Meet the artists who are raising awareness of a poorly understood mental health condition
As an artist, one of the things you aspire to is the execution of a truly original idea. As a singer-songwriter, I have been telling audiences for the past year that I wrote “the first ever country song about body dysmorphic disorder”. The song is an unfiltered, honest account of my struggles with self-image and mental health. The song’s title, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS BDD’, poses a rarely-discussed question. Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is thought to affect about 1 in 50 people, yet there are still many misunderstandings about the illness. A number of documentaries, such BBC3’s ‘Ugly Me: My Life with Body Dysmorphic Disorder’, have challenged the lack of open discussion about BDD in social discourse and the media. The publication of personal essays too, written by sufferers, have brought lived experiences of body dysmorphic disorder into the public sphere. Perhaps more interestingly, in addition to these documentary accounts, a small army of creatives are harnessing their personal experiences of the disorder for artistic purposes. Filmmakers, songwriters, photographers, and other creatives have made art about BDD, raising awareness of the condition, and explaining what BDD means to them, in the process. In short, I was not alone in using creative means to answer the question: What the hell is BDD?
Common myths about BDD include that the disorder is relatively rare, that it is an eating disorder, that it only affects young women, and that sufferers simply feel dissatisfied with their appearance. In reality, BDD can affect people of all genders and ages. The condition is characterised by a preoccupation with a perceived flaw(s) that is so severe a sufferer might feel defined by it. The preoccupation tends to cause such intense anxiety that it interferes with a sufferer’s everyday life.
BDD shares some commonalities with other body-image-related illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia, but it has more in common with obsessive-compulsive disorder because of the hyper-focussed, repetitive, nature of the intrusive thoughts that characterise both BDD and OCD. Sufferers often report experiencing shame about the thoughts they experience, and the fear that revealing their state of mind will invite rejection, mockery, stigmatisation, or that they will simply be considered vain. Because of such fears, many avoid or delay seeking help.
Using personal experiences of mental health issues for artistic purposes can be part of processing and opening up about difficult experiences. Openness creates a dialogue. By engaging in, or simply having an awareness of, the dialogue, sufferers feel seen and understood. I wrote ‘WHAT THE HELL IS BDD’ primarily as a form of catharsis, a means of taking the bite out of the negative thoughts I couldn’t control by removing them from my head and putting them to music. The song accounts the rituals I developed to repetitively incite panic within myself. I was convinced that certain aspects of my face, hair, and body were ‘wrong’ to the point that I was not worthy or not loveable. It became very difficult to resist engaging with the negative thoughts that caused me such distress. Like many others, I felt like I had let someone down – myself, my family, womankind- for developing such debilitating anxiety over my physical appearance. It felt liberating, unusual, to write openly about my experience.
Stand-up comedian Hannah Platt has also embraced the vulnerability: “I really enjoy taking down my usual guards while making the audience laugh about it,” she told The Guardian recently. Platt debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe this year with ‘Defence Mechanism’, a stand-up show chronicling her struggles with body dysmorphic disorder and subsequent experience of therapy. In a clip from the show, the comic describes her own diagnosis:
“I didn’t really know what body dysmorphia 1was when I got diagnosed with it. The only thing I knew about it was a BBC3 documentary hosted by Stacey Dooley…”
Platt dismantles, with razor wit, the idea that BDD is a condition only suffered by those who are vain. Such frankness about mental health, through comedy, is a welcome addition to conversations about the condition.
There is an honesty and authenticity to Platt’s comedy that is also reflected in the lyrics of singer-songwriter Raye’s track ‘Body Dysmorphia.’ Raye captures a desperate, violent self-hatred many sufferers of BDD will find familiar:
I hug my knees, I squeeze my waist
There’s so much that I want to change
Yes, lately I’ve been thinking ’bout the ways to rearrange my face
I wanna cut pieces off
Looking in the mirror
In an interview for Rolling Stone, Raye explained that the ethos behind her debut album, ‘My 21st Century Blues’, was to “normalise” conversations about difficult topics. When writing ‘Body Dysmorphia.’, Raye told Spotify Storyline,
“I wanted to turn this mental struggle of mine into a song. It is a daily battle, and one that becomes so toxic and powerful over the mind when allowed to manifest in silence. I guess this is my way of not being quiet about how I feel in regards to my self image.”
The power of the song has translated into Raye’s live shows. When performing at the Albert Hall in 2023, in “an act of radical vulnerability”, the singer took off her clothes and performed ‘Body Dysmorphia.’ in her underwear. She would later explain, “I just knew that it was important to do that. … I think it’s an art thing. … I just wanted to really hit the message home”. The “message” is a matter of interpretation, but many will see it as a show of strength and an act of taking ownership of her body and her body dysmorphia.
My own offering, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS BDD’, released under my stage name See Emily Play, shares many lyrical similarities with Raye’s ‘Body Dysmorphia.’ Both songs chronicle a number of common symptoms of BDD. I released ‘WHAT THE HELL IS BDD’ in partnership with The Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation, a charity that has been instrumental in instigating dialogues about body dysmorphic disorder, adopting and encouraging a wide range of approaches to raising awareness of BDD. As part of this, the Foundation fosters a creative community which gives artists a platform to showworks that depict struggles with, and recovery from, body dysmorphic disorder.
One success story from the BDD Foundation’s Creative Community is Blue Chrysallis Productions, a theatre company that recently produced ‘Look At Me’, at The Lambeth Fringe. What began as a mission to bring “awareness to and normalise the conversation around how society views female bodies” became the crafting of “a narrative very much relating to body dysmorphic disorder.” By partnering with the BDD Foundation, Blue Chrysallis Productions could ensure the story was told “with integrity and authenticity with the aim of helping people who are affected feel seen and represented.”
Feeling seen is important, particularly as BDD affects people of all genders and ages. Another artistic endeavour embraced by The BDD Foundation is Director Angelo Raaijmakers’ short film, ‘I, Adonis’, which takes a microscope to a form of BDD known as muscle dysmorphia. The film paints an “excruciating vision of the poorly understood condition”. In focusing on a young man’s struggles to perceive his own appearance, the film debunks the myth that BDD is a condition only suffered by teenage girls, and paints a harrowing picture of what it is like to feel alien in one’s own skin. Premiering at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival in 2021, ‘I, Adonis’ received nominations for several international and Méliès awards at film festivals around the world, clearly demonstrating that it is possible to create an output of exceptional quality that also spreads an important message.
‘Look At Me’ and ‘I, Adonis’ prove the BDD Foundation’s belief that there is “no better way to express what BDD means for people than using the creative language of those who have experienced it.” The Foundation actively encourages those with lived experience of BDD to find their creative voice. As well as featuring poems, short stories, photography, songs, and films, the Foundation recently promoted a life drawing marathon fundraiser and a creative writing workshop for those with lived experience. The vibrancy of the creative community might not be a coincidence. In a 2002 study, it was found that 20% of 100 patients with body dysmorphic disorder had a lifetime job (7%) or education (13%) in art or design, a significantly higher percentage than those who had experienced other mental health conditions. However, the conclusions of those conducting the study- that this might reflect an appreciation for aesthetics- reflects some of the general misconceptions about body dysmorphic disorder.
Whatever the reason for the connection, we can celebrate the fact that artistic forms of expression can help to alleviate some of the mystery surrounding body dysmorphic disorder. Being open about mental health can be a liberating, healing, positive experience for the artist. Sufferers, in seeing parts of themselves in songs, films, and theatre productions, may perceive a light at the end of the tunnel, or feel less alone in the dark. As Raye told Glamour, “Things can thrive in the darkness, the second that you bring them out to light, they hold less power.” So, while I didn’t quite achieve the true originality I thought I had when writing ‘WHAT THE HELL IS BDD’, on turning a negative experience into something creatively fulfilling, and raising awareness of BDD in the process, I’m honoured to be accompanied by so many great artists engaged in answering the same question. I’m glad I’m not alone.
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- Body dysmorphia’ is a media term, often used interchangeably with ‘body dysmorphic disorder’ which is a clinical term. ‘Body dysmorphia’ is also sometimes used to capture a broader spectrum of negative perceptions of self-image. ↩︎
