The Beautiful Mind

Let me start with a story again this week. Ms. X is a good looking lady in her early twenties with few pimples and normal well-formed lips. She has few scars from old pimples, visible only on close inspection. All her male colleagues consider her attractive but she rarely speaks to them. She complains about her ‘disfiguring acne’ and thin and ugly lips to her friend who incidentally has more pimples and scars than her. Her friend consider her comments insulting and vain. Ms. X used to spend considerable amount of time in front of the mirror and has consulted all the dermatologists in the city for a solution. She has used all available anti-acne medication including the one with side effects (as her dermatologist told her) that made her skin dry and sensitive. One of the dermatologists gave her lip fillers and she wants to sue him now as the lip according to her looks worse than before. Her friend has noticed some linear scars on her forearm, but never understood the significance. I am sure you do have a Ms. X among your friends as this occurs in almost 2% of the population. Though strictly speaking I am threading outside the realm of my specialty, I think it is important for everybody to recognise and understand this psychiatric condition called Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) or dysmorphophobia.

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