Alanah has a disease called ‘Body Dysmorphic Disorder’

This mental illness can be summarized as a situation in which one is imagined extremely ugly in the body of themselves or is extremely obsessed with an actual ugliness. They will never pay attention to the comments of others about their bodies, and the illness can take it far enough that these people with Body Dysmorphia will start to stay away from their surroundings. In short, they can start a kind of social phobia.

And Alanah is experiencing the toughest condition of this disease. She takes about 200 selfies in a day; She wastes hours trying to find the best among the selfies she takes.

She spends exactly 4 hours a day for make-up. Because she sees it as disrespect to show people the ugly(?) face.

If we take a look at her old photographs, she’s actually had a very happy childhood.

But how come the sweet, happy little girl came out to be obsessed with her appearance and attempted 3 times suicide?

A number of self-esteem problems that began with puberty began to show up. “It started when I was 14 years old. I had long blond hair and my height was really long, people on the street would look at me. Middle-aged men were the worst. I would have felt like they were looking to me to stay away, but my mom told me the truth was the opposite. I certainly did not believe her.

Guess what was the thing that pushed forward the illness of Alanah? Social Media, of course.

As the time passed, Alanah became a person who is constantly spending her time on social media and a person who is comparing her appearance with her peers and other people. Over time, she also lost her self-confidence.

Expert Cognitive Behavioral Therapist Rob Willson says: “Because of social media, we all turned into obsessed people.”

As a result of many years’ treatment, now Alanah is better.

She accepted to be in front of the camera under BBC Four’s “No Body’s Perfect”, an awareness project on Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Currently, she is studying psychology and willing to help people in the future who has the same disease as hers.

An advice from us: Do not compare yourself and your life with the lives you see on social media. Because you are beautiful as the way you are.

And we are at a time when the awareness of this disease is very low because nobody can confess to this strange feeling of living to themselves. Do not compare yourself and your life with the lives you see in social media. Because you are beautiful as the way you are.