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Quote by Kathleen Tessaro

“[...] I look in the mirror every day, when I brush my teeth or wash my face or comb my hair. It's just I tend to look at myself in pieces and avoid joining them up all together. I don't know why; it just feels safer that way. But tonight I force myself to look at the whole thing. And suddenly I see how the bits and pieces add up to someone I'm not familiar with, someone I never intended to be.”

Quote by Kathleen Tessaro

Book:Elegance
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Elegance

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Author

Kathleen Tessaro
Kathleen Tessaro

Kathleen Tessaro is a renowned short story writer, born in 1965. Her works are celebrated for their profound emotions and delicate narrative style, winning her a dedicated readership. more

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ShameSelf WorthBody Dysmorphic Disorder
Book:Face to Face with Body Dysmorphic Disorder
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“As the result of some observations I have made in recent years, I propose to add two new and previously undescribed varieties to the various forms of insanity with fixed ideas, whose underlying phenomenology is essentially phobic. The two new terms I would like to put forth, following the nomenclature currently accepted by leading clinicians, are dysmorphophobia and taphephobia. The first condition consists of the sudden appearance and fixation in the consciousness of the idea of one’s own deformity; the individual fears that he has become deformed (dysmorphos) or might become deformed, and experiences at this thought a feeling of an inexpressible disaster… The ideas of being ugly are not, in themselves, morbid; in fact, they occur to many people in perfect mental health, awakening however only the emotions normally felt when this possibility is contemplated. But, when one of these ideas occupies someone’s attention repeatedly on the same day, and aggressively and persistently returns to monopolise his attention, refusing to remit by any conscious effort; and when in particular the emotion accompanying it becomes one of fear, distress, anxiety, and anguish, compelling the individual to modify his behaviour and to act in a pre-determined and fixed way, then the psychological phenomena has gone beyond the bounds of normal, and may validly be considered to have entered the realm of psychopathology. The dysmorphophobic, indeed, is a veritably unhappy individual, who in the midst of his daily affairs, in conversations, while reading, at table, in fact anywhere and at any hour of the day, is suddenly overcome by the fear of some deformity that might have developed in his body without his noticing it. He fears having or developing a compressed, flattened forehead, a ridiculous nose, crooked legs, etc., so that he constantly peers in the mirror, feels his forehead, measures the length of his nose, examines the tiniest defects in his skin, or measures the proportions of his trunk and the straightness of his limbs, and only after a certain period of time, having convinced himself that this has not happened, is able to free himself from the state of pain and anguish the attack put him in. But should no mirror be at hand, or should he be prevented from quieting his doubts in some way or other with rituals or movements of the most outlandish kinds, the way a rhypophobic who cannot get water to wash himself might, the attack does not end very quickly, but may reach a very painful intensity, even to the point of weeping and desperation.”

Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Author:Enrico Agostino Morselli
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“Body dysmorphic disorder wedges itself between the sufferer’s desperation to connect and the fear that they might be rejected while attempting to do so. This serves the purpose of preventing rejection; if one is constantly dismissing oneself it becomes much more difficult to be rejected by another human being. For many highly sensitive body dysmorphic disorder patients, rejection is experienced as the ultimate proof that something must be inherently defective about them. For this to be the case is often interpreted as absolute confirmation that they can never be loved. Taking the risk of possible rejection might mean experiencing these dire consequences, and to most, the benefits do not out-weigh the consequences. Thus body dysmorphic disorder exists in the space of the relational ambivalence, completely changing the focus from fears of intimacy and fundamental feelings of inadequacy to excessive attention towards perceptible physical features.”

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Book:Face to Face with Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Psychotherapy and Clinical Insights
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