I am suffering from BDD, which after talking to folks on the changing faces forum I am thoroughly convinced that this is simply not true because I have a real disfigurement that is visible. Nobody tells the anorexic person that they are fat.
- Actually, this isn't the way this diagnosis works. People with BDD will quite often have an element of their dysmorphia present.
So, when a person with anorexia also has BDD - they are recalling what their body looked like before the anorexia, focusing on their most-disliked element, and magnifying it. They were doing this pre-anorexia as well, most likely.
In your case, were you to have BDD - and I'm not saying you do - you would be perceiving the scar to be much more prominent than it is, or larger than it is, or visible than it is. It's impossible for anyone online to ever comment on whether or not someone has BDD, unless they are looking right a a picture of what the person actually looks like vs. how they describe themselves. A simple test one can self-administer is to draw yourself, with your deformity - two drawings: one, how it feels, and two, what it really looks like. Someone else needs to look at the pictures; the 'feels' picture will reflect your emotional context for the element, and is accurate no matter what. The 'looks like' picture will demonstrate potential distortion. Sometimes, the difference between reality and 'looks like' is extreme enough as to indicate further testing for BDD.
So: summing up - you could have BDD and still have a visible disfigurement. BDD is not about seeing something that's not there - it's about seeing something that is, in reality, not as extreme as it is to the individual who is suffering.
You should have been evaluated for a TBI at the time of your accident, I would have thought. But - if you weren't - that is definitely something worth pursuing. It may or may not explain some of what you are going through, but it would definitely, definitely be useful for you to know what that situation was.
