The Woman In The Mirror Is Skinnier Than You Think
Posted by: Leonora Epstein
Filed in:
news
9:40AM, Thursday June 25th 2009
When someone tells you that you’re not fat, it can be hard to believe them when you’re staring in the mirror. Don’t they see that jiggly mess there? Maybe you have some nice friends. But you might also be distorting what you see. Body dysmorphic disorder affects one in every 100 women in the U.K., reports the Daily Mail. In a story about self image, the paper worked with two women with body dysmorphia to digitally alter their photographs to match up exactly with their own perceptions (larger image after the jump). What you get is pretty terrifying, and hopefully less extreme than your own self-image.
You would think seeing the comparison would be therapeutic. For the girl pictured above, Racheal, she did at first say, “It was like a form of therapy flipping back and forth between the two pictures of me because I could actually study the difference.” But that effect seemed momentary when she went on to say, “But if I stop and look at the first unaltered picture, I feel repulsed and sick to the stomach.” This brings up the issue of whether body dysmorphia is unalterable: Rachael is confronted with the drastic comparison, realizes the differences, but is still fearful of her own face. What do you think? Is this body issue curable? Can it exist in the mirror and in a picture? [Daily Mail]
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hollywoodrachel
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 10:16 am: [report]
Holy s&*t that is scary! I think every woman suffers from this disorder to a very small degree (I fully blame all the celebrity over-exposure in the media!) But that disturbing photo comparison is so interesting! Thanks for the post
jimnist10
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 11:52 am: [report]
Wow. I’m a little shocked. I can’t believe how “off” she is about herself. Like REALLY off. Scary.
likeOMGkbye
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 02:06 pm: [report]
This is why I love Carson Kressley (sp? no idea..) the blonde overly flamboyant guy from Queer Eye’s newish show, I think its called “How to Look Good Naked” or something like that. In it, he lines up a bunch of women from smallest to largest and asks the contestant (wrong word, but you get it) to place themselves where they think they fit in the line-up size wise. Every time the woman places her self sizes larger in line. Very eye-opening and a great way to put size into perspective
Buffkitty222
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 08:23 pm: [report]
I understand how she feels, but she’s gorgeous. Long legs, beautiful hair and she looks like a natural beauty. Lucky girl
CraftLass
wrote on June 25 2009 @ 08:51 pm: [report]
BBC America ran a documentary about BDD, the British are doing a great job of publicizing this disorder and trying to get people the help they need, it seems. The extra-crazy part of BDD is that the full-blown disorder often seems to affect incredibly attractive people. The girl in the picture is seriously beautiful and one of the women in the documentary was so spectacular I would be surprised she isn’t a model if I didn’t know about her disorder. They even showed a guy with it (much rarer than women) who never takes off his sunglasses lest someone see his “hideous eyes”, and when the filmmaker finally convinced him to show his face on camera he had the most beautiful eyes, the kind schoolgirls daydream about.
The documentary said that great strides can be made towards recovery with behavioral therapy, they showed the girl I mentioned going through the therapy and she did get a bit better. At the start, she couldn’t leave the house without a several-hour regimen of caked-on makeup, especially eye makeup, without crying and feeling paralyzed. They made her do things like go down to her corner store with no makeup and buy something, little baby steps towards freedom. She definitely got measurably better and could function with normal makeup by the end, but I suspect she still sees that hideous monster when she looks in the mirror.
Another girl, once beautiful, had had so many nose jobs that her doctor said her next one might collapse the base structure, rendering her the “freak” she already thinks she is. Her father was in major debt from paying for them, no less. Yet, she went and had ANOTHER nose job!
I cried my eyes out when I saw that. And I cried a bit when I saw these pictures. This is a whole different level from our usually overly-critical perceptions of ourselves. So, if you don’t have BDD, go look in a mirror and appreciate what you DO love about yourself for all those who simply can’t.
Arsenic
wrote on June 26 2009 @ 10:00 am: [report]
Honestly, I think just about everyone suffers from this to a tiny degree. I know I do- not nearly to this extent, but I definitely notice a real difference in the mirror when I’m feeling depressed. It really isn’t all that surprising when you consider the daily bombardment of “Look amazing!” and “Girls who think they are pretty are really ugly, self absorbed bitches!” at the same time. Is it really all that surprising that some girls internalize it more than others? Even to the point of illness?
And really, guys might have it a little better, but not much. I know my SO doesn’t think he’s nearly as attractive as he really is- and when I point out all the gay guys after his ass he shrugs it off and says it’s a “mystery”. I think there are probably more guys out there than they think- its just guys are told even louder “Guys that admit weakness or body image problems aren’t real men!”.
GreenAura
wrote on June 26 2009 @ 10:10 am: [report]
I think my image of myself is incorrect, but at the other end of the spectrum. I’ll look in the mirror and go “okay, cool I look good in this outfit” but then I’ll see a picture of myself and see what the world sees and I look worse than the image in my head. sucks. So hooray for treadmills!