Body Dysmophic Disorder

[SoothSayer]

I have a friend that was diagnosed with BDD about 3 years ago. He had no indication that he was losing any hair whatsoever and even today he looks just the same but he was still anxious about hair loss at the time. From my experience of close friends with the illness, I can say that if you are obsessively checking these forwards then your problem may lie in other places than the hair loss itself. Personally - I am losing hair but it does not bother me significantly so it is possible to live with hair loss and not feel hideous or inferior.

[VictimOfDHT]

Thank you, depressedbyhairloss. BDD is a devastating disorder. To those who don't know about it, it can literally destroy your life, totally. I once read about a girl who couldn't even leave her home -she was living with her mom- for two years because she was horrified of being seen in public. I can't remember what her obsession was but she didn't have physical disabilities or disfigurement... Her mom said sometimes she wouldn't see her for months at a time even though they both were living in the same space. Basically you become excessively preoccupied with whatever part of your body that you see as imperfect/defective that it becomes the only thing you think about and it will only get worse from there until you prefer complete isolation from any social things and you become literally a prisoner of your own mind.

To have BDD is a bad thing. To have BDD and then get hit with hair loss, that's like a knock out. You're done. The thing is therapy won't do much if anything at all. Maybe with very mild cases it will. I have tried in the past and didn't do jack shit. I'm pretty much done and just awaits my fate. But I will NEVER stop my fight against the cancer of hair loss even if I know I'll be living in a cell. NO WAY IN HELL I'm going to look in the mirror and see a bald man in it. Now I'm going to be setting a time for my 6th HT to fill in the thinning temples and hair line YET AGAIN.
I'm resigned to living with BDD but not with baldness.

[lilpauly]

it ruining my ****in life

[John P. Cole, MD]

This is all simply a tragedy. No procedure or medication can make a person comfortable with their appearance. Those with hair loss need to feel improved by surgical intervention. Anything short of this is a failure. No one likes failures so if you cannot anticipate improvement from the prescribed treatment, the optimal option is to do nothing.

[dex89]

LOL I kinda relate to this accept the suicide part. I think the only cure for this is having that "I don't give a ****" attitude. No?

[hellouser]

LOL I kinda relate to this accept the suicide part. I think the only cure for this is having that "I don't give a ****" attitude. No?

Equivalent to throwing in the towel. Won't matter, society will still treat you like dog shit over your hair so it really isn't YOU with body dysmorphic disorder... it's society.

[FlightTL]

I have some form of BDD I'm pretty sure.

[OrdinaryUser]

My hair has always been an intimate part of my self-image, how I am perceived by others, and it going away renders me powerless and in a crisis of some sort at my age. I wouldn't be as obsessed with this if my hair loss presented itself in my 30s or so. But in my 20s, when I have yet to fully construct my life, it's just a burden and absolute impediment. So I do have some correspondence to BDD, but I am taking it awfully hard because of the fact that I don't look in optimal standing for my age--when appearance is most crucial. I am sure I will get over it once my balding has really progressed, irreparably so, and then I feel like I can accept it better and move on because there is nothing I can do at all about it.

[OrdinaryUser]

Equivalent to throwing in the towel. Won't matter, society will still treat you like dog shit over your hair so it really isn't YOU with body dysmorphic disorder... it's society.

Well you have to prepare for this event anyway. You can't keep your hair forever, that is if you have any. The majority of people aren't going to treat you like shit exclusively for your hair, or a wrinkle,etc. The minority that do are self-consumed douchebags whose opinion shouldn't matter to a self-respecting person. Everyone has a blemish or flaw about them, you can't defy the properties of naturally aging, etc. This is just an unrealistic expectation.