is the mirror broken or am I by
sam17 on Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:22 pm
More than ever I'm preoccupied with my appearance.I can spend hours staring at myself in the mirror and whenever I see a reflective surface in public I have to check my reflection in it,then almost involuntarily,perform some sort of grooming or preening ritual involving fixing my hair which I don't particularly need to fix according to others but feel I have to.Every time I'm in public I feel as if I can read the minds' of others and hear everyone constantly insult me.I feel as if the worse i look that day the worse my peers and society in general will treat or value me.It is petrifying for me to leave my home and I've became evermore insular,losing contact with many friends because i feel too ugly to even speak to them. I've been complimented many times on my appearance but i cant accept any comment on how I look other than criticism which I can use to fix the flaw I might not have noticed (usually I have).The disparities between my own perception of myself and my friends' perception of me are huge: I see honestly, the ugliest person in the world who is incredibly overweight and well, they do not.Along with the repeated hair fixing I use many many skincare and grooming products and diet a lot to try and see myself in the way they do even if the version of me they saw is lost in the process: once happy,outgoing and confident.
Bdd has debilitated me
and worryingly i'm becoming more convinced of my own delusions in the sense that I'm struggling to see myself in any other way than I do, even worse is the fact occasionally I justify this obsession to myself as a means of improving myself by scrutinizing myself so harshly,by finding flaws before anyone else can find them,even listening to the voices which are getting louder and louder in public,regardless of what i lose in doing so.But again it feels out of my control.
I would like know if I am not alone, if anyone else is fighting an ugliness only they can see in pursuit of a beauty they can't reach.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.