R65 ON SHELF NOW

PS: THIS COVER WAS SHOT BY HER HUBBY

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FAIRLADY / AUGUST 2020

Boobs too big? Butt too small? Teeth skeef? Body hair like a baby gorilla? Many of us have hang-ups about our faces or figures, especially in the age of social media, when our images are everywhere and the smallest perceived flaw can feel cringeworthy. Even celebrated beauties aren’t immune. Kylie Jenner reportedly hates her lips – hence the lip filler: ‘It’s been an insecurity of mine all my life,’ she told Complex magazine. ‘This guy I kissed was like, “Your lips are really small but you’re a really good kisser. I didn’t think you were gonna be good at kissing.” From then on, I just felt like I saw guys staring at my lips. I felt like no one wanted to kiss me.’

Beyoncé apparently has issues with her ears: ‘I wear big earrings because I don’t like [my ears],’ she told Essence. Rihanna hates her cellulite. And Miley Cyrus has confessed to hating everything image on its head, shaving her hair and embracing her distinctive features, pursuing an alternative lifestyle with zeal – and with growing success. But not all of us have the ability or the professional, financial and family support to manage that, so a better understanding of the condition is important.

BDD is a recognised mental health disorder linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). ‘It’s suggested that the body dissatisfaction and distortion experienced by anorexia sufferers is akin to BDD,’ says Graham Alexander, consultant psychologist at Chrysalis Clinic, a bariatric surgery in Cape Town. ‘The distortion does essentially tick the BDD boxes as a component of the condition, but BDD is a much bigger condition in itself, linked to OCD. All psychiatric conditions are boxes that describe some element of a person’s broader psychiatric profile. Someone with a psychiatric condition doesn’t always fit neatly into one particular box.’

BDD brings recurring distressing thoughts,

National LGBT Health Education Center in the US says rejection, bullying and other stresses can raise the risk in LGBTQ+ communities and among youth.

The reasons for the development of BDD are still unclear, but it seems to be the result of a combination of genetic, biological, neurological and environmental factors, from personality traits that feed into low self-esteem to childhood criticism, teasing and bullying, and social pressures to look a certain way. Research in the journal Psychiatric Annals has suggested that brain features, such as visual processing, could play a role, with BDD sufferers more prone to focus on details and perceived distortions. It also links the condition with low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. ‘It’s been suggested, too, that BDD might be an externalisation of an internal conflict, trauma or problem related to the person’s sense of identity,’ says Lippi-Gimmel.

In a University of Pretoria mini dissertation in 2016, LippiGimmel’s friend and colleague, the late psychologist Matthew Mulholland, traced his BDD to comments made in adolescence, comparing him to his non-identical twin brother: ‘You’re the one with the nice personality. Your brother is the cute one.’ Attractiveness, he wrote, ‘became associated with acceptance, and not being “the cute one” meant that I was ugly, hideous even… I’d spend hours at a time, sometimes entire nights, in front of the mirror. The anxiety 58

FAIRLADY / AUGUST 2020