Did Dorian Gray’s picture really undergo a dramatic transformation or had Dorian gazed upon its beauty so often his perception changed?
When I began building this website a few weeks ago, I was in awe of the design. I couldn’t stop gazing at its beauty. I’d be cooking or writing and then I’d drop everything to hop on over to my browser for one last look, one more check.
Oh yes, I’d think as I clicked through page by page. The fonts have the right weight, the colour palliate pleasing to my eyes, every page more beautiful than the last — and wait, what? more beautiful than the last, that means some are less than perfect. That’s not allowed, and then I’d fix every page so that indeed every page is now as lovely as the last. Goodbye cooking, goodbye writing, but it’s okay, beauty is important.
Today, I woke up and found a very different website. It was the same website, of course. I’d not been hacked or suffered a malfunction. Everything had lost its appeal. The pinks no longer lovely, but tacky, the fonts no longer pleasing my eyes. The green clashes with the purple.
I was having a BDD moment with my website.
I say had lost its appeal because it is now past tense, I’ve spent three hours making it perfect once more.
Hmm, does this experience remind me of anything?
This is what happened in the mirror when I spent too long gazing at my own face. BDD manifests itself in numerous ways, so when people call it an invisible condition, I disagree, you just have to know what you’re looking for. That’s part of the goal of this website, to bring attention to these overlooked symptoms.
Books cited:
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oxford, Macmillan, 2014.
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