Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?: Philosophy Forums

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Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?

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Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?

Wosret
Tetsugaku no mongaikan

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Posted 10/22/09 - 08:21 PM:	#11
unenlightened wrote: Yes, that's what you said in the OP. however, what you actually do, is in contradiction to what you say. If I may point out, you are divided and in conflict. I have no idea what you look like, and if you have body dysmorphia, you are not much better informed. Having convinced yourself that you are ugly, you try to convince yourself that you are not ugly. Your success is the cause of your failure. Not much point in blaming other people. Wow, you should do me sometime!
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie. "I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.

Sentry4
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Posted 11/11/09 - 04:52 PM:	#12
What are some of the problems that you're facing because you've convinced yourself that you are ugly? Is it the people around you treating you differently or are you just unhappy with your self judgement? My belief is that for humans to excel, they need flaws. There needs to be a balance between good and bad. Whenever I look at my physical or mental flaws I see it more as potential to get ahead in something else. So, really, negative attributes have a positive aspect to them, and a great one as well, being potential. Next time you look into a mirror you may want to look at the person, not the body they are in, and see the potential you may have for other things.

Decagonian
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Posted 11/11/09 - 06:08 PM:	#13
You must first examine the people you wish to interact and simulate their perception of you. Consider that by acting extremely reclusive, you are embarrassing your self image further, and your "ugliness," so to speak, is not so much an addition as a general quality that will not in itself receive pity, but the situation of your psychological illness as well as this "ugliness" will seem pitiful.
"It seems I've died." "Not to worry, we've buttons for that these days." "Ohoho, how convenient." -Kieran

Willowz
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Posted 11/11/09 - 09:41 PM:	#14
Don't know... Maybe try not looking at the mirror. Just for some time, while your outside.
This song will prepare you for a good smile.

Desidude666
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Posted 11/12/09 - 12:01 AM:	#15
Mr Who wrote: I suffer from a psychological condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder. In a nutshell, it means that I have a fixation over my perceived ugliness which severely interferes with daily - particularly social - activity, so much so that I'm effectively housebound due to cripplingly low sense of self-worth (yes, that means I am also an 'agoraphobic'; I leave it up to the reader to muse over whether one condition/label fuels the metaphorical fire of the other). Interesting, thanks for sharing it with us. Mr Who wrote: I have visited several psychiatrists, therapists and counselors over the course of my life, and each one of them has invariably posed a variation of following question at some stage during our tête-à-tête: "Do you want to get better?". As passive at it sounds, I have never known exactly how to answer that question. My belief that I am ugly is as deeply-rooted as my belief that the sun will set this evening and rise tomorrow morning. I look in the mirror and I dislike what I see; suggesting there is something there that is attractive seems completely preposterous. What is ugly to you? When you describe ugliness, you'd probably list the problems. Have you considered the fact that probably there is no such thing as ugly or beautiful in reality? Why the objective outlook? Think broader. Mr Who wrote: One part of me wants to be rid of these feelings, regardless of whether or not am I objectively ugly or unattractive (I ask the reader not to get sidetracked with the glaringly obvious issue over whether attractiveness can even be measured objectively; what is of relevance for now is my own subjective interpretation of my appearance). Spending all day, every day looking in the mirror and feeling unworthy and inferior to others is an exhausting position to be in. Why is your look that important to you? Surely, you have other priorities in life? Intellectual scholarship? Economic successes and even parenting? How are your looks going to play an important role in all else? There are beautiful people out there who have your desired beauty but not the above qualities/skill. So have you thought of compensating your deficiencies in life with your qualities? Surely, there's more to beauty than just physical desire? Mr Who wrote: Yet what violates this branch of thought is that I have no desire to live in a fool's paradise, where I am merely distracted from my concerns via various mediums. Not thinking about my appearance and conducting a more productive life is all very well, but there will always be my proverbial demons lurking in concealed recesses. I want to feel reasonably attractive; I don't want to achieve some kind of induced apathy where I just couldn't care anymore. You shouldn't care, rightly so. It's a matter of perception really. Even if you think you aren't up to the grade physically, you would have other qualities anyway. Looks are secondary, and they will die with age. I know it's easier said than done, but the idea here is merely over-emphasis of a particular aspect of yourself. In fact, if you're rich, smart and 'ugly', it really won't matter anyway - because you are rich and smart. So the idea here is to think more broadly. And besides, if you consider it more carefully, beauty is more of an objective perception anyways, some people find some beautiful, while others don't. There is a general understanding over beauty (that it's as close to a baby as it can get according to research) but it is rather vague to be properly defined empirically. So, quite rightly, one suggests that it's in the eye of the beholder.
What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig van Beethoven

swstephe
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Posted 11/12/09 - 03:19 AM:	#16
I learned a lot dealing with possibly related conditions, like obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic/anxiety attacks. Most people don't know the right response because most don't think about their instinctive reactions to emotional states outside the social "norm". Someone who is suffering a panic attack is often told, "don't be afraid", as if it were something that can be simply chosen to turn off. I've deduced from modern psychological treatments that we are not really in control of our emotions. We can't turn them on or off or modify their state. The unconscious "trick" that people naturally use to avoid negative emotions is to generate competing emotions or scenarios. Our emotional brains are like an unconscious brain in the middle of our cognitive brain. We have to convince this inner "animal" by induction. The reason the psychologists ask "do you want to change" is because a lot of these emotions outside the social "norm" arise from habit and comfort. There is an emotional basis for switching into this mode, often out of comfort or to fill a perceived need. Perhaps someone felt it was a "safe" state in a childhood or adult relationship and it would violate that sense of security to step outside the safe zone. Westerners will ask, do you want to change, because they think that you can be motivated only by alternative emotions, (since want/need is an opposing need), and think it could be a waste of time to try to treat someone who doesn't want to change. I think body dysmorphic disorder is actually quite common. Our primitive instinct is to seek acceptance based on social values. Attractiveness is a very strong value, (especially in materialistic societies). It can feel more secure to simply preclude any social valuation of their physical appearance. Our rational minds can comprehend that such emotions are not that productive, but our primitive instincts have programmed us to be social and to standardize our behavior on what is perceived "acceptable". But really, the social standards are necessarily arbitrary and relative. We can reason it away, but our emotions can't accept reason, so psychologists tend toward generating alternative emotions.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

baden511
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Posted 11/12/09 - 06:08 AM:	#17
To all the other posters first: The condition that the OP mentioned, BDD, is an extremely serious one that results in one of the highest levels of suicide and self-harm of any out there. It affects people to different degrees but is almost always seriously debilitating and can make people's lives an absolute nightmare. It's also something over which the person has little or no control. It's not an attitude, it's an all-consuming reality. To the OP: My heart goes out to you mate, particularly with what you said about not wanting to be put in a state of induced apathy over this, and I think I may have a few ideas. The first piece of advice I want to give you is that you need to get the obsessive behaviour, particularly the mirror gazing, under control because that is what feeds the feelings that are holding you down, and causes stress that won't make your actual or your self-image any better. This isn't easy, and you shouldn't go to the extreme of avoiding mirrors altogether as that's another form of obsession. Rather, you need to engage in a gradual effort to move your behaviour towards that which you consider normal. You can't do this by feelings because your feelings are part of the problem, but you can use your rational mind to bring the mirror-gazing down to a level that you consider roughly equal to that of the average person. When you start to do this you will probably notice two things: one, moments of deep fear that you are ugly and an almost uncontrollable desire to go and look in a mirror to examine yourself; and two, moments where you start to feel freer to concentrate on other things. As long as you stick to this -make it your mission- the latter state of mind should become more and more dominant and you should begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I also recommend you exercise and try to be creative, and in time you should begin to see the reason why this thing hit you and what you really want out of life. BDD may never fully leave you but you can get it under control to the point where your life is transformed. That's not a fool's paradise; actually, it's the state you're in at the moment that promises the fool's paradise. The lie that BDD creates in a person is the lie that being good looking=happiness/fulfilment. It doesn't. Also, the fact is that as a sufferer you are not in a proper position to judge your own looks. Some sufferers are "better looking" than others; some are extremely attractive but can't see it. You can't really know. You are better off presuming that you are unattractive for the moment on the basis that if you don't you will still continue trying to build your self-esteem on something that is at the mercy of other people's judgments. If you can find, however, a way to build your self-esteem on other things and you find out later that people find you attractive, it won't matter all that much to you; at least, it will no longer be the fulcrum around which your life revolves. As my signature may suggest, I'm not at all religious, but to use a religious metaphor, at some point during your recovery from this condition, you will need to make a leap of faith; you will need to tear yourself away from that mirror and freefall into the darkness. No-one, no psychiatrist, no psychologist, no well meaning friend can help you then; you've just got to trust that at some point you'll take wing.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?" - Falstaff

madmaxthundercats
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Posted 11/18/09 - 05:11 PM:	#18
Why not reach an induced state of apathy about it? Look, being ugly is hardly the end of the world. There are plenty of people with severe physical deformities who very likely get stared at or even ridiculed on a daily basis and some of them can remain pretty happy and content regardless. Why put yourself at the mercy of other people's judgments?

123savethewhales
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Posted 11/19/09 - 12:09 AM:	#19
If physical beauty matters so much to you, you can probably go from a 4 to a 5 if you focus on the way you dress and the way you present yourself (like postures, makeups, etc). Other than that it's either plastic surgery or you would have to put less values to physical beauty. I mean people pay for collectible and all kinds of other useless junks. So why not plastic surgery if it can make you feel better/live a more social life? I would rather pay for that than a psychologist telling me rather or not I want to change. Of course, plastic surgery does involve risk (and a lot of money). But at least it can be something to look forward to. The whole "believe you are beautiful" thing only works if the person's own perception is lower than that of an average person. If both of them match, or if an average person have a lower perception of you than yourself, then it doesn't work so well. Edited by 123savethewhales on 11/19/09 - 12:15 AM
Keep it simple.

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