Body Dysmorphia - Facial/Make up

[deborahjean]

I have a teenager who will not be seen without her mask of makeup, she takes at least an hour to put it on and therefore all spontaneity has gone from her life. She is making both herself miserable and the family, if we have unexpected guests she will hide in her room for the duration and give us grief afterwards with screaming and shouting (this can happen whilst the guests are there if I approach her room). This has been going on for about 2 years gradually getting worse.
I have now approached our GP who will be referring her on for help; although my daughter kicked off when I told her this.
This week I finally managed to have a discussion with my daughter about this and she recognised that she has a problem. She cannot work out how to deal with it and neither can I. I have told her to gradually start using less foundation, but as we are about to go away on holiday with another family she steadfastly refuses to proceed with this now.
She got very upset during our talk with tears and sobs.
There is nothing wrong with my daughters face that I can see, but then I rarely see her without foundation. She is an attractive girl, but she says her face is scarred(?).
Any suggestions about how to help her?

[meercatmum]

Hi I have only just read your thread and I am in exactly the same position ... There are some earlier posts on this section and on the teen section. My Dd is 13 and has had these battles for the last 18 months to 2 years. Last year we went to Portugal and she spent best part of 2hours putting on makeup (mainly foundation) prior to going to the pool and it would then just melt off is a real mess. She believes she is ugly and nothing we tell her will change her mind. She often says she wants cosmetic surgery to put right whatever she feels is wrong with her which varies from freckles, paleness of skin, colour of hair, size of breasts, shape of tummy button...you name it! This week she got so stressed over tiny red Mark on nose that she has rubbed it so hard she has rubbed away so it is red and bleeding. My dd has really low self esteem and she had been referred to cahms. We have similar battles at home where spontaneity does not happen and I know how frustrating this is. Like you my dd is fighting against the cahms referral. My dd has OCD and asperger traits which may well be different from your dd issues. Please let me know how you get on - if it makes u feel any better my dd is so adept at putting on her mask it now takes less time

[meercatmum]

Sorry if I hijacked last answers here are some of solutions we have tried with varied success
Be very clear when we are going out and the fact we expect dd to be ready - counting down from 2 hours every half hour interval

If makeup/foundation wrong colour - dd used to be very orange offer to take her to makeup consultant to advise re skin and colouring (our dd would not go for this)

Dd really wanted a bronzed which was expensive and told her she could have it if she wore instead of heavy foundation.(this did not work ad she insisted on adding on top of foundation)

Friendship advise was the most effective thing and her friends told her to move away from her tangerine colour and she did despite us having told her this

We are going to pay for spray tan next week on the understanding she will not wear foundation during the day whilst we are abroad..she can put it on in evenings. We are hopeful this will work

We have a separate magnifying mirror and we now hide this as it encourages the focus on her face
Anyway a few suggestions but you may have already covered these.. Good luck stay patient. We have got into situation we often leave her behind but regret this and are trying to be more 'family focused' again since it really is not a good idea to split family into 2