It has been a while since I have been out with a group of people that I did not know well.
This has been out of fear mostly, my belief that my facial deformity would be too distracting for others to accept has kept me homebound.
Most of this is because of a scar to my face, a recent injury that I sustained while surfing. It ended in 8 stitches and a pretty significant scar on my left cheek. At least it was significant to me.
As I have mentioned before I have had BDD since I was probably 15 or 16. I had learned to control it, but this incident sent me overboard.
All my facial concerns landed on me like a ton of bricks. And until today this is where I sat, buried under the weight of it all, short of breath, wishing for my life back.
JUMPING IN
Until today I had worn a band-aid over the scar. People at work I could tell were wondering why I still wore this band-aid after several weeks. I told them it was still healing, of course they didn’t know it was my mind I was really talking about.
This made things only worse and over the last week more and more people started to ask me about my scar and if they could see it.
I hid behind this band-aid, but unlike other scars or wounds people seemed to feel they had a right to ask me to remove my cover.
Strange I thought, I surely wouldn’t ask this of another person. But then again nobody knows what goes on in my mind.
DISROBING
So today I took it off. My family told me not to, even my wife felt I may not be ready, but I did it anyway. It caused me such anxiety that I found myself in a cold sweat.
But I knew that as long as I hid behind the band-aid I made it worse. I drew more attention to the imperfection.
The problem is that when it was covered I could deal. When I looked in the mirror and did my checks there was one more step to see the blemish. Just the action of having to remove the band-aid stopped my compulsion to look. So in this sense it was a protection.
But, it also prevented me from overcoming my worst fear. And that was the fear of people having to see me with this scar. Watching their eyes draw to it. Knowing that it existed was enough, knowing that others knew it existed was more than I could bear.
THE DELUSION
Immediately when I entered the room I expected people to gasp, but they didn’t. They hardly even noticed. I looked for their reaction all night, when the lights came on I actually went into where I knew it was the worst, I looked for their reaction, but it was non-existent.
Is my mind playing tricks on me or are these people just really too kind to say anything? I sit with this question tonight. And to be honest I am still not quite sure about the answer, or maybe I am too afraid to know the truth.
But at least I did it. I tested it and you know what? I survived!
Some Tips
- The mind will try to prove both the delusion as well as the reality. The only way to understand the difference is to test your theories of what is real. The problem with BDD is that it is hard to know what is real, to know if your thoughts are warranted or just a figment of your imagination. For me this night taught me something: that it is possible the images I hold in my mind are not real.
- You have to get out into the world. The fear at times is overwhelming for me. But had I not gone out I would never have had this brief, yet important moment of healing. The delusions in my head would continue their loop.
- Put yourself in fear’s way, it is the only way to heal, regardless of what you may think.
