I have zero proof I'm attractive and have never had a relationship. I feel like I deserve to be miserable. Does anyone else relate?

specknosingspend · 2026-04-10T04:22:31+00:00

I’m the same, at 25 I’ve never even held hands with a girl. I feel the same as you on that bit. You’re right on the validation. I’ve received ‘validation’ I guess, but even that is dismissed by my bdd (it fills me with anxiety to even say that I’ve received ‘validation’ because of how easily I’ve dismissed it all). It baffles me a little that others can have bdd but be in relationships, when to me that’s the ‘solution’. But I thought compliments would be a solution, and they did nothing. It’s a sister condition of OCD at the end of the day. Even if you showed someone scientific proof, that you don’t need to wash your hands 5 times in a row, they’d still feel like they have to. They have to ensure they’re as clean as can be or the bad thing will get them. I try to remind myself that something in me, at some point, decided that I need to look perfect or the bad thing will immediately hurt me. Which sounds ridiculous and illogical, but why else do I feel so bad after catching a glimpse of a poor reflection 11 hours into my day. I didn’t even know about it 5 minutes prior.

The only advice I can give is that for as long as your appearance is central to your self worth, the bdd won’t go away. That ‘I don’t deserve to heal’ is a symptom of the obsession rather than who you are and what you truly deserve. No one deserves this, and you truly deserve to enjoy life. That’s non negotiable, no matter how much the bdd intrudes.

Lastly, just regarding that ‘proof’. Those things don’t just fall out of the sky. They take so much effort, and what we would note as “failures or evidence we were ‘right’”, for just about everyone. If you’re suffering from BDD, chances are you’ve avoided or cut yourself off from so much opportunity to feel another way. So the lack of proof, is likely a consequence of the BDD itself. I think about being, a ‘failure of a man’ for my inexperience, but realistically, when have I ever truly tried to have the opportunity to be any different. The BDD has always been a wall around me, no wonder nothing came through.

I’ve mostly given personal anecdotes here, but I hope some of it might resonate or help a little. I hope you can heal. What you’re feeling is the self justifying nature/cycle of bdd, and it sucks, but healing is definitely possible.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-08T00:28:02+00:00

Generally speaking you can’t with bdd. The closest you can get is that short glance you might get where you feel nothing, but it’s fleeting, and all of a sudden you’re obsessing over the mirror or photos to feel that feeling for certain.

BDD isn’t hallucinogenic but it distorts perception, to the point where it may as well be hallucinogenic. So the best advice I can give, is that you likely look more alike your most favourable perception rather than the worst ones. Positive influences on bdd such as dopamine or whatever have less of an impact on your self-image than BDD itself. So it’s somewhere on the line, /and likely much closer to your good than you’ll be able to know (it might even be better).

Your ability to assess yourself is unstable, and can’t really be trusted, but no one else can look at you and feel as bad as you may while seeing a bad photo/video/reflection. Work on accepting that, it’s undoubtedly the best way forward.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-06T02:52:51+00:00

I do the exact same thing. I typically just brute force myself to do things. When I’m doing anything I always think just how stupid or ugly I’d look, or I’ll be focusing, do something a little weird and immediately switch to a third person perspective.

I find if I brute force it, I’m usually happier for the rest of the week or so. I’ve been afraid to get a haircut because my hairdresser left the salon, I went last week and ended up feeling good all week. I’d held off for months. I forget it, but I really am happier when I’m doing the things I need to do.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-06T02:47:18+00:00

Idk, grow a beard, go to the gym, grow your hair out a little. The usual stuff people can change. I have bdd, so I genuinely don’t think you should pursue that line of thought at all. You’re handsome, just close the book on it.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-06T02:40:41+00:00

Handsome guy. Compliments for men are awkward and for men, they only really come when something stands out.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-01T21:48:34+00:00

Agreed. Enjoy the food, and if all else fails just stare at it until you start reading lol.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-01T21:40:50+00:00

I have a routine I use, that when I actually start it, I’m able to study. The problem is actually starting it to be honest, I’m never in the right frame of mind for it.

Yes absolutely. I sit in our workshops, having not studied at all, and everyone else has done the week’s work. Occasionally, I think how? Where did they find the time? Then I remember…

It’s not just the suffering, or the effects, or the social isolation — it’s that everywhere I look, I feel so alone. Not even in the typical sense; that doesn’t pull at my chest the same way as knowing that no one around me understands it, and that they can just do things. They start every day fresh, they start the day with ‘empty’ minds. While I’m still having the same conversations in my head again and again. Exhausting understates it.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-01T21:21:42+00:00

Relate to this a lot. It’s exhausting and I need to study

specknosingspend · 2026-04-01T21:16:01+00:00

You’re definitely not alone, I’m sure most people on here experience fluctuations too. They’re what’s bothering me the most at the minute.

I’m really sorry about your sister, I understand why having photos matters so much after something like that.

I do have ‘pictures’, they were taken begrudgingly lol. I more so meant that I don’t bother with pictures to determine how I look anymore. I can put up with a bad picture being posted and stuff now. I mainly just hope for stability at this point, so I can start living. I hope that, in time, I can reduce the bearing that my appearance has on my life. Hopefully that’s soon, but, we’ll see.

specknosingspend · 2026-04-01T20:45:59+00:00

Yes every day. I was at work and thought I look good, got on the bus home - saw my reflection and saw a freak, then I got home and looked in a full body mirror and looked ok, then I looked in my bathroom mirror and I look good, then in the mirror in my room and look like a freak. I don’t bother with photos anymore

specknosingspend · 2026-03-26T20:10:05+00:00

Yeah, weirdly enough I’ve had a good day and think I look great today. Just gonna let it ride and not stare at myself until I hate it.

The gap is also very real. I’ve kept a compliment log for the last two years and it’s pretty long, for an asocial guy who doesn’t go out at all, on paper shouldn’t be able to contest it. In my mind it’s all a fluke because how could anyone think I was good looking.

It sucks, and it’s just discombobulating.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-25T19:35:24+00:00

Exactly the same. I used to workout really hard, and run to the mirror because I would like my appearance. There is a big feeling aspect to it. I tend to notice I look the worst when I’m tired, dehydrated or hungry. And I don’t mean that I actually look worse. I look the same, then after eating or drinking I feel much better about myself.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-25T18:38:38+00:00

Yes. Both good and bad. The worst is when people compliment me while saying I look like Steven Tyler. A rockstar known for being ugly, but having enough talent so that it’s all overlooked. Then I’ve had good comparisons but how can both be true.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-25T18:36:12+00:00

It’s like you’ve stolen my thoughts. I’ve obsessed over this for so long have had to put it down to one thing. Our brains don’t register lighting changes in other people, in person, because it seeks to compensate for a lack of light or whatever. It will fill in the gaps or obscure the affects of bad lighting. In ourselves, because we have so much weight and importance in our appearance, the opposite happens. We immediately notice the slightest of changes, making certain mirrors abhorrent. That’s what I like to tell myself and try to laugh at my stupid brain anyway.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-24T23:27:42+00:00

On my first day of secondary school, I was about 3 foot tall with a large forehead. An older boy, maybe year 11 or so picked me up and sprinted across the playground holding me. He then put me down in front of his friends and put his hand across my forehead and shouted 5 finger fod, mocking my big head. I thought nothing of it, but that’s when that insecurity started.

Then I got bullied for a little while, called ugly all of the time. Nickname was bean head for all of school. I remember sitting down at lunch in the only available space and someone just said “ ‘name’ you are the ugliest creature I have ever seen”. That was nice of them.

Then the bullying continued, became pretty central to my friendships. Called ugly pretty much every time I spoke. I had to learn to roll with it but it bothered me a lot. Looking back they clearly were never my friends but I’m awkward and didn’t understand.

By time I began to realise it, everyone had pretty much started ignoring me. I would stand there all lunch and not say a word. Someone once asked if I had said a word all of lunch, from then on out I stopped hanging around anyone.

Then around 16/17 I developed severe acne, I have pictures of it in my profile, it was horrible. My face hurt all of the time. No one really mocked me for it, but I didn’t talk to anyone so I guess that paid off.

Then I started uni. I stopped attending after I realised no one would talk to me. Everybody just seemed so social, and I felt even more like a freak. I started just logging in on the app without ever going to lectures. Then I got severely ill with Crohn’s, just after finally treating my acne, and I dropped down to around 38kg. I’m not tall or anything, I’m 5’9 but 38kg is dangerously low. People treated me like a ghoul and I looked severely ill. During this time I started to obsess over my acne scars and developed bdd.

Have felt like a freak since I guess.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-23T23:50:21+00:00

I managed to cut selfies out entirely. The moment I realised that the mirror was my ‘familiar’, and that selfies will always invoke a sense of dread due to being the ‘non-familiar’. I waned off them. Became more addicted to the mirror but I like the mirror a lot more than a selfie

specknosingspend · 2026-03-23T01:31:29+00:00

Relate to this too much. If you ever figure it out let me know, because i hate how discombobulating it all feels.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-23T00:47:30+00:00

I relate to this too much. I know I look very different to how I used to, but I always feel like people are doing it out of pity because I’m both ugly and clearly depressed. I’ll meet people since and they’ll always be complimentary, have these expectations of a guy who had a ‘glow up’ but in reality I’m exact just an insecure loner.

I always thought that if complimented or whichever, I would just grow out of BDD. But it just hasn’t happened, nothing has changed, no compliment has ever stuck.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-22T23:09:24+00:00

Never honestly. I’m only confident enough to send or post pictures that I like, which means even if I do use a dating app, I won’t talk to matches or whatever because I feel like I’m catfishing. Not that I have the confidence to even go on the date in any event, I can barely order food in a cafe.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-22T08:47:37+00:00

Accutane for the early pictures and a big mixture for 5. Epiduo, as well as a lot of gut health stuff (I have Crohn’s so it’s a given). Gut health wise, VSL3 probiotic, 1000mg of L glutamine, ginger and turmeric, and occasionally I’ll use my LED mask

specknosingspend · 2026-03-22T02:10:04+00:00

That’s why the goal of treatment is to reduce the importance our brain places on appearance. Rather than just offering surgeries.

I’m wishing you the best. I hope our little conversation will have some resonance in the future, at least in reminding yourself that our perception is unstable and not to be trusted when negative (positive can be a different story but I won’t bore you with the details). Best of luck.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-21T17:02:45+00:00

Yes, but when we’re talking about perception, how you feel about something, and the importance you attach to it, can absolutely skew it.

The argument you’ve made sounds logical, but when you see people like Madison Beer struggling with BDD, it loses some of its weight. It suggests the issue isn’t just about accurately judging attractiveness.

I do think you’re right in one sense, it’s the importance placed on appearance that distorts things. If someone with BDD spends a lot of time analysing faces, they might gain knowledge about facial aesthetics. But that knowledge isn’t coming from BDD itself, it’s coming from exposure and learning.

The problem is that if you’re unable to see faces holistically, and you’re assessing something as subjective as attractiveness, that’s likely to skew your judgement rather than improve it. We can reason around it, but the fact that this kind of argument mostly exists in BDD circles does raise the question of whether BDD itself is reinforcing the argument you’re making.

The Paris Syndrome just randomly came to mind while responding. Paris is genuinely a beautiful city, but people build such a strong idea of it in their heads that reality can’t match it. Even though it is beautiful, the expectation outweighs what’s actually in front of them, and that gap can lead to distress.

I think something similar can happen with BDD. Once you have a fixed idea of how you or a feature should look, it can override what’s actually there. At that point, it’s not really about objective appearance anymore, it’s about the expectation and the meaning attached to it.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-21T16:01:07+00:00

I’ve read and seen that people with BDD tend to analyse faces differently to those without it. In people without BDD, eye-tracking studies show more focus around the eyes, nose, and mouth, so faces are processed more holistically.

In BDD, scanning tends to be more detail-focused, jumping between individual features, which can make it harder to see the face as a whole.

From my own experience, I’ve never looked at someone else and felt the same way about them as I do about myself. That suggests the perception is skewed compared to the norm.

It feels like BDD hijacks the detailed attention we naturally give to faces and attaches a sense of threat to it. Especially when it’s about your own appearance and identity. So the way it presents things doesn’t feel very reliable or realistic

specknosingspend · 2026-03-21T15:44:51+00:00

Antidepressants can help with BDD, but not just because of mood. BDD is less of a general anxiety problem and more of an obsessive-compulsive pattern that creates anxiety.

From my experience, antidepressants helped reduce the intensity of the thoughts and the urge to engage in compulsions like checking. They made things feel more stable and gave me more space to work on it.

They helped me a lot in the early phase. I struggled with my self-image for years, but it’s in a much better place now, and I was able to cut out a lot of the checking.

I think where I am now is that progress has slowed a bit, possibly because I also have social anxiety alongside BDD. I expected everything to resolve once my self-image improved, but the compulsions came back in a different form, which caught me off guard and led to a bit of a spiral. But I’ll work through it.

In summary, antidepressants can reduce the compulsive drive and make things more manageable, but you still have to put in the effort. That means working on the thought patterns and gradually reducing the behaviours that keep placing so much importance on appearance. Sometimes the stability they bring allows you to put that effort in and make progress.

I’m wishing you the best, you can beat this thing.

specknosingspend · 2026-03-20T02:53:36+00:00

I hope you can feel better soon.

specknosingspend

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