The change to my subjective self-evaluations, after a settling-in phase, was quite the opposite of the usual “plastic surgery will never make you happy/satisfied” advice we hear—my perception of my own attractiveness rose substantially. The other items on the list did not go away, but with the primary one gone, I self-evaluated much more positively.
How much of this reaction (decline in severity of BDD) was from the material change observable directly by you, and how much of this reaction was due to the failure of others to notice any change and yet still rate you as attractive (in your opinion, if you can even guess)? I’m curious.
I should clarify—though a lot of people didn’t figure out that it was specifically my nose that had changed, most people with whom I had any semi-regular interaction noticed that something was different about me, and commented to that effect (and of course there were certain groups—flatmates, lovers, my anatomy teacher—who immediately realized it was a nose job). The lesson I took away from that was that while people do evaluate your attractiveness when they see you, mostly they don’t cache much more than a general positive or negative impression of your appearance. Thus when something changes for the better, they think “Ey looks better” but can’t quite place why. I should have realized this before—the number of times I’ve thought someone looked different but not been able to place why defies counting.
In light of that, I would say it was definitely partly due to the reactions of others (positive without knowing why) and partly due to being able to observe a material change myself, but as to their proportions I have only speculation. As a hunch, I would guess that the latter was a larger factor—my self-evaluations after the settling-in period were pretty close to what I imagined they’d be, when I was visualizing myself with a new nose before the operation.
How much of this reaction (decline in severity of BDD) was from the material change observable directly by you, and how much of this reaction was due to the failure of others to notice any change and yet still rate you as attractive (in your opinion, if you can even guess)? I’m curious.
I should clarify—though a lot of people didn’t figure out that it was specifically my nose that had changed, most people with whom I had any semi-regular interaction noticed that something was different about me, and commented to that effect (and of course there were certain groups—flatmates, lovers, my anatomy teacher—who immediately realized it was a nose job). The lesson I took away from that was that while people do evaluate your attractiveness when they see you, mostly they don’t cache much more than a general positive or negative impression of your appearance. Thus when something changes for the better, they think “Ey looks better” but can’t quite place why. I should have realized this before—the number of times I’ve thought someone looked different but not been able to place why defies counting.
In light of that, I would say it was definitely partly due to the reactions of others (positive without knowing why) and partly due to being able to observe a material change myself, but as to their proportions I have only speculation. As a hunch, I would guess that the latter was a larger factor—my self-evaluations after the settling-in period were pretty close to what I imagined they’d be, when I was visualizing myself with a new nose before the operation.