A succesful history of my bdd. Now I'm feeling better

[Hopeforfuture 2]

I write this thread to report my experience with my body dysmorphic disorder and my approaches with surgery. I suffered from bdd for over 10 years. Two years ago I found a great psychologist who has literally saved my life.

Until a couple of years ago I thought I wanted to modify my entire face: eyes, nose, chin, jaw, philtrum, cheekbones, eyebrow arch etc. In the subreddit "r/amiugly" when I wrote it a few years ago, a (presumed) girl wrote me that I was so ugly that for someone like me there could not be a surgery that could remedy my ugliness. These words made me feel bad and very sad. The Internet is the worst place to ask reassurance about your appearance, many people are cruel.

I also wrote five years ago in this forum, with the nick italyguy000, looking for validation for my face. Here, thankfully, I received only positive validations.

Thanks to the psychologist and my willpower I understood why I tend to see my face hideous and horrible when in real life I'm a normal man. The bdd tend to made this: when I see my face on the mirror I see my ugly thoughts and my repressed rage that turn into perception of ugly facial features in the mirror and in pictures.

I'm also writing a book about my story, I'm Italian and in my country nobody people that officially affected by bdd has publicly exposed about this disorder and I will be the first in my country to do so. I think if my book will be succesful in my country, I will have to do an international version of my auto-biographic book written in English. One of my chapter of my book is completely dedicated to internet and online toxic communities that can feed the bdd.

I write this because in my disorder I was lucky to contact two cosmetic surgeons who advised me that I don't need to change anything in my face, otherwise probably at this time I would have done several surgical interventions that deformed my face completely. I believe that serious and professional cosmetic surgeons should work in pairs with a psychotherapist. There are too many people with bdd than anybody can believe, most of them don't even believe they have bdd but they believe they are just plain ugly.

I hope my book can serve something in Italy, and I hope, if it is successful, even outside my country. Sorry for my bad english.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Hopeforfuture

[Hopeforfuture 2]

Thank you very much 2Shea! ?

I hope that my book will have success in Italy (my country), and will change the situation about body dysmorphic disorder perception in common people. There are too many teenagers and young adult who are potentially victims of BDD, I wanna help these people to prevent everything I have experienced in the first person with this disorder.

[donatella 5,801]

Hey I remember you and telling you that you’re very handsome and not to listen to online trolls. Very happy to hear you’ve found inner peace and best wishes and success with your book.

[Hopeforfuture 2]

Thank you Donatella. I remember you and your comments.

I'm very grateful to my psychologist and very proud of me to destroy my desturb. Have a nice day! :-)