“The paranoid thoughts took root and grew like weeds. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeply wrong with me.”
Laurence has kindly shared his story of BDD and how he navigated the murky waters of mental health struggles, wrestled with a troubled past that landed him in prison, and built a company from the ground up when every traditional route to funding was closed to him. Below we have shared a snippet of Laurence’s story, and a link to read his full sharing on Medium.
As soon as I arrived at the college, walked into the building and took a seat in the first class, I felt something… shift. People were looking at me. Not in a friendly, “hey, new guy” kind of way, but in a strange, hyper-aware kind of way. It was like I suddenly stood out; and not in a good way. It was a feeling I couldn’t explain and certainly couldn’t control.
Over the days and weeks that followed, this sensation snowballed. The paranoid thoughts took root and grew like weeds. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something deeply wrong with me. My appearance became my obsession; my nose, my hairline, the shape of my jaw; everything came under scrutiny. I’d stand in front of the mirror for hours, searching for flaws, then finding them, then magnifying them in my mind until I could barely function.
It consumed me entirely. This wasn’t vanity; far from it. This was fear. It dictated what I wore, whether I went outside, and who I spoke to. I started avoiding mirrors, and then sought them compulsively. I stopped going out unless i’d washed my hair six times or arranged it just right; though, spoiler alert, it never felt right. I withdrew from my family, my friends, even from myself. I was living in a prison of my own making, and the worst part? Nobody understood it.
People thought I was just being ridiculous. “Stop being so vain.” “Pull yourself together.” “You’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with you.” But it didn’t matter how many times I heard that; I didn’t believe them. To me, the defect was real. Tangible. Unmissable. What I didn’t know then was that I was living with undiagnosed Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), a condition that would go on to rule my life for the better part of eight years.
And unfortunately, as if that weren’t enough, things would get worse before they got better.
Those eight years of struggling with BDD were long, painful, and deeply isolating. And during that time, my life took a very different turn than it might have otherwise. The turning point; the wrong turn, if you will; came when I was 21. My family was going through a house move, and for a brief spell, we were a bit scattered, not quite rooted anywhere. It was during this awkward, transitional period that I began hanging around with a group of lads from a neighbouring street.