News

Treatment
Psychoanalysis
Medications
CBT & E&R Prevention
NLP
Insider Techniques
Advice for Friends/Partners

Insider Tips Continued
Back
Listen to yourself.
Have you ever tried to bring all the negative self-talk and obsessive thoughts in your brain to a complete halt? It's difficult, but possible, if you get into the right, relaxed state. During this time, I highly recommend you imagine yourself as a child, and see what's going on in your mind. Ask yourself what's wrong, what your fears are, what you're thinking. I was very surprised to see how many thoughts and fears I'd had as a child that I entirely neglected. These same thoughts and fears are still present in my life today, and I've been using BDD as a way to stop listening to myself, and to live a life ruled by false, beliefs that are aimed at protecting me from things that I don't need protection from! If you can find a way to listen to yourself, and stop neglecting your inner child, then you will also feel much more complete, love yourself, and take a huge leap towards defeating BDD beliefs!
Face your fears.
Most people with BDD will find that they have a BDD attack right before they are about to do something that they majorly fear. My recommendation is to put yourself in these feared situations as often as you can. Do this slowly though at first, as you don't want to commit suicide in an attempt to get over BDD. If you do put yourself into situations that you fear, you will almost always find that you've made them out to be much worse than they are! I'm petrified of dentists, and almost committed suicide over the fact that I made an appointment to get some teeth filled. Well, after going to the dentist, I realized that my dental phobia was ridiculous! I felt no pain, I got a surge of confidence (which is a definite BDD buster) for facing my fear, and now, I even have pearly white teeth and great dental hygiene to show for all my courage!
DO, don't think.
This one is difficult, but extremely helpful. Don't perform rituals. Don't compare yourself to others. Keep yourself busy. I personally know this is possible, but takes the most unbelievably excessive amount of willpower! Once you've given in, it's almost impossible to stop performing rituals. But, if you can start the day, and push yourself as hard as possible to do something productive, you will slowly gain momentum, until you lead a productive, BDD free day. The negative self-talk and inner critic will just hammer you with insults, but if you can resist all temptations to perform rituals, and put yourself on survival mode, working like a machine for an hour or so, you'll find that you set a much more positive direction for your day, and that you'll have much more control over your actions and thoughts later in the day.
Get Away from BDD trigger People and Places.
You might find that certain places and people will trigger you to have a BDD episode or BDD attack. While I feel it is important to face your fears and push yourself to do things that would normally cause you to have a BDD episode, I highly recommend that you keep away from dysfunctional situations and people that will unnecessarily cause BDD feelings. I notice that if I get around people with borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder, my likeliness of having a BDD attack increases. It gets especially bad if they use manipulation or work at raising their self-esteem by lowering mine. If I even visit a place I'd been to previously with such people, I will also get a BDD attack. I've found that it's better to stay away from such negative influences altogether.
Keep a journal.
I recommend that you keep a BDD journal, rating your days from 1 to 10, 10 being the worst BDD day imaginable. After a while, you will notice that your BDD episodes are very often triggered by certain events. For example, you might realize that every time you get around your ex-husband, you have a BDD attack. Well, this will allow you to keep contact to a minimum in the future, and prevent yourself from having more bad BDD days. In the near future, we'll have a journal set up on this site. If you'd like, you can get an anonymous membership, allowing you to post journal entries on this site. That way, you do not have to worry about others finding your entries, as nobody will know who you are. Yet, your experiences can be seen by other people with BDD, helping us all find what similar things trigger BDD episodes.
Dont do it alone.
That's right. You may think that you want to solve BDD alone, as many BDDers have social phobia. But, I highly recommend you do make this decision. I don't even think it would be possible to overcome BDD without outside help. The reason I think this, is because BDD is very much a social issue, where you feel unaccepted and "unhuman". To be totally cured, I believe that you have to feel like an accepted member of society, like all other people, and therefore, need as much outside support and help from other people as you can get! Be it a therapist, family, or friends, recruit other compassionate and caring people to help you in your quest! Don't fall into the trap of finding emotionally abusive, neglectful, or unsupportive people to help you though, as they'll just make your BDD worse.
Find a positive Role Model.
Most people with BDD will compare themselves with other people, seeing others as all good, and themselves as all bad. Why not find somebody that is quite similar to you, that's already been judged as being good! During a bad BDD day, this technique rarely works, but if you are thinking rationally, then it works quite nicely. Just find a celebrity, or a person you know, that has similar features to your own. Whenever you are feeling down, just remind yourself that they're making a whole load of money off of their physical appearance, so your similar features shouldn't be considered too unattractive to other people.
Go out on a bad hair day.
This advice is hard to follow, but if you follow it, it will work wonders. If you are having a bad BDD episode, use Richard Branson's (founder of Virgin Records) motto, "Oh screw it. Let's just do it!" Take your hair down, mess up your face a little bit. Wrinkle your shirt or untuck it. Do something to make yourself the dreaded "imperfect" person! I find, if I purposely try to make myself look imperfect, then I feel as if I don't need to compete with the outside world, and I don't obsessively wonder if my face looks bad, because I know that I purposely made it look so!
Question black and white thinking.
This is a great method invented by a friend in my BDD support group. If you are having a BDD episode, dominated by black and white thinking, question yourself. If you think that your nose is big, remember that you have an entire face, not just a nose. Rate every feature on your face from 1 to 10, 1 being unacceptably deformed, 10 being pretty terrific. You'll notice that some of your features will seem acceptable to you. Not great, but at least average. The feature of your obsession will get horrible ratings, most likely a 1 or, if you try to be really clever, a 0. Take all the ratings that you've made on your appearance, add them together, and then take the average. You'll notice that your score is most likely in the acceptable range. This reminds you that you are NOT your hated feature, but a whole human, composed of flaws and nice features. Your flaws can even be nice features! But it's best to put things into perspective, and realize that you are not hideous, but at least average, and that you would be accepted in public.
Question internalized dialogues.
Have you ever said something demeaning to yourself, and know you've heard it before? Well, most likely you have! Often, if you review your past, you'll notice that many of the shortcomings you notice in yourself are the same things that family members or important people in your life told you while you were younger. Stop listening to these voices! Most times, you'll realize that if nothing had been said to you before, you would have never come up with the opinion yourself in the first place. So take a stand against these voices, and create your own positive voice to counter them!
Find Evidence to support positive beliefs.
People with BDD have a talent. That talent is to create beliefs relying on absolutely no or imagined evidence! We can use this same talent to make positive beliefs. Think into your past, and remember all the times that somebody said that they liked what you were wearing, or said hello to you, or went out of their way to do something special. Even the most neglected person will have one memory of someone noticing them at one time or another. Use this memory to convince yourself that you are accepted and loved by others. If you think about such positive evidence often enough, you will find that you have as many, if not more, good days than bad!
Chart your BDD beliefs, and change them.
People with BDD have a very maladaptive set of beliefs quite different from the average, well functioning human. I have charted out my own BDD beliefs, and will list them here as an example:

1. I am not human.
2. People are out to hurt me.
3. I am alone.
4. I was born different.
5. If I were human, then I'd deserve attention.
6. My appearance is to blame for not getting attention in the past.
7. People don't like me.
8. I don't have anybody.
9. If people are quiet around me, it means they will leave me.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help you to question your beliefs or change them to more positive ones, (like the following), and also teach you to change your reaction to situations.

1. I am human.
2. People are out to help me.
3. I am in a world full of prospective friends.
4. I was born human, giving me rights and worth like everyone else.
5. It was my family's fault. They had the duty of respecting me and giving me the love I needed. It was not my fault they did not do this.
6. People do like me.
7. I have tons of people in my life that I can count on.
8. If people are quiet, it has nothing to do with me.

Check out the section on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for more information on this topic, and links to other informative websites.
Join a support group.
I can't believe I'm putting this one last, as it was the first thing that truly brought me out of my BDD rut. I highly recommend that you join a support group, too. This can be in person, on the internet, or even in our forums on this site! Finding that there are other people with BDD, experiencing the same ideas and feelings, is truly liberating! For the first time, you will realize you are not crazy, but are just one amongst the many people who are struggling with the same set of personality traits! Seeing these similarities will give you hope and a sense of belonging, which both bring about great relief from BDD. If you'd like to join our online support group, just click here!
Back