Modern Family actor Reid Ewing, who plays Dylan in the hit sitcom, has revealed his struggle with body dysmorphia.
In a letter published by Huffington Post, Reid Ewing describes his mental torment, explaining how he felt so ugly and he got surgery after surgery.
Reid Ewing, 27, went under the knife in 2008 when he was 19 years old. He now regrets it.
According to experts, body dysmorphia is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.
For example, they may be convinced that a barely visible scar is a major flaw that everyone is staring at, or that their nose looks abnormal.
Having body dysmorphia does not mean the person is vain or self-obsessed.
“I genuinely believed if I had one procedure I would suddenly look like Brad Pitt,” Reid Ewing explains.
A doctor then “quickly determined that large cheek implants would address the issues I had with my face, and a few weeks later I was on the operating table.”
Reid Ewing remembers how he woke up screaming from pain, with tears down his face.
He describes his face, after all the swelling went down, as “horrendous”.
Reid Ewing asked for more surgery because he was unhappy with the change but the doctor said he had have to wait for six months.
For the next couple of years Reid Ewing continued to have more cosmetic surgery, including chin implants but they would cause new “problems” he felt needed fixing.
Reid Ewing was filming Modern Family while this was happening.
