21 - no life and crippled with self hate..

LegacyUser

This is going to be long. Since the age of 13 I have felt physically inferior to the majority of other males and just unattractive. As the years went by it just worsened, and as a result I basically have no life. I live at home with my parents and siblings, have no close friends, rarely go out (certainly not to socialize). I cannot work a normal job as I would suffer extreme difficulty doing so given my issues with interacting with people and feeling overwhelmingly ashamed of my appearance.
My parents have been good enough to be willing to support me for the most part, financially. They've also been funding countless visits to various therapists, doctors, getting me CBT, medication - the works, during which I was diagnosed with BDD. I appreciate what they're been doing for me, but this therapy nonsense is literally non-stop and I can't take that sh*t anymore.. cause it's done nothing for me in the near 10 years I've been getting it.

My problem is I want to change what I can about my physical self that will make me better looking. Something that will actually help. I have various fixable things that I want/need dealt with that MAY just allow me to pursue a fairly normal life, but my parents refuse to give any time to these suggestions, insisting there is nothing wrong with me physically when I know god damn well there is. There have been many heated arguments over this.

For example I recently managed to scrape together a little over 1 grand with which I had planned to put towards otoplasty/ear pinning surgery. Prior to this decision, I had discussed having a section of my teeth done (dental implants) which my parents reluctantly agreed to contributing towards.
However when I realized that my ears affect my confidence a fair deal more (and are something which cannot be as well hidden, unless I wear my hat all the time which is not practical) I came to the decision that I would rather make them the priority. My parents didn't know about my issues with my ears, but as soon as I mentioned it and my desire to have that procedure instead, they went berserk, insisting I had no need for it, it's just another prcieved flaw I've come up with and that more cbt would help me and have been refusing to contribute the necessary amount for it...

I'm extremely distressed and frustrated. I'm not long away from turning 22 and my 'life' is moving fast. I want to be able to go out have a job, be independent and most of all have a girlfriend, just experience a normal life but this won't have a chance of happening until I get all my fixable physical flaws dealt with, which are now being denied to me. I just don't get it. Yes once again I must state I do appreciate all the funding my parents have provided (and continue to) for my years of useless therapy, but the funding would benifit me more actually going into dealing with my physical issues.. rather than trick me via therapy that they are non existent which does not work.
What the hell do I do... I'm wasting away. My parents clearly want to help me, but seem to only want to do it their way which is clearly not working, yet refuse to do things that I have told them MYSELF would help me... I'm just so overcome with frustration and hopelessness.

jimmycrackcorm

I can imagine that your parents went berserk because there is probably nothing wrong with your ears - it's just that you are trying to find physical focus points for your unhappiness.
Anyway if you are unhappy with your ears then why can't you grow your hairstyle to partially cover them?

seamus

+1 on jimmycrackcorn.

Most people have something about their body that they dislike. By and large we learn that these flaws aren't the big deal that we previously made them out to be.

The vast majority of people develop self-confidence despite our physical flaws, because when we go out and interact in the adult world we quickly realise that nobody else cares. Bad teeth, funky ears, funky noses, horrific scars, you name it, nobody cares about it and it doesn't affect their self esteem.

My point here is that if others don't need to "fix" themselves to be confident, then why do you? You have clearly come up with a menu of things you would like to fix about yourself and decided that fixing those things will suddenly make you a confident person. They won't. You will continue to find more flaws that need to be fixed and over the next 10-15 years you'll find your body changing and getting older and getting damaged. In short, you can never fix all the flaws. And you never need to, because nobody cares.

It's this last aspect that your parents are probably most annoyed about. You're looking for major reconstructive surgery to fix what is a minor flaw (if a flaw even exists). If you have BDD, then you've probably read up on it and you understand that the surgery won't actually "fix" you, right? At best, you will be happy for a short time. At worst, it will create even more "flaws" that need "fixing".

Are you aware that people who get cosmetic surgery have a higher suicide rate than the rest of the population? This means that cosmetic surgery appeals to people who are depressed or unhappy with their appearance, thinking that surgery will make them happy, but later find that the surgery has not made them happy. Sound familiar?

Now, I don't know enough about you or BDD to make any specific suggestions.

It would seem to me that at 22, if you think you need surgery, then you need to go out and get a job and save your own money for it. You say that you can't do this until you've "fixed" yourself, but fail to say how. Do your ears prevent you from typing on a keyboard, or handling a cash register or lifting a shovel? No, they don't.
You acknowledge that you've been relying on your parents for a long, long time. You will never get better if you don't stand on your own two feet and rely on yourself.

LegacyUser

I would personally not go through with surgery for shame reasons, even if that meant continuously living the way you do now. If you honestly think you will not feel astronomically ashamed that you altered your natural appearance out of vanity, then surgery may be a viable option to get you out of your situation.

I'm sure you know that in reality, your flaws really do not matter. You may have trouble finding a girlfriend due to your appearance, but so do so many other guys out there who do not dwell on it and move on. Having a girlfriend is not the only aspect of life, it's just a tiny part that may depend on your appearance that you seem to be shifting your whole focus on.

If you hide away your whole life, you might as well have not existed in the social sense, so you have nothing to lose. I know it's easy for me to suggest getting over it as I do not suffer from your condition. Do whatever you think you need to do to get over this and live your life.

cafecolour

Yeah, no one pays attention to ears. Sorry, you couldn't have picked a better example to show to us that it's entirely in your head.

You have BDD. You'll never be happy, no matter how many little changes you make. You'll keep wanting more.

For the therapy to work, you have to want it to work. And I'm not sure you do. Either you're so convinced you're unattractive that you think the therapy is useless and ignore it, or maybe you're afraid that if the therapy does work you'll end up thinking you're attractive and everyone else will think you're unattractive.

Also, you need to get out and DO something, take your mind off your self-obsession. Take up a sport (whether alone or with a group), or something like that.

LegacyUser

OP,

I think you've a variety of issues and the number one is you're pointing the finger at other people. You can't blame your parents for being concerned when you start listing off procedures you want done, while at the same time refusing to work for them.

It also appears that you haven't done much work of your own in terms of social/self-esteem and are now pointing the finger at various body parts as an easy way to blame something for you not getting your act together.

You need to get out of the house and get feeling good about yourself. Get a job, join a gym and get involved in some social activities or sports. Sitting around doing nothing about it and then getting pissed off when people won't give you handouts for surgery that you're using to justify your lack of drive is doing nothing but putting you further into the hole.

Surgery isn't a magical answer to your problems. If you get one procedure, you'll then go back to being miserable as you'll be focused on another, all the while blaming everyone else for not "supporting" you in the conquest of self-destruction.

There are people with severe genetic deformations, victims of tragic accidents such as burn victims etc who go out and interact with people every day, who enjoy their life in spite of how they look. You should be glad that you look normal at the very worst.

There's a guy who lives near me who fell into a fire when he was very young, he basically has his eyes, two small holes for his nose and a mouth and the rest of his face is pretty much just a smooth palette of skin. Yet, he's a very outgoing, friendly, nice person any time I've had to deal with him and such is said by everyone else who has interacted with him. Who knows what the rest of his body looks like. Point is, if he can get over this and live a normal life then you damn well can too.

As I said, get up, get out, get a job and get involved with society. Best of luck.