Body Dysmorphic Quotes

The self is a smokescreen. ~ Kris Kidd

Simply being born female in our society is to grow up being told your worth as a person is tied to how slim and attractive you are. Even for those of us lucky enough to have evolved parents, the message is still driven home by the world at large. ~ Padma Lakshmi

The people of Ike-no-o used to say that Zenchi Naigu was lucky to be a priest: no woman would ever want to marry a man with a nose like that. Some even claimed it was because of his nose that he had entered the priesthood to begin with. The Naigu himself, however, never felt that he suffered any less over his nose for being a priest. Indeed, his self-esteem was already far too fragile to be affected by such a secondary fact as whether or not he had a wife. ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa

As the result of some observations I have made in recent years, I propose to add two new and previously undescribed varieties to the various forms of insanity with fixed ideas, whose underlying phenomenology is essentially phobic. The two new terms I would like to put forth, following the nomenclature currently accepted by leading clinicians, are dysmorphophobia and taphephobia.

The first condition consists of the sudden appearance and fixation in the consciousness of the idea of one's own deformity; the individual fears that he has become deformed (dysmorphos) or might become deformed, and experiences at this thought a feeling of an inexpressible disaster… The ideas of being ugly are not, in themselves, morbid; in fact, they occur to many people in perfect mental health, awakening however only the emotions normally felt when this possibility is contemplated.

But, when one of these ideas occupies someone's attention repeatedly on the same day, and aggressively and persistently returns to monopolise his attention, refusing to remit by any conscious effort; and when in particular the emotion accompanying it becomes one of fear, distress, anxiety, and anguish, compelling the individual to modify his behaviour and to act in a pre-determined and fixed way, then the psychological phenomena has gone beyond the bounds of normal, and may validly be considered to have entered the realm of psychopathology.

The dysmorphophobic, indeed, is a veritably unh ~ Enrico Agostino Morselli

Looking down, she became aware of the water, which was covered with a film of calcinous hard-water particles of dirt and soap, and of the body that was sitting in it, somehow no longer quite her own. All at once she was afraid that she was dissolving, coming apart layer by layer like a piece of cardboard in a gutter puddle. ~ Margaret Atwood

She was afraid of losing her shape, spreading out, not being able to contain herself any longer, beginning (that would be worst of all) to talk a lot, to tell everybody, to cry. ~ Margaret Atwood

[...] I look in the mirror every day, when I brush my teeth or wash my face or comb my hair. It's just I tend to look at myself in pieces and avoid joining them up all together. I don't know why; it just feels safer that way.

But tonight I force myself to look at the whole thing. And suddenly I see how the bits and pieces add up to someone I'm not familiar with, someone I never intended to be. ~ Kathleen Tessaro

And so, by means both active and passive, he sought to repair the damage to his self-esteem. He tried first of all to find ways to make his nose look shorter. When there was no one around, he would hold up his mirror and, with feverish intensity, examine his reflection from every angle. Sometimes it took more than simply changing the position of his face to comfort him, and he would try one pose after another - resting his cheek on his hand or stroking his chin with his fingertips. Never once, though, was he satisfied that his nose looked any shorter. In fact, he sometimes felt that the harder he tried, the longer it looked. Then, heaving fresh sighs of despair, he would put the mirror away in its box and drag himself back to the scripture stand to resume chanting the Kannon Sutra.

The second way he dealt with his problem was to keep a vigilant eye out for other people's noses. Many public events took place at the Ike-no-o temple - banquets to benefit the priests, lectures on the sutras, and so forth. Row upon row of monks' cells filled the temple grounds, and each day the monks would heat up bath water for the temple's many residents and lay visitors, all of whom the Naigu would study closely. He hoped to gain peace from discovering even one face with a nose like his. And so his eyes took in neither blue robes nor white; orange caps, skirts of gray: the priestly garb he knew so well hardly existed for him. The Naigu saw not people but noses. While a great hooked b ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa

I am overweight. But to me, it's fat. I don't have Body Dysmorphic Disorder. When I look in the mirror I don't plunge into a depression and stick my finger down my throat or carve FAT in my arm with a pickle fork. I can appreciate when I look good aside from the weight. Sometimes I might say, Oh, I'm having a good face day.And a few times, after checking my appearance in the mirror before a date, I'd say, Okay. I'd date me. And I know if I ever could get the extra tonnage off, I'd be the first one to parade around in my underwear, or have no qualms about getting naked with a hottie, while the lights were still on in the room. ~ Kelli Jae Baeli

Picture your worst fear or most shameful experience becoming associated with an area of your body, and then magnify this image many times over. Within the construct of body dysmorphic disorder, a body part takes on an identity of its own. The body area of concern becomes profoundly associated with the individual's sense of self: The individual with BDD misses the forest through the trees, and rather than seeing many different body parts that together shape outward appearance, the despised physical feature becomes the focal point of their existence. It can easily become the singular element within the person's life and a gauge that determines the entirety of their self-worth. ~ Winograd Arie M

Your lowest moment and life can be your best if you survive it and learn from it ~ Brian Cuban

Imagine experiencing pervasive and perpetual sensations of dread and shame, the sort of visceral response that you might have when your body reacts to a physical threat. Envision how distressing it would be if you experienced these exact same feelings after viewing yourself in a reflective surface or a photograph. Imagine what it might be like if your body was the source of extreme feelings of anger, disgust, anxiety, fear, and hopelessness. Try to visualize how it might be if viewing your outward appearance triggered a reaction usually associated with a perilous situation, and how disconcerting it would be if every time you looked at yourself you experienced primal feelings of terror. If you have not had such an experience, it is probably quite difficult to comprehend how it is possible to have such a reaction to one's own body. This, though, is the very tormenting reality for individuals who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). ~ Winograd Arie M

My outsides are precise and unreliable. The illusion of self is increasingly purposeful. A sort of erasure. Inside of me, a flex. A fervor. I feel invented. ~ Kris Kidd

The words shot through Vivi's bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged. ~ Rebecca Wells

Domestic

Where's the wisdom in erasing a loved one's mess,
so akin to his signature? Your honor, I only meant
to strew the immaculate in his wake. To wipe the path
ahead and behind reasonably clean. Futile, yes,
but weren't such gestures essential to love's discipline
once upon a time? Daily, I harvested dropped fruit peels
and socks. I chased him through life with dustpan
and broom, smoothed his body dents from the bed,
soothed the mud tramped floors. Did I sin in this?
Better to leave the habitat sweetly reeking of him
than to spend years scrubbing up evidence of his existence.
Archaelogists centuries hence may marvel at such relics:
his mustard stained napkins, toothpicks chewed
to splinters. Never let it be said that in my zeal
to clean I robbed the future's museums. Who
am I to call what flies to either side of the trail
he blazes--half read magazines, cups of scummed
over coffee and mashed out cigarettes--dirt? ~ Amy Gerstler

During the past few years I have avoided tiring myself and losing my breath. I must take care of my body, treat it with respect as a musician does his instrument. I apply nonviolence to my body, for it is not merely a tool to accomplish something. It itself is the end. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The body as home, but only if it is understood that bodies are never singular, but rather haunted, strengthened, underscored by countless other bodies. ~ Eli Clare

She could smell the wrongness in the air and it made her wolf nervous. It felt like something was watching them, as if the wrongness had an intelligence - and it didn't help to remember that at least one of the people they were hunting could hide from their senses.
Anna fought the urge to turn around, to take Charles's hand or slide under his arm and let his presence drive away the wrongness. Once, she would have, but now she had the uneasy feeling that he might back away as he almost had when she sat on his lap in the boat, before Brother Wolf had taken over.
Maybe he was just tired of her. She had been telling everyone that there was something wrong with him...but Bran knew his son and thought the problem was her. Bran was smart and perceptive; she ought to have considered that he was right.
Charles was old. He'd seen and experienced so much - next to him she was just a child. His wolf had chosen her without consulting Charles at all. Maybe he'd have preferred someone who knew more. Someone beautiful and clever who...
"Anna?" said Charles. "What's wrong? Are you crying?" He moved in front of her and stopped, forcing her to stop walking, too.
She opened her mouth and his fingers touched her wet cheeks.
"Anna," he said, his body going still. "Call on your wolf."
"You should have someone stronger," she told him miserably. "Someone who could help you when you need it, instead of getting sent home because I can't endure what you have to ~ Patricia Briggs

'Immortals' was very much a martial arts based training program - a lot of body weight stuff, very little in the way of actually lifting heavy weights, and a very, very low calorie diet. ~ Henry Cavill

I glare at him."I can't reach my hair," I snap, wiggling my bound fingers.
Bowen's eyebrows shoot up."A bit snarky this morning, Fotard?"
I sigh, a feeling bone-deep, weary ache in my whole body." Can you blame me, Botard?"
He runs his fingers over his scruffy chin and studies me."No. I'd be pretty snarky if I smelled like you. And I bet you're dying to brush your teeth. ~ Bethany Wiggins

You don't get better as you get older in your career. It's not natural to have your best years late in your career. So I'm trying to do whatever I can to keep my body feeling good for as long as I can. ~ David Ortiz

David: "How the hell did you get dressed so fast?"
Renee: "How do you know I didn't streak naked through the lobby and had clothes waiting for me in the car?"
David: "Heh. Good thing the archaeological paparazzi didn't have a team on duty."
Renee: "I'd have taken 'em out. My whole body is a weapon. ~ John C. Stipa

He wanted to slice her open and lie inside the warm blood of her body. ~ Robert Goolrick

Innocently, as they moved past her, she added, "Oh, and don't trip over the body on the floor. ~ Laini Taylor

Seeing you with that guy tonight made me nuts, because every bone in my body says you're mine. ~ J.M. Stewart

I don't want to talk about methods of killing. But what is the difference between a bomb worn on the body and one dropped from an airplane? Both of them kill people. ~ Bashar Al-Assad

I felt as though the skin had been peeled away from half of my body. Half my face had been peeled away, and everybody would stare in horror for the rest of my life. Or they would stare at the other half, at the half still intact; I could see them smiling, pretending that the flayed half wasn't there, and talking to the half that was. And I could hear my self screaming at them, I could see myself thrusting my hideous side right up into their unmarred faces to make them properly horrified. 'I was pretty! I was whole! I was sunny, lively little girl! Look, look at what they did to me!' But whatever side they looked at, I would always be screaming, 'Look at the other! Why don't you look at the other!' That's what I thought about in the hospital at night. However they look at me, however they talk to me, however they try to comfort me, I will always be this half-flayed thing. I will never be young, I will never be kind or at peace or in love, and I will hate them all my life. ~ Philip Roth

My mother always told me if I rode a motorcycle with a boy, she'd kill me."
...
She couldn't hear him laugh, but she felt his body shake. "She wouldn't say that if she knew me," he called back to her confidently. "I'm an excellent driver."
-Clary & Jace, pg.289- ~ Cassandra Clare

Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you"? There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be BORN AGAIN, ~ Henry Drummond

And when all feels hopeless, remember that you are in charge of what goes into your body, you don't answer to anyone, and you are allowed to eat anything you want. Often just knowing we can eat whatever we want is enough to keep us from eating whatever we want. We're so rebellious. ~ Rory Freedman

I know not what you believe of God, but I believe He gave yearnings and longings to be filled, and that He did not mean all our time should be devoted to feeding and clothing the body. ~ Lucy Stone

Let your emotions guide your hand to the paper and watch how your sorrows can turn into beauty. For tears relieve your body but writing relieves your heart. ~ Raneem Kayyali

I don't say that bodies like flint, which are commonly called inanimate, have perceptions and appetition; rather they have something of that sort in them, as worms are in cheese. ~ Gottfried Leibniz

The goddess will always smile,
For those in her light,
For she will show them love,
On many a given night.
Bathing in her beauty,
Seeing her heavenly glow,
As she surrounds her brethren,
On the land called Earth below.
Her brethren will rejoice,
When they feel her light,
As it travels through their body,
On those given nights.
So say,
Blessed Be!
And welcome her to thee,
For she will be with you always,
Our goddess,
Blessed Be! ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Then I heard your voice as clear as day,
And you told me I should concentrate,
It was all so strange,
And so surreal,
That a ghost should be so practical.
Only if for a night
And the only solution was to stand and fight,
And my body was bruised and
I was set alight,
But you came over me like some holy rite,
And although I was burning,
You're the only light
Only if for a night ~ Florence Welch

Our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land ~ Wendell Berry

Black vomit came gushing out Samantha's mouth, adding to the puddle already on the floor. Samantha was covered in a sheen of sweat, crouched on all fours on the wooden hallway floor, like an animal. Her thick yellow fingernails made deep scratches in the wood as her body convulsed with each new expulsion of the black vomit. Her hair was long and thick and full; thicker and fuller than he had ever seen it. It reminded him of a lion's mane. Her skin was a sickly pale grey with disturbing red boils the size of grapefruit and weeping puss-filled black blotches where others had burst. Spider webs of blue veins were visible under the skin all over her body. ~ Joseph M. Chiron

Imagine a cell in your body, then your body relative to the planet. Imagine the planet in the solar system, our solar system in the universe. Now imagine that our universe is to something greater what a cell in our body is to our universe. There is so much that we cannot comprehend. ~ Aaron B. Powell

There is pride, too, though - pride that he has done it alone. That his daughter is so curious, so resilient. There is the humility of being a father to someone so powerful, as if he were only a narrow conduit for another, greater thing. That's how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair: as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and the brightness of that feeling would not wane. The drain moans; the cluttered house crowds in close. ~ Anthony Doerr

Even though this deity (the Christian God with a capital "G") has evolved through its 2000 years, it somehow maintains in its current version all old characteristics, whether conflicting or consistent: readiness to punish but ability to heal, vindictiveness yet forgiveness, utter cruelty to outside nonbelievers but looking for converts, etc. ~ Thomas Daniel Nehrer

It seems so long ago that he was last afraid of anything. Seventeen, was he then? Eighteen? Sometimes he thinks he's missing a lot by being like this - fear gives life a fillip. He wonders how it is he lost it all, and what there is - if anything - ever to bring it back. ("Jane Brown's Body") ~ Cornell Woolrich

Lifting up his hand to her, he said, Here, madam, take the hand, or rather, as I may say, the executioner of all earthy miscreants-take, I say, that hand which never woman touched before; no, not even she herself who has entire possession of my whole body; nor do I hold it up to you that you may kiss it, but that you may observe the contexture of the sinews, the ligament of the muscles, and the largeness and dilation of the veins; whence you may conclude how strong that arm must be to which such a hand is joined. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

It does not work, that you only clean and perfume your body if you do not clean and perfume your character. All relations depend on your best character ~ Ehsan Sehgal

It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as I passed. ~ H.G.Wells

There is no such thing as a disembodied mind. The mind is implanted in the brain, and the brain is implanted in the body. ~ Antonio Damasio

For this present child of my brain, what I give it I give unconditionally and irrevocably, just as one does to the children of one's body; such little good as I have already done it is no longer mine to dispose of; it may know plenty of things which I know no longer, and remember things about me that I have forgotten; if the need arose to turn to it for help, it would be like borrowing from a stranger. It is richer than I am, yet I am wiser than it. Few devotees of poetry would not have ~ Michel De Montaigne

In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them. ~ John Ruskin

The body needs food, warmth and water, but your heart needs more. ~ Claire Cameron

He treats his body like it's made of fireworks, each one timed to the beat. Is he dancing alone or dancing with everyone in the room? Here's the secret: It doesn't matter. ~ David Levithan

The spirit, if it could be seen with mortal eyes, would appear in bodily shape like a full-grown person with individual endowments that make it a counter-part of the body in which it [resides,] "that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual." (D&C 77:2.) It was that which came from God and entered at birth into the infant body prepared by its mortal parents. The spirit was of the "Lord from heaven." The physical body was "of the earth, earthy," (2 Cor. 15:47) or in other words, composed of the elements of which the things in the physical world are composed. ~ Harold B. Lee

After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head - for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks. ~ Roman Payne

When it comes to food, the obvious and expected approach for North Americans is to diet, which results in cravings, cheating, and shameful feelings. Diets seldom work for long since they go against the natural tendencies of the body, and in many cases the weight simply returns. But since dieting has been with us for decades now, it is accepted as the social norm. Mme Guiliano's approach, however, is to continue to eat, but to eat in a measured, slower way. This, she shows, achieves greater progress, a more stable, natural approach to weight management without cravings, and is also much easier. ~ Steve Prentice

Those of us who give body and soul to projects that never seem to end- child rearing, housecleaning, gardening- know the value of the occasional closed door. We need our moments of declared truce. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Come on, Caulder, come on, baby! By now she jumped up and down like the kids in the stands. Five, four, three ... She grabbed her other camera. The buzzer rang and Caulder's body lingered against the side of the bull. He was hung up and he tried to get his hand free. The bull still bucked and twisted, jumped and dropped. Velia grabbed her video camera. If she missed a shot like this, she'd probably be fired by the man himself. ~ Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Good-girl-gone-queer Lindsay Lohan, divorced single mother Britney Spears, Caitlyn Jenner with her sultry poses, Kim Kardashian having the gall to show up on the cover of Vogue with her black husband: All of them are tied to the tracks and gleefully run over, less for what they've done than for the threat they pose to the idea that female sexuality fits within a familiar and safe pattern. If control over women's bodies were the sole point of the trainwreck, that would be terrifying enough. But it's only the beginning: Shame and fear are used to police pretty much every aspect of being female. After you've told someone what to do with her body, you need to tell her what to do with her mind. ~ Sady Doyle

CHILDHOOD I That idol, black eyes and yellow mop, without parents or court, nobler than Mexican and Flemish fables; his domain, insolent azure and verdure, runs over beaches called by the shipless waves, names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celt. At the border of the forest - dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare, - the girl with orange lips, knees crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields, nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea. Ladies who stroll on terraces adjacent to the sea; baby girls and giantesses, superb blacks in the verdigris moss, jewels upright on the rich ground of groves and little thawed gardens, - young mothers and big sisters with eyes full of pilgrimages, sultanas, princesses tyrannical of costume and carriage, little foreign misses and young ladies gently unhappy. What boredom, the hour of the "dear body" and "dear heart." II ~ Arthur Rimbaud

Without exception, I begin every day of my life with an expression of gratitude. As I look in the mirror to begin my daily ritual of shaving, I say, "Thank you, God, for life, for my body, for my family and loved ones, for this day, and for the opportunity to be of service. Thank you, thank you, thank you! ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Prison, illness, abuse, drugs, abandonment, deportation: all traumas have their literature. But this crucial and fundamental trauma -- the very definition of femininity, "the body that can be taken by force and must remain defenseless" -- was not part of literature. Not a single woman who has been through the process of rape has taken to words to craft a novel out of her experience. No guide, no companionship. Rape wasn't allowed into the symbolic realm. ~ Virginie Despentes

am learning that this body is not a shotgun.
I am learning that this body is not a pistol.
I am learning that a man is not defined
by what he can destroy. ~ Rudy Francisco

It's so difficult to feel comfortable in the body you have. You always want to look a different way, taller or thinner, whatever it may be. I still struggle with it. I think everybody does. ~ Scarlett Johansson

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike. ~ John Muir

His foodWas glory, which was poison to his mindAnd peril to his body. ~ Henry Taylor