Therapy And Medication For BDD
Were you prescribed medication for your BDD?
I'd already been prescribed medication for BDD twice by 2 different doctors at this point. Then I was prescribed a third medication by the second doctor I had who was a specialist working with the program. I had never taken the medication though. I don't know if it was something I read but I believe it was more of something I made up in my head that taking medication was beyond just making my skin worse. It was going to actually deform the bones in my body. I felt like putting this medication in my system was going to alter my bones and my face was going to change. I had made up in my head that I couldn't take medication. So I started flushing my pills down the toilet. I wasn't taking them and I was lying.
Did your therapist know you weren't taking your medication?
My therapist did not know at that point. I was so good at hiding my BDD and lying about my BDD and just completely camouflaging it, I had it down to a science. And so, she didn't know that I wasn't taking this medication.
What prompted you to take medication for your BDD?
The reason that I started really taking medication is, I hit after about 6 months, I hit a plateau of getting better because there was no longer actions I could do, it was the thoughts were not going away, the feelings, the depression. All that was not going away and I decided I really needed to give this medication a chance.
What was the hardest part of treatment for BDD?
The hardest part of treatment for BDD was facing my fears and actually going through with,with doing things I was so afraid of doing. Some of them were treatment based where my doctor would partake with me. Going back to when I was young and putting lotion under my eyes to make my under eye circles look better and have my skin break out. So now in my head, lotion equals skin breaking out, so I would, I would avoid lotion like the plague. So you know one of my treatments was to put lotion on my hand, my arms, not to wash my hands, to touch my face, to touch my body, and to really sit with it for an hour. Other things was I didn't drive anybody in my car, I didn't let anyone touch my bed, I didn't let anyone touch my personal things, so was having my therapist come to my house and lying in my bed and touching my personal things and driving her around the block. And it really helped because it would allow me to realize that all these fears I had were just in my head and I didn't die, my skin didn't break out, but actually facing those fears, it was like the end of the world, your BDD is so in control, and now that you know what it is, and you know it's coming, it's disease, it's in control, it's bossing you around and it's telling you, you can't do this.
Did you ever want to give up while in treatment for BDD?
It was a mess while in treatment for BDD. I mean there was days that I wanted to give up, there's days that I couldn't do it anymore, there's days where I wanted to quit treatment because you are literally putting yourself in every single day a boot camp of things that you need to get through to get better but it's some of the hardest stuff you've ever done in your life.
How did you get through treatment for BDD?
I got through it by having positive support and negative support. My mom was so supportive and my sister was so supportive, that lived with my mom. Probably because they didn't live with me, they were kind of my cheerleaders. When I got better they were there to support me. She was picking me up at my house and driving, forcing me to go to treatment. So it was kind of like I had that positive support from someone who had my back and understood what I was going through. I had the, I'd say negative; you know my grandma, my dad and my little sister that lived with me were fed up. They were tired of all the long showers. They were tired of always needing to wash things. They were tired of me taking so long to get ready, that it was almost like they were almost forcing me, like get out of the shower or I'll turn the water off. And you're leaving now even if we have to physically drag you out of this house. Of course looking back now, they refused to enable it. They were doing the right thing. They were refusing to enable it, and because I wasn't getting reassurance and enabling, I had to go inward and do it myself.
How did you realize your self-image wasn't accurate?
Part of the treatments would really incorporate yourself back in the society .I had been home bound where it was my family is only the people I saw me I was barely die so I had assumed how everybody react to me at the grocery store. How people react to me if I want to go out to a party or a club. So what would really like hit maybe I was over assuming this or maybe it was a disease was I would start going out with friends that I start making out that night and nobody would stop and say thanks and nobody would tell me I couldn't go out with them and people would hate on me on stop and so. Maybe all this things I was assuming half to be wrong.
Was it difficult to overcome BDD?
Overcoming BDD is the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. Because you have in your head that there's something wrong with you and that it is wrong with you, it's not a disease. So really trying to like figure out what the disease was and then clicking in my head that I have something that's making me think I look a certain way that's not really there. And also you have to completely give yourself to the treatment and just sort of be like, "I'm not going to fight anymore, I'm going to do what they say to get better." It was not an overnight thing. It was two full years of treatment, constantly, every single day for two years. It was getting my life back together. It was going from being a baby who lived in my room to start making friends, to get a job, to get school, to be able to eat food myself, to be able to cut my own food. I mean these little learning things that I had forgotten how to do because I wasn't doing them for so long I had to start over again. And then even once I was out of every day treatment, you know, treatment to make sure the medication was OK. And now it was kind of like I had to re-learn my life. I had to get confidence back. I had to get my life back.
How did you motivate yourself through treatment?
For me it was really just that hunger, it just snapped in my head one day in treatment, I don't know if it was going out to eat, or going to a restaurant, or just something so small, I hadn't seen a dentist in three years because I was so afraid to go to the dentist and have them think of something, I mean it just finally being able to do normal things, it started getting that taste back in my mouth of what it would be like to live without this, and it was kind of like I'm willing to do whatever, and be whatever it takes to get past that.
What was the key to recovering from BDD for you?
The key to recovery was when everything kind of got together. The medication started working. My spirit was born. I mean I was dead. Even though I wasn't physically dead, I was dead as a person. Once all it started coming together and the medication I started seeing the successes. It's like okay, you know it's like somebody losing weight. 'Okay, I do start to see the effects', and for me it was really to the point where it was like 'Okay, now I can do it.'
