Do You Hate Your Body, Face, and Hair? You Could Have Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Most of us have suffered from a degree of BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) at some point in our lives, usually during adolescence. It's simply the preoccupation with an imagined defect of the body. Teenagers, the age when it usually starts, are almost all victims of the symptoms for short term, intermittent unhappiness at times. Most of us grow out of the obsessive behavior. This is normal, and often serves as a focus for otherwise unfocused problems of maturing.

BDD is a somatization disorder. Clinically it has many similarities with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder.) Sufferers tend to pick at their skin, cover supposed defects with makeup, hats, and/or hands and body posture-anything to hide the problem. They find passing a mirror, or any reflective surface, without examining their "defect", virtually impossible. This is, of course, the opposite of vanity, but is off-putting to other observers.

Facial and body hair (including head hair), facial features, moles and freckles that are perceived as too obvious, body odors, breast size, minor scars, acne, baldness, size and shape of genitalia, are amongst the more common objects of the disorder.

BDD has many sad results, including suicide. Adolescence is a difficult time for everybody. The body changes size, shape, and texture. Internal changes are even more extreme, but their very invisibility renders them a certain distance, while the physical changes that are visible can seem to be monstrous in the eyes of the sufferer. The changes are extreme, sometimes changing outward appearance enough to seem enough to be changing the character of a person. This, combined with the emotional and hormonal changes within, can be frightening to the BDD victim. Outward changes can give them something to blame, allowing them to ignore the other changes that might in reality be too scary to handle.