On dysmorphia, identity and the silent distortion of self-perception
I wrote something about body dysmorphia a while back. It is that feeling that makes you feel really bad about yourself when you look in the mirror. I was talking about a condition where people get really obsessed with things they do not like about their bodies. These things might be tiny or not even real.
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I read that article again recently. It was during Mental Health Awareness Month. Something weird happened when I was reading it. I started wondering if dysmorphia is about how we look.. If it can also be about how we think about ourselves. How we think other people see us. How we create our identity based on what we think other people think.
Sometimes the problem is not what we see in the mirror. Sometimes the problem is what we think other people see when they look at us. I think a lot of people feel this way. They do not hate how they look. They are always thinking about what other people think of them. They watch what they say and do. They think about what they said and did hours later. They try to change who they are to make people like them.
After a while you stop being yourself. You start acting like the person you think you should be. This can be really tiring. It is a kind of tired that people do not always see.
For a time people have been trying to figure out what it means to be yourself. Is it something that never changes or is it something that changes based on what you experience and what other people think? In todays world this question is more important than ever. We do not just live our lives now. We record them save them edit them and think about how other people will react to them. We are very aware of how other people see us.
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We delete photos because they do not look enough like the version of ourselves we hoped existed. We rehearse messages before sending them. We replay conversations on the way home searching for evidence that we were acceptable.
For centuries, philosophers have tried to understand what it truly means to have a self. Whether identity is something stable and authentic, or something constantly shaped by memory, perception, and the gaze of others.
In the digital age, this question no longer feels abstract. It feels painfully personal.
Social media did not make people feel bad about themselves. It made us think about how we look to others all the time. We are not just worried about what people think of us we are worried about what we think they think of us.. Sometimes what we think they think is more important than what they really think. If someone says something to you ten times you might still think about the one time they did not say anything. You might think about the one message they did not answer. You might think about the one time they looked at you funny.
Our minds fill in the gaps with stories and those stories become who we are. That is why I do not think dysmorphia is about how we look. I think a lot of people have a problem with how they think about themselves. They create versions of themselves in their heads and then they suffer because of it. Sometimes this suffering becomes much a part of who we are that we start to feel disconnected from ourselves. We feel like we are watching our lives instead of living them. We feel like we are always outside of ourselves watching what we do and say.
Read more: How To Stop Feeling Disconnected From Life? 7 Healing Ways
Psychologists describe dissociation as a feeling of detachment from oneself, as though life is being observed from a distance rather than fully lived. I think many people experience quieter versions of this every day. Not dramatic ruptures from reality, but subtle forms of estrangement created by constant self-monitoring.
You. At the same time you wonder if you look like you are really smiling. You. At the same time you wonder if you sound okay. You. At the same time you wonder if other people think you are okay.
After a while real life starts to feel like it is not real. It feels like it is all a show. There is a kind of loneliness that comes from watching yourself all the time. You do not know what is real and what is not. You do not know if you are being yourself or if you are just acting.
I think this is why we do not always talk about health in a way that makes sense. We usually think about health when someone has a big breakdown.. Some kinds of suffering are hard to see because they look normal on the outside.
Someone can look perfectly fine. Still be struggling on the inside. They can be watching themselves all the time waiting for other people to judge them. They can be thinking about what other people think of them all the time. This is exhausting. It is tiring to be thinking about what other people think. It is tiring to be waiting for someone to criticize you. It is tiring to be thinking about how you look to others.
The sad thing is that our culture says this is what we should do. We should make ourselves into brands make ourselves look good make ourselves perfect. The line between who we’re who we pretend to be gets thinner and thinner. Maybe that is why a lot of people feel disconnected from their lives. They are everywhere except inside themselves.
The line between identity and performance becomes thinner every year. Eventually, many people stop asking themselves who they are and begin asking who they seem to be.
When it is Mental Health Awareness Month people say we should love ourselves.. I think the problem starts before that. Maybe a lot of people do not even know how to think about themselves without thinking about what other people think. Maybe we are too used to thinking about how we look to others. This can be a kind of suffering. It is not always loud or obvious. It can still be very heavy.
Maybe healing is not always about being confident or sure of yourself. Maybe it is about something learning to stop watching yourself so much. Learning to exist without thinking about how you look. Learning to talk without thinking about what other people will think. Learning to be alive instead of always thinking about how you appear to others.
Maybe the biggest mental health struggle of our time is not, about being seen. About remembering how to just exist when no one is looking.
- Giulia Costantini
Sources and bibliography:
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – on Personal identity
- FCP (Formazione continua in psicologia – “Dissociazione: tutto ciò che sai è sbagliato”
Written by Giulia Costantini
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