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Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?

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Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?

Mr Who
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Posted 10/16/09 - 02:24 AM: Subject: Overcoming obsessions : Healthy or dismissive?	#1
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). 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. 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. 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.

wuliheron
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Posted 10/16/09 - 03:30 AM:	#2
I'm not agoraphobic, but I also live the life of a hermit for the most part. It's not my self-image that bothers me or the great outdoors, its other people. The less I have to interact with them face-to-face or even on the phone the better. If someone upsets me with the most trivial comment I can stay awake for days afterwards. As far as I know my problem stems from both nature and nurture. As is often the case, crazy people raise their children in crazy ways and I had the additional misfortune to receive a head injury as a young child. Because of the head injury I have no sense of smell among other things. For the most part food is just something I shove in my mouth when my stomach bothers me or I start to shake. Knowing the source of my problem helps me to accept it as just another kind of problem that people face. Some people have severe physical disabilities, I have something a bit more complicated than a club foot, for example, but it is fundamentally no different from any other kind of disability. For me the issue of whether or not to live in a fool's paradise is a moot point. I yam what I yam and dat's all dat I yam. That's not to say that I don't try to be more social, I just don't kick myself in the rear for being what I am. My son also inherited at least some of my condition and, no doubt, it comes from his mother's side of the family as well. I guess crazy loves crazy. He became so upset at school last year that he told the principle he wished he would suspend him. The principle told him he couldn't do that because he had done nothing to be suspended for so my son, who is the sweetest kid you'll ever meet, slapped him. This year he is being home schooled along with his younger brother who is also having problems. Anyway, in order to help my son enjoy the company of his peers we learned to join various clubs. For example, he is on a baseball team for disabled children. No doubt using the internet to communicate with others gives you a sense of security, I know it gives me peace of mind. It gives you distance from any possible negative reaction to who you really are as a person. Not just distance from how you look, but also how you think and feel. Nonetheless I would encourage you to join a group of some sort. Not because it is going to cure you, which I have no idea about, but because if nothing else it can help in the long run. You are not alone in this world, none of us are, and you might be surprised at how much you can enjoy yourself in the company of others and actually help others despite your own problems. Sometimes, our biggest problems are also our biggest opportunities. I know it sounds corny perhaps, but it's true.

thepeonwhocould
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Posted 10/19/09 - 11:49 PM:	#3
So it seems your current state is this; I feel that I am ugly, and I think about being ugly often. Now (if you exclude the possibility of becoming more attractive to a point you are happy with) I think you can solve this problem by either a. feeling that you are reasonably attractive b. not think about being ugly enough to impact your life Do you desire either of these outcomes? If you do, I think that you do want to get better. It sounds like you do not want to achieve b, is that right? Or is it simply that you do not want to achieve these outcomes if they are induced by drugs or something like that? If you achieve "a." - then it would follow that you although you may have doubts about your appearance, your sincere belief a majority of the time will be that you are a reasonably attractive person. I don't know if it would be possible to maintain this belief whilst also being aware that it is somehow false or induced by drugs or something. So if you do achieve a. it would need to be a legitimate belief.

Mr Who
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Posted 10/21/09 - 02:33 AM:	#4
thepeonwhocould wrote: I don't know if it would be possible to maintain this belief whilst also being aware that it is somehow false or induced by drugs or something. So if you do achieve a. it would need to be a legitimate belief. And this is precisely where the difficulty lies. How can I believe in something that I simultaneously doubt? On a pragmatic note, I am on a (rather lengthly) waiting list for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment. The basic premise being that he/she will readjust my evaluation module via various 'techniques'. But in the long run, this isn't really a solution, is it? It's essentially a form of brainwashing, where old beliefs are replaced by fresh beliefs through external input. MY beliefs won't be MY beliefs, they will be someone else's that I've adopted. That's how I feel about it, anyway.

LucyTheEmpiricist
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/21/09 - 04:10 AM:	#5
Mr Who wrote: And this is precisely where the difficulty lies. How can I believe in something that I simultaneously doubt? On a pragmatic note, I am on a (rather lengthly) waiting list for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy treatment. The basic premise being that he/she will readjust my evaluation module via various 'techniques'. But in the long run, this isn't really a solution, is it? It's essentially a form of brainwashing, where old beliefs are replaced by fresh beliefs through external input. MY beliefs won't be MY beliefs, they will be someone else's that I've adopted. That's how I feel about it, anyway. Our beliefs aren't always true, are they? And if you change your belief, it's only you that has changed, even if someone else was helping you change. Your problem isn't that you're ugly - you might be, you might not be, I don't know. But ugly people still have a life, get married, have a career, do all the things that people seem to think is important. Your problem is that you are letting your belief that you're ugly stop you from living a life. So a CBT therapist would probably attempt to do two things: 1. Make you put your ugliness into perspective. They will try to make you realise that there aren't just two modes, ugly and not-ugly, but that all of us exist somewhere on a scale from very, very ugly to very, very beautiful (with most of us tending towards the ugly end ). You need to have a realistic sense of where you are on that scale. It's not an easy thing to do, because all of us are affected by our mood - if I'm feeling good, I think I look good; if I'm feeling down, I think I look ugly. There's a subjective, changeable element to the way we all perceive our own looks. A CBT therapist will also try to make you realise that too; 2. Secondly, they will try to make you realise that your ugliness isn't a bar to going out and living a life. As I said before, ugly people have a life too. The rationale of CBT therapy is that our unhappiness is often less about the reality of our lives and more about how we think about things, and self-image is a big part of that. Let them help you, they know what they're doing. Edited by LucyTheEmpiricist on 10/21/09 - 11:31 PM. Reason: typo

wuliheron
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Posted 10/21/09 - 02:26 PM:	#6
Well said, Lucy. I would add that it is impossible to brainwash yourself, it is an oxymoron. At best you can live in denial. In addition, therapists do not attempt to isolate you from your friends and family and try to change your beliefs. Like a physical therapist, they merely know a few tried and tested ways of helping you to help yourself. If you don't like their particular methods you can always try something else.

unenlightened
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Posted 10/21/09 - 11:42 PM:	#7
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. Hi. I notice that you are going to head shrinkers, and not beauticians and cosmetic surgeons. This rather contradicts your claim to believe you are ugly. I surmise that you are actively working to convince yourself that you are ugly for some reason, and it might be fruitful if you inquired as to why. "Do you want to get better?" is a silly question; on the one hand if you are there you clearly know that your problem is one of thought, and you are trying to change, and on the other hand your 'belief' clearly functions for you in some way as a protection from psychological hurt. So I will ask you a different question; are you interested to see yourself clearly?
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Mr Who
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Posted 10/22/09 - 01:28 AM:	#8
LucyTheEmpiricist wrote: Your problem isn't that you're ugly - you might be, you might not be, I don't know. But ugly people still have a life, get married, have a career, do all the things that people seem to think is important. Your problem is that you are letting your belief that you're ugly stop you from living a life. That's wonderful for these people. But not so wonderful that their gallantry is an inspiration to me, myself personally. I have no doubt that they are invariably blessed with a range of admirable qualities that I lack, which inherently makes up for their lack of physical beauty. Sorry to call a space a spade, here, but that's the way it is. I don't subscribe to this "I/we/they can do it, so so can you" argument that people seem to idolise when it comes to overcoming an obstacle. Everyone has their own unique set of parameters that they are permitted to operate within. LucyTheEmpiricist wrote: Make you put your ugliness into perspective. They will try to make you realise that there aren't just two modes, ugly and not-ugly, but that all of us exist somewhere on a scale from very, very ugly to very, very beautiful (with most of us tending towards the ugly end ). You need to have a realistic sense of where you are on that scale. Where I lie on the 'scale' of attractiveness doesn't really change anything. If I don't feel on par with the majority, then it's of no consolation to me whether, on a proverbial scale of one to ten, I am a "4" as opposed to a "1". unenlightened wrote: I notice that you are going to head shrinkers, and not beauticians and cosmetic surgeons. This rather contradicts your claim to believe you are ugly. I surmise that you are actively working to convince yourself that you are ugly for some reason, and it might be fruitful if you inquired as to why. It's the other way around, mate. I spend most of my time trying to convince myself that I'm not ugly, albeit unsuccessfully, largely thanks to external validation of my existing beliefs.

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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/22/09 - 04:48 AM:	#9
Mr Who wrote: It's the other way around, mate. I spend most of my time trying to convince myself that I'm not ugly, albeit unsuccessfully, largely thanks to external validation of my existing beliefs. 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.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Warshed
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Posted 10/22/09 - 07:51 AM:	#10
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). 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. 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. 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. Are you happy living or content as you are living your life?

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