Mr Hampshire entrant Mark Young reveals how he has learnt to live with body dysmorphic disorder

Someone suffering with body dysmorphic disorder can spend hours analysing themselves in the mirror.

But to them the reflection is not what everyone else sees.

They could have bulging biceps, rippling abs and a six foot frame, but the figure staring back at them is wafer thin.

This is the image Mark Young has fought from the age of 15 after friends commented on his skinny appearance.

Even now having won a regional body building competition and entering the Mr Hampshire 2015 pageant – he has his bad days.

“It’s horrible, it’s like your mind is playing tricks on you and no matter how much I went to the gym I only saw a really skinny person.

“At my worst I think I was looking at myself in every reflection I could find, going to the gym two hours a day and was ready to start taking steroids.”

It was at the point that Mark’s mother knew he needed help, having watched helplessly as her son became a shell of the person she raised.

Susan Young said: “It was heart-breaking to see what was happening to him, he just looked so upset and was really anxious, he actually ended up in hospital with anxiety attacks. No matter how much we tried to tell him he was gaining muscle and didn’t look skinny it didn’t work, he didn’t believe us.”

The 21-year-old from New Milton then visited a counsellor for almost six months.

“Seeing the counsellor turned my whole life around, he had these steps that I had to take like taking down all the mirrors, looking at photos of myself with my head cropped off of them and eliminating negative words like skinny from my vocabulary.

Continued on page 20 As simple as these might sound for normal people, for someone with body dysmorphia, someone who doesn’t recognise what they really look like, it was life changing.”

Mark with his mum Susan and girlfriend Elisia Harris

The condition affects one in 100 people in the UK and is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and they will spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.

Mark said: “Lots of people feel self conscious about the way they look, but body dysmorphia is more than that. When you have treatment for it it’s the same as the treatment for people with OCD, so we are obsessive, but it doesn’t mean you’re vain, it’s more to do with a lack of confidence.”

Since his treatment Mark has battled to accept and understand his body with the help of his girlfriend 25-year-old Elisia Harris.

She said: “Mark has told me a lot about his struggles and I could really relate because I had an eating disorder but we have worked together to get through it and he is amazing, I’ve seen him perform as a body builder and it’s incredible the way he moves it’s a real art.”

Two years ago Mark won the southern championships at the British Natural Bodybuilding Federation and went on to compete in the British finals – which he hopes to do again this year.

It’s an intense build up to the event with a strict exercise and diet regime which sees him eating one jacket potato an hour, a chicken breast every two hours and 13 litres of water a day in the week before the competition.

He said: “I really enjoy it, this is my sport. It is intense on your body and you can’t do it forever but I like that it’s testing me and I am really proud of myself for doing it naturally, Elisia has even decided she wants to enter the women’s competition so we are training together. I feel like doing this has meant I can leave the body dysmorphia in the past.

“There are some days when I don’t feel great but I’ve got a great support system around me and I know if I follow certain steps I will feel better. I don’t think you ever get rid of it for good but everyone has a battle to fight and I am working out how to get through it doing something I love.”