Have you ever heard of Body Dysmorphic Disorder? This is a hidden disease in which you
believe you are ugly or have hideous physical flaws. According to researcher Sanjaya Saxena, body dysmorphic disorder usually goes undiagnosed because people go to great lengths including plastic surgery to change their appearance. Interestingly, Dr. Saxena suggests that the disease is a result of a brain abnormality. Fortunately, it’s a pretty rare condition so unless you’re the type getting 3 plastic surgeries a year you probably don’t have it.
–Mid Brain
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I’ve sometimes wondered if Michael Jackson has a body imaging disorder such as this. I remember an interview he had with Barbara Walters some years ago after he started plastic surgery. His appearance had changed somewhat but not to the freakish extent it has become. When she asked him why he had the surgery, he explained how he couldn’t stand to look at himself. He told her that at one point, he had all the mirrors in his house removed and lived in the dark so even his staff couldn’t see him. I remember thinking how sad that was; that someone could be that upset by their own reflection. It would seem that somewhere along the line, his plastic surgeon became more interested in profit than his client’s well-being, though. But now, it’s hard to feel sorry for Michael Jackson.
^agree with Karen..
MJ is just too scary and also too damaged.
It’s an interesting thing with plastic surgery. A girl had liposuction, and afterwards, she said that she’s not scared of plastic surgery anymore, and she wouldn’t mind getting more.
Well, she hasn’t gotten anything more, at least any other invasive surgeries. Her doctor tried using Thermage to tighten up the loose skin from her upper arm, where she had liposuction.
Other than that she’s been out of the plastic surgeon’s office. She also had the liposuction done because she went from being a size 12 to a size 2 in a really short time, so even though she was working out all the time, those extra fat cells weren’t going anywhere.
The career I have choosen is laden with oppirtunity ,yet it is fraught with heartbreak and despair and the bodies of the those who have failed,which they were piled one atop another,would cast a shadow down upon all the pyramids of the earth.
yet I will not fail,as the others,for in my hands I now holds the charts which guaid through perious waters to shores which only yesterday seemed but a dream.
I am what others call “fat”! But i would much rather look as i do now than cut up my body to please someone elses’ distorted sense of what a woman “should” look like, rather than accept her for herself!!!!! I almost feel sorry for michael jackson, but i cannot, for the simple fact that he is a child molester and perverts such as he need prison time, not sympathy!!!!!
Yining: Thanks for the most oddly poetic spammed comment we’ve ever received. I don’t know what it means but it’s too intriguing to delete.
Rare? I can’t see that it’s that rare… maybe to the degree that you’d get multiple plastic surgeries, sure, but most of us couldn’t afford those even if we wanted them. Watch a few of the documentaries on eating disorders, though, and you start seeing girls who draw pictures of themselves as though they are enormous. A woman who is a size two and says she’s fat isn’t necessarily employing hyperbole. I once lost a great deal of weight and looked in the mirror and saw no difference whatsoever… none. I look at the pictures of myself now from that time and wonder what was wrong with me, but I really felt like there’d been no change at all.
I wonder if maybe the perceived severity of this changes with income. I have to admit, if I’d been ultra-wealthy at the time, I probably would have had surgery myself when I was going through that.
Because I was slightly overweight as a teenager I still see myself as “fat” though others tell me that isn’t true today.
However, I think it is likely that we ALL focus on our figure flaws which certainly distorts them in our own mind’s eye if not in the mirror.
I did see a woman this weekend who admitted to being over-zealous about cosmetic surgery. I thought it was sad because even I could tell that she probably would have looked much better if she hadn’t started having stuff “done”.
When I am tempted by serious plastic surgery I just think of two people: Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers and that deters me immediately!
I’ve worked with probably 25 plastic surgeons around the country, including one performing quite a lot of breast augmentation in New Jersey procedures, and they all tell me that BDD is something they pretty much look for in EVERY patient. Obviously, they want to help people look better, but they don’t want another “cat woman.”