It's called SELF esteem...

I won't fake like I came up with this idea to write about body dysmorphic disorder on my own. I was watching a True Life episode which rightly stirred up all of my emotions and feelings on bodies and image. In it's most simple definition BDD is when one carries a rather severely distorted view of how their body looks and allows it to effect the life they lead. There are self tests on the internet and everything.

As a younger woman, I have battled with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the way my body looks. I have come to accept the fact that no matter how much weight I gain or lose my belly will always be in the same proportion to the rest of my body. My belly will never be flat. I have had a thing with my inner thighs touching and have eventually gotten over it, BUT I did for a very long time OBSESS about the insides of the tops of my thighs connecting. This may have been a minor form of BDD.

I have worked out at varying levels, pushed by my desire or lack thereof to have a "more ideal" body. I have suffered at the hands of diets, crash, sensible weight loss programs and everything in between. I have been trapped in the numbers of weight and sizes, refusing to stop until I reach a certain way. This may have been a minor form of BDD.

This idea of having a distorted view of the way that one's body looks is a slippery slope and I have certainly wrestled with at varying phases of my life, but have seemingly out grown them or learned a different way. However, having said this, I have witnessed many of a celebrity literally transform themselves from relatively normal looking human beings into soft speaking, paralyzed facial muscled hollywood-zombie bots in the name of vanity and achieving the perfect body image.

How in this day and age has a visit to the plastic surgeon replaced decent therapy? I refer back to these two women on True Life. One was rather obsessed with reassurance from her fiance that her decisions to get more and more plastic surgery made her look better. She promised that after her breast implants that she wouldn't have any more surgery. Eight weeks post surgery she was back in her doctor's office asking what else he could do for her to improve her looks. Her doctor began to explain to her that there wasn't anything else to be done. unfortunately, at this point, my lunch break was over and I had to come back to the office and missed the ending/conclusion, but this got me stirring a little bit.

In my opinion, plastic surgery is unnecessary on the terms of VANITY alone. I have had cosmetic surgery in my life. This brings me to a caveat. I can agree with a surgery if it is going to improve your quality of life. As in, if you can not breath due to a deviated septum and require rhinoplasty OR if you have insufferable back, shoulder and neck pain due to oversized breasts. Then YES. please. endure some pain to make your life more enjoyable. BUT. BUT when you think that your life will be better with a bigger rack or a nose without a bump in it or saddlebags etc, this is pretty unnecessary. Bigger boobs are not going to make you feel better about yourself. They are going to make you find something else wrong with you and lead you down the slippery slope of procedure after procedure.

I feel STRONGLY that NOTHING can make you feel better or worse about yourself than YOU. Not boobs, not a nose, not a bigger ass or thinner hips or ANYTHING. that's why it's called SELF esteem. If self analysis to figure out what is really missing is too challenging, take up some time with a therapist instead. Do the work on your SELF instead of paying $8k for some tits. for real.