My Halloween treat is a Haiku.
O Dysmorphia
diss no more for ya
Lets give you a Poster Girl.
This week I had an appointment with my GP to discuss the referral letter to Moorfields Eye Hospital that I have not yet been able to see. We were talking about some other problems I have been experiencing when my GP looked up from her computer and said: ‘Deborah, would you like to go and speak with someone professionally about all of this?’ I said I already do speak with someone about my life and that is probably enough for me, thank you. The doctor told me who she wanted to refer me to. This referral was to someone who is well known on subject of Body Dysmorphic Disorder and whose book I have been loaned; it currently sits on my desk. I found myself slightly bemused by this exchange. I have been a patient at this particular surgery for several years and, I think sadly, that is how long it has taken to be noticed (diagnosed) that I have this disorder. Fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be) for me, my situation was discovered years ago by my previous GP who took appropriate steps for me to speak with the right person. Too many people claim to have it who do not. Too many people who do have it go un-noticed. Dysmorphia Needs A Poster Girl.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder is also known as Imagined Ugliness Syndrome. How does someone who suffers with this misrepresented disorder learn how to recognize and distinguish how he/she is being perceived by friends, family and others? Imagined Ugliness Syndrome does not mean that the sufferer is perceived as ugly by others. It is a self perception. Is it also a projection? If I imagine I am ugly, do I also imagine that everyone else is not? Can I only ever be thought of as unidimensional and ugly? Is it possible for me to widen my scope of self perception? It’s certainly not a pleasant place to be. Stop the train, I want to get OFF!
My mum has Body Dysmorphic Disorder and now has dementia. I have argued with her all my life but I related to her like nobody else on earth. When I (silently or verbally) projected my belief that I am ugly to her, she understood that worldview and how it operated because she lived on that planet too. Another parent may have smacked me or punished me or ignored me. This identification allowed us to be close but sadly, knowing is not solving and we never found a real escape hatch. I envy her ability to have had children because in me she found an ally and an enabler as I did in her. Some topics between us were always invitations to highly dysfunctional conversations and I have always thanked my lucky stars that the earth remains on its axis when the conversations finish and the decaf coffee is poured. Even with the dementia and her increasing inability to formulate sentences, the world view of Body Dysmorphic Disorder remains present between us. That part of her doesn’t seem affected by the dementia if that is possible. It makes me cry. Please don’t confuse the Body Dysmorphic Disorder sufferer with the Narcissist Personality Type as you would probably be wrong in most cases. My brother hates his appearance too but he is another story.
I blame David Cassidy but you can choose your own rock star, boy band, movie star, pop singer or rap artist, etc. Even without Photoshop, David Cassidy was impossibly handsome. Even those who preferred Rod Stewart’s voice had to agree that David Cassidy was beautifully handsome. I resented buying the Jackie magazine every Wednesday morning on my way to school knowing there would be a double page spread of David Cassidy in it. I grew up near the Gorbals in Glasgow where my school offered compulsory classes in hooliganism and yet we always gathered around the Jackie to swoon at the double page spreads. My childhood in America introduced me to Mad magazine with pictures of Alfred E. Neuman but, as you can imagine, that was a difficult magazine to source in my new neck of the woods. Whether it was Alfred E. Neuman or David Cassidy, the space between ‘me and thee’ had arrived and what filled it for me was emotional pain. Thee created the futility of unresolved desire, a constant unattainability. (To be fair, Alfred E Neuman is a cartoon even though David Cassidy might have argued that he was too).
My friend who loved Marc Bolan obsessively did not allow the marketing of the superstar to stand in the way of her meeting and marrying someone at the age of 17. It makes me wonder how she was able to bridge that gap between me and thee in a way I was not able to comprehend. I had as much attention as she did from local boys. We were friends, why wasn’t I allowed into her secret? Was it a secret at all? Body Dysmorphic Disorder is not always a singular diagnosis. Often it will be part of a cluster.
How many men and women who have not had children or partnerships or healthy relationships with family, friends or significant others suffer in silence with Body Dysmorphic Disorder? How many are isolated and alienated, left to fend for themselves and failing? Dysmorphia can so easily be confused with an anti-social personality type and other disorders in social situations. Body Dysmorphic Disorder requires proper public awareness and a compassionate understanding from early childhood right through to old age. How many people suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder and share similar histories? Dysmorphia Needs A Poster Girl, a positive role model, someone to roll up and reveal that life does not have to be a never-ending system of denial, suppression and failure. I am not suggesting that full cure is possible but a series of recoveries would be a wonderful thing. It takes two to tango (I and thee).
Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a philosophical mind-body conundrum. How can I trust an interpretation of appearance from a professional who is ugly and dishevelled or from a professional who is botox’d, naturally beautiful and/or surgically enhanced? I have well-meaning friends who greet me with phrases like: ‘hi gorgeous’ in order to attempt to lift my spirits over my imagined ugliness. It never has the desired effect. It often propels me into a very negative space. Their cheerful compliments are an attempt to deconstruct my view for the better but I have an allen key that can only put me back together in the same format each time. I can’t explain to you how it feels to grow up and spend your entire life with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, it will only make you cry. I do know it is nothing like the trivialized version I keep hearing celebrities soundbite about.
I have very few photos of myself other than the ones my ex-husband took of me in my moments of smaller recoveries. I often wonder how many parts of me are caught in the backgrounds of other people’s photos around the world. Hardly a day goes by when someone nearby is not taking a photo where I am convinced that a shoulder or a hand or a foot or some other part of me has wound up in the background of their photo. My mum has pictures of her family and her sisters and my brother on a sideboard in her living room. There is only one photo of me on her sideboard and I do not like it. I decided to buy a multiple picture frame in Ikea so I could load it up with some better photos of me but I only have those photos where I am with my ex-husband and they now seem inappropriate. I wish I had had the courage to stand in front of a camera more as I was growing up because now I have no photos to offer my mum to look at on her sideboard. There are precious few of her too.
1 comment:
This is a great well-written site
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