Numb

It has been almost a month since I last posted.  I’ve been wanting to post positive ways that I cope with having Body Dysmorphia.  However, the truth is most of the time it is a struggle to even pretend to have a grip or some sense of control over things.  The past few months have been a disaster.  I am having a bad round of depression, which seems to make everything ten times worse.  So, in the next few posts I’ve decided to talk about the not so pretty parts.

In my life, things can get really dark when I am battling depression and dealing with my obsessions.  There are days when it seems absolutely impossible to get out of my own head. There are days when I can’t feel any emotion and become desperate to feel anything.

Let’s go back to Body Dysmorphia Disorder for a moment.  People with this disorder exhibit different symptoms.  I have said this before, I am not an expert.  I can only give information from my own experience.  With my disorder, I have an obsession with appearance (body shape, size, etc.), avoidance of mirrors and pictures, picking at perceived flaws (skin picking, pinching, scratching, lip biting), and the constant need for reassurance of appearance.  The weirdest thing to me is that some days I can’t look at the mirror without being disgusted and other days I can stop looking in the mirror to try and fix my flaws.

Now with all those symptoms and obsessions I have, there is always a cycle I go through of depression.  First, I begin to feel like an absolute failure.  I get mad at myself for not being able to just get ready and go places.  I get frustrated that my body is never where I want it to be. Then, the obsessions and feeling of failure start to trickle into my social and work life.  I stop talking to people as much, I snap at others easily, and I can’t find purpose or joy in anything I do anymore.  Eventually, I stop feeling anything.  I become numb.

This is the point where things get really scary.  When I become numb, I make the worst mistakes.  This is when I begin to self sabotage.