Hi, I want to share what I've been going through. This has been going on for about a year now and it's been driving me crazy.
About a year ago I became obsessed with my appearance, specifically my face. I used to feel fine about myself, but now I'm terrified of being unattractive because I always believed I wasn't, and that this kind of thing would never happen to me. This obsession grew so intense that I started staring at myself in the mirror for 5 minutes every time I walked past one. I would stare and desperately try to convince myself I looked normal, but I kept finding flaws - especially facial asymmetry, which scared me more than anything and wouldn't let me have any peace of mind. On top of that I have acne, and when I first flipped a photo of myself I thought I looked absolutely horrible. Every now and then this state passes and I feel normal and don't notice flaws as often, but it never lasts long and I don't know if it will come back. My friends told me I look like a normal person and that my asymmetry isn't visible, but I don't believe them and even when it reassures me, it doesn't last.
What scares me even more is that my asymmetry might get worse over time if I don't do something to prevent it. So I started obsessively controlling my habits - how I sleep (I sleep on my side, which worries me a lot), the position of my tongue and jaw, and how I chew. If I make even one mistake, my self-esteem crashes completely, and no matter how good I felt before, I start seeing an ugly, asymmetrical face in the mirror again which makes me afraid I've done something irreversible and permanently damaged my face. Making things worse, I've been experiencing frequent discomfort in my jaw joint lately.
This fear affects my life so much that I think about it constantly and can never feel at ease. I spend energy on these thoughts every single day. It scares me because I've always believed that less attractive people have fewer privileges in life.