cherucat:

hi i wanted to write a post about BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) because ive never ever seen it discussed and i would like more people to be aware of it and maybe, some other people will realize they have it and not feel so messed up like i did for a long time

BDD is a disorder that makes you hyperfocus on your appearance, a lot of times its a specific part of your appearance. you obsess over a perceived ugliness and it preoccupies a lot of your time & makes daily functioning/social interaction very hard. its linked with other anxiety disorders (specifically OCD which i also have) and sometimes is thought of as being a subset of OCD

heres some symptoms in no particular order:

• hiding/masking yourself (needing to put on a lot of makeup, always wearing sunglasses or baggy clothes, in my case i have to wear band-aids on my face and sometimes have to wear a literal face mask)
• intense anxiety/suicidal feelings if “mask” isnt available
• need for reassurance about appearance, but then immediately disqualifying any compliments you receive (”theyre just saying that to appease me, its because this picture was in a certain lighting/edited, i was wearing makeup” etc)
• self-worth largely tied to appearance and thus feeling worthless very often. as a consequence it becomes really hard to talk about symptoms because preoccupation w/ appearance is seen as “vain”
• withdrawal/fear in close or intimate relationships for fear of being seen as ugly
• avoiding social situations for fear of being seen as ugly
• looking in the mirror a lot (or avoiding mirrors), analyzing appearance daily, picking at skin/face/etc
• comparing your appearance to other peoples (excessively and constantly: “people think this person is pretty and i look nothing like them so im ugly. people have called this trait ugly and i have it so im ugly” etc)
• missing school, work, other events bc you feel like everyone will be staring at you and judging your appearance. this contributed to me dropping out of school
• obsession with changing appearance or “fixing” perceived defects (personally i was obsessed with skincare for a long time and was always trying to find the perfect skincare routine and spent so much money on products trying to make my acne go away)

theres probably more but yea, this is getting really long! i would really really appreciate if people reblogged this so other people can know about it, also if you have any questions or just want to talk about your experiences feel free to shoot me an ask!