Body Dismorphic Disorder...anyone else dx'd/suspect

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Oh dear, i really hope this is not a thread of just me....i seem to finish discussions off.

Anyway, here goes nothing (at least typing it out may help me make sense of it....oh dear, it's going to be a long post)

I am trying to avoid being officially diagnosed with Body Dismorphic Disorder..I put this jokily in my introductions Dino style post. It's not really a joke though. I do have serious issues about my appearance whilst logically acknowledging I have the correct number of facial features, limbs etc in the right place.

I think it may just be perfectionism, melded with the idea I had from childhood that if I was pretty enough, being weird and silent wouldn't matter. It seemed the "pretty girls" were excused anything.

It may help to explain that in some parts the UK at least, red or ginger hair makes you target for bullying, it is often absolutely hated by some people . And yes, I am little and I have red blonde hair, and have had abuse shouted at me in the street as a child, and even recently a woman i worked with said to my face that she would rather abort than have a ginger baby...yes theres that level of hatred. (No she didn't know about the ASD)

I don't have issues about my hair colour, I could just dye it if I did, but it's the rest of me. Post the birth of my son (which was a nightmare of obstetric awfullness) I'm worse than ever...and it was 9 yrs ago so I should just *get over it*. I'm convinced I'm too fat, saggy,aging, there is something subtly wrong with every one of my features.....I need rubbing out and re-drawing. And as a result, I've been single ever since. When I have been asked out, the last 4 times have been men in their 20's (and usually attractive)and somehow this makes me really uneasy (I'm 37)...are they having a laugh? Gerontophiliacs? some other weird paraphilia?

Basically, is feeling uncomfortable in your own skin just part and parcel of ASDs? Obsessiveness turned to appearance rather than something factual or tangible?

I would appreciate responses/pms from anyone on this, female male or transgendered.
Thank you

I guess I dont like multiple labels....and I think it's maybe a focus for low self esteem. Or not feeling accepted. Maybe it's just a different variety of the sense many AS women have of not entirely identifying with their gender, (without meaning people who are actively transgendered or intersex).

From what I've read on BDD, there is nothing other than Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(which apparently is not particularly effective for people with ASDs)...I dare say fluoxetine is probably prescribed (it gets prescribed for everything short of decapitation) but I don't do well with SSRIs.

It doesn't preoccupy my every waking moment -I have coffee and pub med for that

anyhow, thanks for reading and not using the dreaded words "pull yourself together" !

I have been diagnosed with that when I was about 14(also with an eating disorder) I am now 34.. I have always experienced it. I remember looking at my body when I was 5, and I was discusted with it because it just didn't look how I thought it should(or rather, what i saw wasn't what was). I can go from feeliing just fine with my body when I am feeling good about something, then I could have a thought, or something that effects me emotionally, and I instantly feel like I weigh about 20 lbs more than I really am. My clothes don't fit right, my legs are flabby(i absoulutely hate the feeling of my legs or any part of my body jiggiling.) my skin just doesn't seem to fit right. Studies show that Sensory integration disorder has something to do with it. It is your brain percieving something in a differrnt way that it is. Also, it is said that there is a high chance of body dysmorphic disorder in those with Aspergers, especially women.

It isn't just women with Aspergers that experience it. I know of a 42 year old High Functioning autism that has it to along with an eating disorder. Prozac helps with the depression, but it doesn't really change the unusual way that you see yourself.

I don't know if this will help, but I ask that the next time you look in a mirror you remind yourself that the most beautiful thing about any person is the brightness of the soul that can be seen through their eyes. Get involved in doing things that help that soul shine through, and maybe the body issues won't nag at you so much.

Whatever you have, I'm sure it won't be helped by "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy."
The more I hear about it, the more I think that it's not just bad for Aspies -- it's bad for everyone.

The general rule within the medical profession is: If you don't know what to do, just do something incredibly stupid and harmful. Then you'll have something that you know how to treat.
Like the practice known as "accu-puncher" in Lil' Abner.
Or the leeches they used to bleed George Washington to death.
And when all else fails, try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It's just an excuse for sadistic people to get their jollies at the expense of defenseless people.

I do feel strangely somewhat comforted by FrogGirls posts....if it's just part of general awry neuronal wiring I can accept it more. (I should say, before my AS diagnosis, I never thought my personality was weird, I just encountered a lot of irrational, ill mannered,judgemental people with dulled senses who talked a lot of trivia...now I know that's just NTdom)

I often thought it was maybe a over rigid thinking thing, and attempts to make a simple equation out of things....if attractive = popular and lots of friends, then inversely, not popular and not many friends = not attractive. Therefore, try to identify what is not attractive/normal and fix it to fit the norm. Then the self concioussness and feeling of not fitting in will be gone. Trouble is, on any given week, it's a different aesthetic issue. Given the funds, I can see surgical addiction would ensue.

And of course, if you have an entrenched belief, you can find evidence and instances to support it. "that person is no more clever and outgoing than me, they are more accepted because they are attractive" "first impresions count""how come they get away with doing/saying that.."


I have seen documentaries on BDD, and most of them came across as somewhat AS..... And no, they didn't seem particularly helped by CBT apart from one instance where the obsessiveness was displaced to BDD campaining. Also I doubt medication will help with a belief...rather than a transient *fixable* situation such as external stresses, depression etc.

Again, thank you for all the posts (This is a kind of "secret issue" with me)

I am male with AS and a perfectionist. Not with appearance, but I have talk to a researcher at a meet who said that women on the spectrum can be perfectionist and obsessive about their appearance. So there are links with eating disorders, and disorders relating to appearance.

I don't think it is a complete rule because there will be women who don't pay as much attention like me.

Well since you're obviously past being a teenager I'm not sure what to say as it is fairly common for teens and pre-teens on the spectrum to blame a lot of their social problems with their appearance and to go as far as trying to change their physical characteristics in a variety of ways. Perhaps in some respects you are going thru a similar stage but much later in life.

Only chronologically past being a teenager! I doubt emotionally so..., which is probably the nub of it.

I can make some jokes about my appearance...so not entirely overwound.It's worse when I'm stressed, it's like a focus for other annoyances. Plus all the "hot aspie" threads don't help me, I go self pitying...
Frankly, it's a relief to get the lab coat and goggles on, we are all levelled by looking like dorks and at least there I'm only remarkable for being proficient and not blowing things up.

The perfectionism is at the heart of things...thanks 0_equals_true. I have perfectionist traits in other things, often beyond reason or attainability.

intellectualising things helps me accomodate issues so apols to anyone finding me verbose.

PS Thanks Gary (i'm a closet fan of your common sense posts! Maybe I can start a fanclub)

Definately Heartcooksbrain, that is a male equivalent. It's sapping isnt it, when logic says one thing, but gets overruled by inner perception (no matter how skewed you know it is).

No matter how many times you are told "you look fine/attractive" etc, it's hard to accept a compliment you don't believe to be true. And you start thinking well, these people have low standards. Or they are sayinng what they think I want to hear.

One thing I can say that is useful (and it's me putting my sensible Pharmacology head on, complete with goggles) please please don't resort to steroids. Aside from future cardiac issues, and roid rage, it can give severe acne too. Which could cause more self consciousness. Plus (in the UK at least) these drugs are usually under the counter things, of questionable origin/purity and manufacturing control and are often injected, which is also risky.

I would think our (speaking about people with ASDs, not women) weak central coherence (seeing parts of things more easily than the whole) makes us more likely to get it. We fixate. Some people glance in a mirror and say

"Ew. I don't look so good today."

But the same person, given autistic traits would look in the mirror, look closer, then zero in on one thing, say for instance their nose, then zero in further...

"My nose. I hate my nose. Look at it. It's so ugly. It's way too wide. I need a nose job. Gross! I'm hideous!"

and then spend the whole day staring in the mirror or touching the nose.

There's a book on this.

I haven't read it all the way through so I don't know if it mentions autism, but it does mention OCD being comorbid with body dysmorphia and I know that OCD is often comorbid with ASDs, so it's an interesting thing to wonder about: do people with ASDs have a greater chance of having body dysmorphia?

Book: The Broken Mirror by Katherine A. Phillips

I think I bought mine at barnesandnoble.com now that I think about it. $20. Sheesh. Get thee to a library.

That said, I'm always picking very specific things out about myself that I don't like and this is one of the reasons I don't date.

Thanks MizLiz for the book recommendation...my University has a good library, so I guess I'll find it there (added to some other random things I have made a note of on my arm)

I heard somewhere that women in general when looking at themselves tend to assess in terms of componants...so add in hyper attention to detail, obsessiveness etc and I suppose it is not surprising.

I should say, in real life i don't talk about this stuff...how whiney would that be?I'd have an "I have no friends because I wore out their patience and sympathy reserves" disorder as well
It seems safer to explore it here and how much it my just be part and parcel of the variant of ASD I have.