Look at the following pictures:

What is the first thing you notice?

Obviously, some are better than others—that’s already a given. There are some showing mostly-frontal shorts, side portraits, heightened or slanted angles, and there are some that doesn’t capture my entire face at all. These are candid shots taken on the fly, without editing or any alteration. I have not worn makeup, I have not altered lighting or contrast, and I have not tried to change any part of me, regardless of whatever medium of technology that may come to your mind. These images have not been altered. These images are all me.

Many people are either surprised or settled to hear that I am afflicted with a mental disorder known as Dysmorphia. Classified as an anxiety disorder that usually blossoms into social anxiety, Dymsorphia (or Body Dysmorphic Disorder) is a condition in which the afflicted individual has an overt obsession or an anxiety about their physical appearance. This obsession or anxiety can lie within many areas, though perhaps the most common perceived areas are the face, skin, hair and weight. However, Dysmorphia is not limited to the facial characteristics or overall weight of the individual. This is what makes it an extremely troubling thing to deal with, much less treat.

Do you think you know about this?

Chances are, you probably do.

Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) known case of undiagnosed but likely Body Dysmorphic Disorder lies within the case of Heidi Montag. Star of the hit television series The Hills, Montag came to heightened media attention after undergoing ten plastic surgery procedures at a time. Astronomically, you can only imagine how much she had to have spent on the procedures themselves, but to have them all at once? It must have cost thousands, if not millions of dollars to have this done.

To show an example of Dysmorphia on a more graphic scale, I present to you a before-and-after comparison of Heidi Montag, whom I believe to have the disorder based on the amount of change she made to her body.

Mini brow lift; Botox in forehead and frown area; nose job revision; fat injections in cheeks, nasolabial folds and lips; chin reduction; neck liposuction; ears pinned back; breast augmentation revision; liposuction on waist, hips and inner and outer thighs;  buttock augmentation.

What you see above is perhaps the most commercialized example of not only plastic surgery, but Dysmorphia in recent media history. In an interview conducted with The Huffington Post, Montag is quoted as saying that she ‘had a lot of insecurities as a kid’ and that she ‘was the ugly duckling before surgery.’

In a world where we want to look as perfect as possible, it’s not surprising that plastic surgery has seemingly become the answer to the physical problems we perceive ourselves to have. It’s so readily available that almost anyone can go into a surgeon’s clinic, ask about a procedure, then have it done that week, or maybe even the next day. A question begs to be asked with this thought in mind—If you could do it, would you?

My answer?

Yes—I would do it.

Why?

Let me give you a slight breakdown of the flaws I myself am uncomfortable with, starting with the pictured, then to the unseen.

The seen

1. My acne. My face is scarred by acne in ways that pictures can’t capture. Due to the flash that is required to capture the image, much of my facial scarring is unseen. I can assure you though, the bumps, slights and ridges that cover my face are obviously there.

2. My eyebrow muscles. They bulge out in an unslightly manner that is most obvious when looking at me from a side angle. It’s most easily seen above my eyebrows, where the muscle can easily be seen literally bulging out of my face.

3. My lips. Though I have a natural attraction to my lips due to the fact that they are larger and slightly shapely, my main insecurity lies in the fact that they are easily chapped. Due to past use of the acne drug Acutane, I have inherited the lingering side affect of chapped lips. Once my lips become dry, they swell due to the constant moisture that is constantly trying to be absorbed. Because of this, my lips take on a bloated appearance, and also become easy spots for acne to appear.

4. My smile/frown lines. Coupled with facial scarring and the magic of the human body,the lines around my mouth have become characterized with age, that of which I think is rather unnatractive.

5. My chin fat. Due to my past (and current) battle with weight, as well as genetics, I have inherited a slight amount of chin fat, most of which has dissipated due to past dieting. The amount I still have is enough to bother me.

The unseen

6. My body hair. For the most part, I’m fine with it. In moderation, I even find it attractive, but I’ve inherited a rather ‘hairy’ gene that makes the moderation extremely difficult to control. From which side of my family, I can’t be sure, but it’s obvious enough to keep me from taking my shirt off (though that is also coupled with #7.) Shaving is futile, because hair follicles not only become infected, but turn into acne. It also grows so quickly shaving is practically useless. Oddly enough, it’s only the hair on my chest that I’m really bothered with.

7. My midsection. My chest, abdomen, stomach, hips and waist all have slight amounts of fact that I have been unable to simply diet off. No matter how much I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to get rid of it. This is likely due to the lack of exercise I get, though I’m hoping to improve this in the near future.

8. Body acne. I have a near-constant affliction with body acne. Whether I have underground infections on my chest, near my underarms, on my back or upper thighs, I have a problem that I cannot easily remedy. Cleanliness is my only resource I can use, along with creams.

9. Body scarring. My back is scarred nearly from top to bottom from body acne. I also have an unattractive scar on my left side due to a surgery I had when I was seven (to remove a penicillin shot which abscessed into an infection.)

10. Warts. I have a war on my pinky, my knee, my big toe on my right foot, as well as a cluster of them on the side of said big toe and the second little toe beside it. I have not been able to get them removed due to lack of funds to do so.

To say that I have problems with my body would be an understatement. Like everyone else, I feel insecure about particular aspects of my physical self that I wish I could change. My problem lies within the anxiety disorder that is Dysmorphia. Sometimes, when I look at the mirror, I think I’m the most attractive person I could possibly be. Other times, I look at myself and see a slob—a fat guy with acne and swollen fish lips. It’s a cycle that I go through every day, both physically and emotionally. As I’m typing this, I feel the fat at my midsection against my pants, I feel an acne sore on my left side near my underarm, and I feel the warts on my right foot. It’s a rather unsettling feeling to not only have flaws, but to feel them as well.

My current case of flaws has not come without my own battle though. At the end of 2007, after going through the most hellish experience of my life that previous summer, I began a crash dieting that basically entailed the removal of almost all sugar on my diet, from soda to junkfood. I weighed 210 pounds in this picture. Yes—that was me back in 2007. I have since lost the email account that allows me to access that Facebook account through a service provider switch. The flaws there are obvious. Three years ago, you would not have been able to put the current me and the old me side-by-side and said they were the same person. The changes are phenomenal, really—even I can say that.

In the end, there’s not much I can do about my personal appearance except work to keep myself as well managed as I can. I can loose weight, yes, and I can get the warts removed and the body hair managed, but the rest? The scars will remain, the lips, eyebrows and most likely chin fat will likely remained unchanged. Can I help that? Yes, and no. Plastic surgery is an option, and given the chance, I would use it to my full advantage, as is the case of my anxiety disorder (which I have been clinically diagnosed with, though not in the Dysmorphic category.) The most I can do at this point is live with myself as I am and work to what I can change.

Are flaws beautiful?

No, but they make us human.

Perception is an amazing, twisted thing—beautiful from a distance, wicked up close, it’s the rose of visual conscience that blooms, then dies in horribly awkward ways. It can make or break the things we see. Sometimes, though, it doesn’t just break them—it hits them with a hammer and leaves the mirror to be cracked.

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that my short story, AID Me, is now available to read on the Teen Ink webzine. Though I have a fairly high intolerance for submitting to nonpaying publications, Teen Ink is the exception in the fact that it has an audience wide enough to actually benefit the story.

Anyhow, enough rambling. If you’re interested in the story, please click here.

Thank you,

~ Kody

Hello all,

I come to you at the dawn of this very early Friday to ask a somewhat simple question, though the exact answer to it eludes me.

So… backstory: As you all know, I recently pulled my short story collection An Amorous Thing due to my dissatisfaction with my publisher, who basically left all the marketing on my shoulders. Along with the amount of money I spent on promotion, as well as a cover change that I agreed to, but would have rather went without, and the outraged that sparked because of that, I chose to withdraw from Lame Goat. Afterward, I was met with a rather childish and brute display of outrage, that of which included the founder of said publisher harassing me with statements such as ‘I should have known this would have happened when I saw you pulled Sunrise‘ and other things.

Regardless, I won’t go into the specifics of everything (though I will say I pulled Sunrise so I could rewrite it and create a newer, more solid piece of work.) My question specifically entails the planned rerelease I have for my collection. I plan to rerelease it one way or another (though I’m not planning on turning to self publishing unless I have to,) but I wanted your input on the content I want to put in it.

As it stands, I’m already adding five new stories. That’s a given. To make it a PS edition, I plan to include a ‘creating’ of ‘article,’ though by ‘article,’ I mean more than one. My insecurity in this specifically lies in the fact that a ‘creating of’ article would have to be created for each story. I originally planned to due this for marketing purposes anyway, but I think it would be a great addition to the rerelease. Now… my only concern is this: is it worth putting 20 1,500-word articles into a short story collection? A quick calculation proves it would add 30,000 words onto the book, which might be cumbersome in the long wrong.

So, with this in mind… what are your thoughts on this?

Here’s what I had in mind to put in the rerelease:

- Five new stories (X)
- Articles surrounding not particularly the stories, but the life lessons that have influenced them. (An example would be Glitter-Covered Bullets, which appeared on Zoe E. Whitten’s blog and deals with my fear of loss.)
- An interview about the book, conducted by Miss. Jessica Brown (who’s agreed to conduct it.)
- One larger article that would mainly deal with the book’s theme (affection.)

I want to add new content to the book (basically because I don’t want to rerelease it without at least some new content,) but I don’t want the book to be too cumbersome either. Something tells me I could just write the larger article and use the smaller twenty to help promote the book on various writer’s blogs, but I figured I’d ask for everyone’s input here.

BTW–for those who want specifics:

The collection is 82,318 words in it’s current state.
It will likely gain around 20,000 more words after the five stories, given that the first PS story I wrote last night ended at 4,300.
The articles will likely be around 1,500 words each. At twenty, that adds 30,000 words to the collection.
The interview will likely take up a few thousand words. Give or take, 2,000.
The ‘theme’ article will probably be in the vein of the same. Add another 2,000.

Given that estimation, the collection would be at least 140,000 words after the new content is added.

Is another half of the book’s original total necessary for a rerelease, or should I just leave it with the new stories and use the articles as promo pieces?

Thoughts?