com, BDD is a psychiatric disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with imagined defects in physical appearance. People with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) are obsessed by the idea that some part of their body — their hair, nose, skin, hips, whatever — is ugly or deformed, when in truth it looks normal.
The illness is not even nearly as simple as it sounds in the above definition.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say. BDD is a mental disorder, which involves a disturbed body image. It is generally diagnosed in those who are extremely critical of their physique or self image, despite the fact there may be no noticeable disfigurement or defect. Most people wish they could change or improve some aspect of their physical appearance, but people suffering from BDD, generally considered of normal appearance, believe that they are so unspeakably hideous that they are unable to interact with others or function normally for fear of ridicule and humiliation at their appearance. They tend to be very secretive and reluctant to seek help because they are afraid others will think them vain or they may feel too embarrassed to do so.
If the graveness of the issue still hasn’t passed along well enough, please read on.
The show had invited three people with what I understood (as a layperson) as various stages or variants of the illness. Needless to say these people were completely appalled at the idea of facing the audiences at the show, not to mention millions of people watching the show on telly! It took months of convincing on the producers’ part to convince them to do it, for the benefit of others. One of the two women on the show, considered herself so hideously unattractive that she barely left her home……..however, when she stepped on to the stage, I was (as I’m sure were all the other viewers) left absolutely baffled, because this girl looked nothing close to hideous…. much the opposite in fact. She was a decently attractive woman. I just couldn’t grasp the concept! Why would she consider herself so ugly.
Thankfully, for the benefit of the likes of me, a practising psychologist and the author of a book on BDD “The Broken Mirror”, Dr Katherine A. Phillips was also present on the show. Dr. Phillips, helped the audiences understand how because of this strange illness, these people don’t see themselves the way others see them. The illness leads them to imagine facial and other physical deformities which they don’t have. When they look into a mirror what looks back at them is a distorted image created in their own heads, due to the illness.
As a result, a standard solution most of them resort to is to socially quarantine themselves. The people who suffer from BDD drop out of schools and colleges, are not able to keep their jobs, have no friends or any other serious relationships and basically have no life outside of their rooms. And it only gets worse. Many of these patients have contemplated/tried ending their lives. What makes it even more complicated and afflictive is the little knowledge people have about this illness. Most of the people see the disease as nothing but vanity gone berserk!
The second case was of this guy Jesse(a rather handsome young boy, barely 20 years old), who is too scared to look into a mirror; because when he does, according to him, he sees a repulsive and horrifying monster. The third case was of Jamie, a 28 year old woman who has already had 26 plastic surgeries!! Jamie suffers from BDD too, and thanks to all the money she has, she chose to do something quite radical about it, starting as early as when she was 16 years old. Jamie has practically altered all her facial features and as a result is barely recognizable from her earlier pictures. But hers are a set of ‘before-after’ pictures that turned out quite transposed. The surgeries, on the contrary have left her looking quite bad and in tremendous pain and physical inconveniences. Hideous is perhaps a word that can be used for her face now, after 26 corrective cosmetic surgeries! If that’s not irony, what is? In fact her latest rhinoplasty, where she wanted her nose to be just like Michael Jackson’s, has left her nose in such a bad shape that she can barely breathe and is required to clean her nostrils forcibly several times a day, to keep them open. I must also mention here that the surgery is irreversible which means that she will have to live the rest of her life with that asphyxiating nose. She admits, that by now she is addicted to plastic surgery and she’s incapable of stopping herself even though her surgeon now tells her, that her face can not take any more surgeries for now! Thanks to the show, these three people will now be getting psychiatric help that they so badly need.
When one sees a person who used to be a beautiful girl completely ruin her face, her mental health and eventually her life, one surgery at a time……..in the otiose search of perfect beauty; while ironically taking herself further and further away from it with every nip and tuck……one realises the real dangers of it all.
A quick googling told me that BDD isn’t that uncommon an illness, just not very widely diagnosed. After all it’s not all that easily visible to an untrained eye, where vanity ends and mental sickness starts. And vanity sure is available in abundance. Look around….examples of a little overweening amour propre aren’t all that unusual these days, are they?
In this day and age…… where how one looks determines how one is regarded and where the size of one’s pants is more important a figure than one’s IQ score, what else do we expect?
These people, suffering from BDD, are clearly ill and they need help. But don’t most of us?
Let’s try and think of all the those blessed souls we can safely put in the list of people who’ve not yet contracted this piteous illness. My guess is, the list wouldn’t be too long. And if we’re honest enough we might not find our own name on the list!
The degrees may vary, but we all are infected. Again, what better to expect in a world where the 30 second-satans we all better know as advertisements, will have us believe that if we want to marry the right person or have the right job or even have an existence worth calling a life, our skin tone should be a few shades lighter. Where it is almost considered sinful not to do something about the whiteness of one’s hair or the fine lines crawling up on one’s face with the passing years. Where a few extra pounds can make all the difference in the way the world sees us.
I know. I’ve been a victim too. And so have been many other people around me. I didn’t let it bother me much…least I tried my best not to let it bother me. But I’ve also seen some people around me getting sucked down deep into this morass……..some poor souls without even being aware of what they were allowing themselves to be trapped in.
And before we know it, the packaging becomes all that there is to the product. It doesn’t matter what’s inside; but it sure gotta look good on the outside!
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t my crusade against the fashion and beauty industry. My Maybellines and Revlons stay put in my purse and my quest for that lower figure on the measuring tape continues. But let’s not get ourselves into believing that’s all that there is to life. Let’s not think of us as any less if people around us don’t see us as Aphrodite or Narcissus reincarnated. Feeling beautiful about oneself is after all…far more important.
So look into your mirror …..and look confidently. A wonderful creation, just the way The Creator intended it, will look back.
Cherish the view.
More on Chillibreeze
Rate more articles by Indian writers
Take advantage of our confidential and professional article review services to get your writing rated by an expert critic
Check out our Writing Courses and Writing Assessments
Want to work on client projects? Read more about our screening process
Related posts:
- Shadows of the Mirror
- Susan Boyle: The Latest Musical Sensation
- Yoga and Its Benefits
- Ageing Skin – Timeless Beauty
- Best Cardiac Hospital in India
Comments:
