Dysmorphia needs a (funded) Poster Girl
(Wish me luck)
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Today I participated in a meeting about branding for a campaign promoting body confidence in conjunction with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image. This is a campaign aimed at all ages and genders to help improve body confidence. The recent call for change by BAAPS in the way that cosmetic surgery is advertised is one way to help re-build negative self-image by stopping the trivialization and commodification of serious surgery. The meeting was upbeat and constructive offering refreshments including my current biscuit of choice: the jammie dodger! I was there to represent my website: www.cosmeticsupport.com but, quietly in attendance and invisible to most, was my alter-ego the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Poster Girl
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After the meeting, we were all invited to retire to the pub for a milk stout (make mine rosé) and there I discovered that many of the groups were receiving funding and awards for the work they do. My ears twigged but my heart sank and my spirit felt demoralized in response to what I was hearing about funding. If it were not for my Botox, my supportive smile would have slipped right under the table. It was yet another reminder that I have been voluntarily running a website for elective cosmetic surgery patients for nearly 13 years. Yup, that’s right, voluntary, nearly 13 years, no money: harsh!
Neil Young once sang: ‘there’s a shadow running through my days, like a beggar going from door to door’. Could this shadow be my old compadre, Body Dysmorphic Disorder? How does this much-confused disorder impact on my ability to be taken seriously by either myself or the (funding, etc) powers that be? If Body Dysmorphic Disorder inhibits my ability to recognize either my own value or the value of my projects, how can I expect to be recognized as valuable by others? Isn’t it the case that unless I value myself, others will not, cannot recognize and/or value me? Have I become so good at deflecting attention away from me that when I need to gain attention, I am no longer able to operate the tools required for the job? Does this mean that having Body Dysmorphic Disorder precludes me from successfully receiving funding? Quelle horreur.
Everyone needs a raison d’etre in life and seeking funding is just not mine. I suspect that even people in the funding world might argue that raising funds is not their passion either. Most of the meeting’s participants worked in organizations with more than one person, which may make the process of seeking funding a tad easier, I have no real idea. Some organizations pay experts to raise funds for them. When it comes to understanding funding I feel like a child trying to climb over a very tall wall, bewildered, confused and unequipped for such a climb. Yes, I am aware of my limitations but that only offers me a possible explanation when I really require a solution. Funding is crucial when your Macbook Pro is threatening to stop spluttering through its daily grind of website maintenance and social interactivity. Yikes!
The disability inherent in Body Dysmorphic Disorder has a great impact on the sufferer’s life. It is not always easy to recognize who suffers with it. It’s not an obvious disability in the way some physical disabilities can be. I am highly aware that due to the confusion around Body Dysmorphic Disorder, the sufferer is often patronized and mistaken for being somewhat mentally retarded. This is not the case at all. In fact, many people with Body Dysmorphic Disorder suffer with high IQ and/or being over-qualified as it will often prove easier to interact with inanimate objects like books and computers than to interact with human beings. Pets often make great therapy and my own sweet Maltese dog Amy now has her own Twitter-feed! (www.twitter.com/amypup)and no doubt will have a photo on my blog in the future too. Amy is my sherpa as I am hers although she sometimes forgets this!
I feel wounded, damaged and down-trodden from Body Dysmorphic Disorder but I must clarify that it is not fair to blame everything on that label as my background contains an interesting smorgasbord of other emotional traumas. As a result, I can only ever talk of my own personal experience of Body Dysmorphic Disorder, but am aware that in so doing, I touch on what might be considered generic traits of the disorder and therefore can help others by allowing them to identify with a fellow traveller. My own experience certainly gives me important insights, but my experience online enables me to have a broader view of the sufferings of other people and offer support. It is a very positive and supportive stepping-stone for anyone wishing to participate.
I am neither for nor against cosmetic surgery although I have had some procedures myself. I have had good experiences with it and bad. As a result of the way I am, my remit is to reach out from online to offer clarity in the fields of elective cosmetic surgery patient support and Body Dysmorphic Disorder support. I am able to separate these categories in the same way that the official UK plastic surgery charities can separate cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, whilst still having (more or less) the same surgeons subscribe to their charities.Perhaps, I too, should have changed the ‘l’ in clarity to an ‘h’!
Wishing alone will not bring about funding but the site’s intentions are truly honourable and spring from that healthier part of me which has had to find a way to circumnavigate my circumstances. I sometimes think of myself as a sherpa or even the human equivalent of a disability guide dog who offers information and support to both the cosmetic and/or reconstructive surgery patient. I am equally interested in those patients who want another way of dealing with their issues other than elective surgery.
I will post a separate blog on the history of www.cosmeticsupprt.com for anyone who is not familiar with it; it has changed over the years although it still remains the same. It is a straight-forward, friendly, informative site which welcomes anyone who is interested in cosmetic surgery at any level whether it is cosmetic or reconstructive or general curiosity for emotional or physical reasons. Each visitor will have his or her own personal reasons for joining the site and some will share similar views, creating the online community that it is. Dysmorphic Discussions may resonate with the reconstructive patient although the surgery may equally be considered cosmetic. I make videos covering various subjects such as ‘realistic expectations from surgery’ etc.
I am aware that there are many reasons for patients to choose either cosmetic or reconstructive surgery. Some patients have reconstructive surgical needs for medical reasons (such as trauma, disfigurement, illness etc) and may not consider their surgery in any way cosmetic even though ultimately the surgeon and the patient both desire an aesthetically pleasing outcome. All surgeries are therefore (at some level) cosmetic. Both of my sites, at all levels, are non-judgmental, informative and supportive. A welcome retreat from advertising at any level.
It is ironic that I offer support from all my websites and yet receive very little in return from those organizations who are in a position to support what I do. I am still not properly recognized, understood or supported, let alone funded. In fact, if anything, I am either ignored, criticized, viewed with suspicion or seen as a threat by the very organizations that I take up the slack for. Communications with these organizations over the years has left me feeling belittled or unworthy but I have never questioned the value of my website. May I suggest to these organizations that they clean their glasses and their grapevine and let some sunlight in.
Lately I’ve had to clean my own glasses in order to watch all the celebrities competing with one another in glossy magazines to share their own personal history and struggles with body image issues and alleged Body Dysmorphic Disorder. The media is now displaying celebrities and PR gurus stepping out of their perfectly crafted image into a less perfect image in an effort to persuade us that ‘not ok’ is the new ‘ok’. Lined up, as they are, for their photo shoot, what are these celebrities and PR gurus doing? Are they confessing to Body Dysmorphic Disorder? Are they sharing their body image blues? Are they self-publicizing under the banner of a new world order? Does it matter who is buying the drinks as long as someone else is paying? Photoshop is so amazingly good at manipulating photos and we love the results and buy them in magazines. It surely couldn’t be that this type of software can also make someone look fatter or less perfect? We wouldn’t fall for that old chestnut again now, would we? Uh oh.
I also wonder what is happening when ‘independent’ PR gurus hired by the big beauty companies are attempting to help us with empowerment by making positive statements in bold letters? What are they doing when they link their product to the message of the campaign? In what way is a PR guru qualified to release statements about the psychology of self-confidence? Perhaps I am confused, but isn’t self-worth something that someone in the psychological field is better trained to help others with? When I have self-worth issues, I generally do not race to Twitter for a 140 character rush of confidence or google with Paypal an appointment with a PR guru. I don’t remember PR being a module in my post grad dip in existential psychotherapy syllabus. I should have gone for a degree in PR. Who knew?
I agree with BAAPS that cosmetic surgery should never be trivialized or commodified (that was less than 140 characters, wasn’t it?) Patients deserve more than to be patronized by a constant stream of short sharp pseudo-scientific sensationalist soundbites pretending not to be an advertising slogan or advertising through the back door. It cheapens the call to change the way cosmetic surgery is advertised.
Patients deserve better when they are spending so much money on elective surgery. If this service I offer were not required, I would not have survived nearly 13 years alone on the internet. Sometimes I even get to go for a dinner break!
The lack of reality in the media and lack of recognition from the organizations my site complements is in complete contrast to the positive outcomes and experiences that visitors enjoy on my site, blogs and twitter feeds. Subscribers on my site are delighted to find an empathetic, constructive, interactive forum with a real human at the other end of the screen or by email offering to share information and experience. Reality-based issues are key concepts on my website with real people and real patients exchanging real photos and real experiences with one another. It is a great service even if I say so myself. It is my therapy as much as it is theirs. Social media can never replace the beauty of a fully functional forum dedicated to a particular topic.
Around the conference table at the meeting I mentioned at the beginning of this blog were intelligent, educated people all contributing to a campaign to help boost body confidence. The job itself is something akin to turning an elephant around in a small room. Some of these people are employed by organizations to do the job they do. I do not know if any of them are voluntary and independent as I am.
Anyone who mistakes Body Dysmorphic Disorder for a type of body image blues is either kidding themselves or attempting to kid us. I would suggest they might need to re-visit the definition in the DSM-IV or make it their mission to meet someone who suffers from the disorder for some first-hand descriptions. I have often suspected that understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder from the perspective of a non-sufferer is a bit like two people trying to speak to one another using different languages. I can’t understand them but I try my hardest to do so. Reaching out to them is my best hope for survival and relief. Let’s hope they find a way to do the same for us in return.
The mission in under 140 characters is still the same:
Dysmorphia needs a Poster Girl
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