I have had BDD for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl of around 12 years old, I became addicted to the mirror. I would stand in front of the mirror applying makeup and combing my hair.

Later on I became obsessed with my hair, which was my main thing during adolescence. I could not think of something else. If my hair was not right I would not go out with my friends because I could not enjoy myself thinking all the time about my hair and not being able to laugh and interact with people. I remember I stopped going to classes in high school and instead of preparing myself to go to high school - which was situated at 100 meters from where I lived - I would lay in front of the mirror examining my hair.

My BDD around that time was bad, but I somehow managed to finish high school although not without much effort.

I believe my BDD was the result of my education, and maybe it is genetic too and I was predisposed to it. My mother married my stepfather when I was 6 years old, and my life with him was a living hell. He used to treat me like I was an outsider and should not disturb him or my mother. Everything changed and on top of that he was an alcoholic and when he came home I had to hide in my room because you could never know what he would do. He would insult my mother and me and this could go on for hours. He would remind me that I would never amount to anything and he wanted me to leave the family house because my presence bothered him.

I also was very upset by comments made by my mother and sister when I was 14 years old. My mother used to tell me that my hair was not right and one day she cut my hair when I was not paying attention. I was shocked. I have never cut my hair short since then. Another day my mother told my stepfather that he should cut my hair and my stepfather started to follow me with some scissors in his hand and I managed to escape to my room and locked the door. I was traumatized. My sister used to tease saying that I had thick eyebrows, so one day I decided to cut my eyebrows. When a neighbour came to my house looking for my mother she was shocked to see me without eyebrows.

When I was 14 years old I developed anorexia nervosa, not eating make me feel very good inside, it was not severe but I spent one year eating very little, I would hide the food and throw it away after meals. For one year I did not have my period and my mother became aware of my weight loss. Afterwards I started to eat normally but it was a very difficult time for me.

I went to the university but it was very difficult for me and I would not assist to all the courses as the BDD is very draining and I felt very weak. I remember I was in bed for 2 weeks during that period because one day I got up of bed and could not stand the way my hair looked. I started to tremble and I almost could not walk, those 2 weeks were hell as all I did was check my hair and coming back to bed and obsessing and not knowing what to do as I was convinced that I could not go on living like this.

During the June exams my BDD really hit me. If before it was bad now everything will never be the same again. If before I was able to function somehow now I dropped out of university and became housebound. For almost 2 years I almost never leave my home. The problems within the family continued. My stepfather alcoholism was unbearable but I was not able to look for an apartment because I could not work and my BDD was so bad.

Around that time I was so confused, I thought I was the vainest person in the world I had no idea that it was a disease. I have gone a lot of psychiatrists during my life but I have never had the courage to tell them the truth as I was very ashamed. One day I saw an article in a magazine with the title: When the mirror lies. I read the whole article crying but I was relieved that I was not crazy or vain. It helped me to start understanding what the problem with me was. I read the book by Dr. Catherine Phillips; The Broken Mirror and it helped although it is still very hard to cope with that.