Letters to the Editor
slcgrad
Published Letters: 78
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Wow.
[Read the article: How looks can kill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's sad how excited I was to find this article. "Wow; an article about the really obscure mental disorder that I've been diagnosed with!" I said. I'm even more impressed that it's kind of a weirdly scholarly article.
As a guy with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (which itself is rare; most sufferers are women), I have say that I've come to a few conclusions about BDD over the years:
1) BDD really sucks.
2) It never occured to me that it was genetic. I was kind of a funny-looking nerd in high school, jerks made fun of me for years for being a funny-looking nerd, as jerks will, and now I'm obsessive about my appearence. I continually fear being called funny-looking, and obsess very oddly, for hours a day, about my hair - specifically, only my hair; even though friends, girlfriends, etc., have assured me that I'm not funny-looking, that my hair is normal, etc...
3) BDD really really sucks. It prevents me from going outside, has cost me jobs, girlfriends, friends... and very nearly led me to kill myself.
4) Actually having BDD may be different from what you think it would be like. It's a very weird thing to have. The best comparison/analogy I can think of is this:
You have a blind date coming up in fifteen minutes. But you've just, say, eaten a huge amount of garlic, and, oh, let's say, sushi. Your breath smells awful, basically.
So you start brushing your teeth before your date. But where you would normal stop after a minute or two, now you're worried. You do a couple of sniff tests; but no you're not sure. Does your breath smell okay? How can you be sure? You don't want to mess up your date, and you're running out of time, and you need to leave soon, but you keep brushing and brushing and brushing... you can't stop. And now you're late for your date; you're ruining the very thing that you were worried about in the first place.
But how can you stop? When is your breath clean enough? When is enough brushing? It's a hard question to answer.
5) BDD's sort of like that, if that makes sense. It's like being afraid all of the time. What is normal-looking? What is good-looking enough? And if you've been made fun of for being ugly before, couldn't it always happen again, at any moment? As you can see, this starts to get a little weird and existential, after a while...
6) Anyway, that's it. I'm not saying that I know where it comes from or how to treat it. (Drugs? Endless therapy?) And I'm not saying there's a good solution. (Can we really all make ourselves believe that everyone is equally good-looking; that no one is unattractive? That seems hard to do, no? And that idea sort of seems to contradict some of our genetic hard-wiring.)
...I'm just saying, it's a weird thing to have. And if anyone else out there who's reading this has it, write in, and let me know what's going on with you.
best,
Oliver Miller
oliveramiller@hotmail.com
www.nerve.com/videoblog
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Gosh
[Read the article: How looks can kill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wow. As the only person actually diagnosed with BDD who actualy wrote in, I have to say that I'm impressed. ...I'm impressed with the number of good letters, and the number of letters written by people who clearly:
1) Had no point to make.
2) Or didn't know what they were talking about.
...But whom apparently had the extra free time necessary to write letters. Guys! You don't have to write in about everything! Maybe count backwards from ten, see if you know what you're talking about, then do it. Just a thought, no?
Anyway, as a person diagnosed with BDD, who actually strongly considered killing himself today, you guys make me sad. There is no limit, apparently, to our desire to...
1) Talk about subjects that we don't know anything about.
and
2) Talk about subjects that we don't know anything about.
God bless! And keep it going; don't let me stop you.
(And people who actually know something about this subject, whether you agree with me or not, I didn't mean you. At all. I meant the people who bothered to write in after:
1) reading this article
and
2) thinking about it for maybe thirty seconds.
...You know, behind every article that's just fodder for discussion. ...Ohmigod! A flood in Bangladesh! Let's discuss that in terms of the US foreign policy! ...Anyway, behind every article like that, there is an actual person, who is affected by the issue in question. In this case, that person is me.
I realized that a long time ago, when I had to flee New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and had to listen to dumb people talking about it on the news. But let me say it again: behind every news story, there is an actual person, affected by the real person in question.
I hope you figure that out eventually.
best,
Oliver Miller
www.nerve.com/videoblog
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Whoops!
[Read the article: How looks can kill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I meant to write "issue" the last sentence of my previous comment. By the way... ...oh, never mind.
best,
Oliver Miller
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So
[Read the article: McCain targets Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anonymous, I don't know what's more worrisome to me; the fact that you might be a Republican plant, or the fact that you might actually believe all the ridiculous crap that you're saying. Out of a misguided sense of respect for you, I'm going to go with the first option. And that goes double for you, Cythera. Shut up, the both of you, and stop hijacking these comment sections.
--Oliver