Body Dysmorphic Disorder As A Teenager

How did BDD affect your high school years?

High school it was not as bad as college but it was horrible, it was absolutely horrible in High School. I remember the the first year I was still BBD, but I was ok and I use to have like pictures of me and my friends on the wall and I would take pictures and stuff and just something hit right almost like when I went through my growth spurt. And I was really going through puberty. That's when the BBD's just took a mind of its own. I remember tearing down all the pictures of me on the walls, because I didn't want to have pictures of me anymore. I wouldn't let people take pictures of me. I didn't take my junior, in tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade I wouldn't take pictures. I just thought my acne was out of control. It was sad because we had kids on Accutane at school, who had horrible skin and they would still show up to school and I would have a couple of pimples here and there, but I was just obsessed. I took it to a whole other level and I use to want to sit in places in classes that were darker. I use to be so aware of the lighting. I use to want them to build like a dome over my high school and use like natural soft like orange light because you know they use florescent light and I felt like it made my skin look worse. My skin was such an obsession it would just took over I didn't want to look people in the face. I really felt like people who had clear skin were almost like human and I was human I was below them.

Did BDD keep you away from school?

I remember in one semester I was absent sixty times from my first period and I was always late if I wasn't absent because it would take me sometimes an hour and a half, two hours to get ready and that's not heard of for a teenage boy.

How did BDD affect how you spent your time in high school?

In high school it would take me about two hours to get ready in the morning, even though I lived within walking distance. I knew where all the mirrors and all the bathrooms were on campus, so I would run into the bathrooms on breaks and check my face, especially my skin from different angles. I would always get ready before and after volleyball and if I was going out at night, I would get ready too. I would have my whole night ritual before I went to sleep so sometimes I was taking good six to eight hours a day getting ready, and it was as much time as I was in school or sleeping.

How did BDD make you feel as a teenager?

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) in high school made me feel sub-human. I was so obsessed with skin; I can't even express it in words. Looking in magazines or at friends with clear skin, they were almost like gods to me. Almost how people look at celebrities, I would take them to another level as gods and they could have a normal high school. They didn't know what I was like. I had this horrible deformed skin and because of it I was ugly, I was less than. I couldn't go out during the day. I had to miss school. I had to hide. I really just felt like I wanted to be a hermit. I wanted all the windows always closed in my house. I wanted it dark because I felt ashamed.

Were you depressed because of BDD?

I was depressed and unhappy because of BDD. I was constantly in my head having these screaming thoughts. I mean they're not like whispers, they're screaming thoughts, like, "you shouldn't go out today, you shouldn't go to school, your skin looks bad, you don't look right, stay home." And you're having to deal with it constantly and you just get depressed, you get overwhelmed, you get tired. I started turning to my own self-medication, to drugs and alcohol, to crazy behavior. I just wanted to numb not only the voices in my head but the feelings that came along with it.

How did you feel when a dermatologist refused to treat you?

When the dermatologist would tell me I didn't have a skin problem, I felt they were like my last hope and because they weren't giving me what I wanted, it made me even more depressed. Now I was like, I always felt like there was these magic dermatologists out there that would give me some kind of pill which would make my skin turn perfect, which would completely get rid of this problem in my head and my life would be normal. And because they weren't doing that, it was kind of like my last hope was away and I had no hope. I became even more depressed.

Did your family recognize your behavior in high school as abnormal?

When it comes to my family they always thought I was a pain. They never understood why I was taking so much time in the mirror. My mom would get so annoyed because I was always asking for new skin products and I was always begging for new things and I was taking a long time to get ready and I was always missing and late for classes. But because they didn't know what it was they just thought I was being a pain, I didn't care about school, I was being annoying. They just never really understood so they always kind of caulked it up to being annoying.

Why didn't you tell your family about your struggles with appearance and depression?

To me it was definitely easier for my family to have these thoughts of me being an alcoholic, or doing drugs, or a slacker, or taking long to get ready, or weird or different, than telling them what it really was because I was so embarrassed I didn't want anybody to know my dark secret that I would rather people think that I was an alcoholic or drug use, it was better than them knowing that I had this dark secret with my skin and BDD.

How did you cope with your BDD as a teen?

Drugs definitely helped me cope with body dysmorphic disorder as a teen. I was really into shrooms and really harsh things like heavy alcohol and marijuana smoking. I mean it was never just used a little bit. It was used to the point that you're delirious and out. I was so drunk and stoned and I was so hit up on shrooms that I couldn't even think about body dysmorphic disorder because I wasn't even thinking. My brain was so fried. I was so drunk. I didn't even know where I was half of the time and that period of time was almost like freedom. It was like, oh my God, I don't have to think about it right now, I love this.

How did your attempts to numb your BDD affect your grades?

The drugs and alcohol definitely affected my schooling. Schooling was so, I did not care anymore. My grades went from As and sometimes Bs to definitely, like Ds, Cs. I was so happy just to get a B. I was only getting A in volleyball or whatever sport I was in. I was so in love with volleyball, the sport, that I always, that was kind of like my anti-drug that kept me sober enough and good enough in grades to pass. But I almost did not graduate high school.

How did BDD and your drug abuse affect your moods?

I was completely this person I wasn't really who I was. And because of it I was angry all the time, got in fights, mad, done. I was just sharp witted, I became so irritable, I had no tolerance for anything. And I actually got kicked out of high school because I had a problem with another student and instead of dealing with it normally I left threatening voice mails. It was around the time of Columbine and they had a zero tolerance policy and they considered them threats and kicked me out of high school.

Did BDD disrupt your life?

BDD was definitely destroying my life. I came from parents and siblings that didn't drink, didn't do drugs, very academic, very high degrees. And I always wanted to have fun, and to be popular, but I knew that. I can really kind of look back and say that if I didn't have BDD, I would have always kind of kept it in check, I would have experimented, but still had a great life and passed grades and showed up to school. But it deteriorated; it really caused me to almost not go to college. There were times that I could have overdosed. I drove drunk. I could have got in car accidents. I could have killed someone. I mean, there are so many things I look back that I did, that I was not thinking. I didn't care that I could have definitely been in jail. I could have died. I could have flunked out of high school. I could have killed myself, you know... I'm surprised that I am where I am now, because high school was definitely a horrible age.

After you got kicked out of school, did you go to therapy?

When I was going to therapy, once again it was this dark secret. I felt if I pointed out my skin I would get a comment back like, "You're right your skin does look bad." And then it verified that and it would send me in this downward spiral. So I was covered at any cost, it was like this deep secret that I couldn't let anyone know. So throughout the therapy I would always bring up everything else but that so I never really got to the problem because I was always like dancing around it.

Did you receive any treatment for your alcohol or drug problems?

I stopped drinking and doing drugs the summer after high school. I had read an article in a magazine that said that drugs and alcohol affected your appearance whether it be acne or wrinkles, weight and suddenly my BDD completely switched, turned gears, it was like now this is the enemy. This is what is causing it. Suddenly I would not drink. I would not do alcohol. I would not do any drugs because I felt it affected my appearance.

As someone dealing with BDD, did you ever feel comfortable in high school?

No. I felt squirmy in high school. And it was so hard, because I would have girls interested in me. I'd have people tell me I was cute. I'd have people approach me and be like, "You should model," and stuff. And that would make it worse, because then it was like, "They don't understand. They don't know what I'd look like at my best, if my skin was perfect." I still had hair concerns. Like if my hair was messed up, I'd be in the bathroom getting some water on my hands and kind of spiking it up again. I remember skipping a period and sitting in the bathroom stall the whole period because I didn't feel right and felt uncomfortable, and felt gross. I just was never comfortable. I remember being into a girl that I was going to ask to prom. I remember we had an assembly outside at the football stadium, and it was very cloudy light. And in my head, because it was very cloudy, there was no bright light to brighten up my face, so I felt like my face was really dark and the acne was more obvious. So I'm sitting here trying to talk to this girl and I'm so uncomfortable. And it wasn't because I was nervous or anything like that. It was just absolutely like, "I don't want her to see my skin, I don't want her to know what I really look like." So the entire conversation I'm fidgety and uncomfortable, and that was how it was throughout all of high school.

What advice do you have for a high school student struggling with BDD?

If this is affecting you and you're watching this, and you're like, "this could be me", get help. Help . . . I know what it's like, you don't want other people to know, you don't want to feel different but there's definitely ways to get treatment and just focus on that and get better. You can start getting your high school life back. You can interact with people, you can date, you can feel attractive, you can go to dances, you can get good grades. You just have to be willing to realize that there is a problem and that you want to get help for it.