Reid Ewing plays the dopey yet good-natured Dylan on Modern Family, Haley’s on-again, off-again boyfriend (currently “off” as they seem to have broken up on last week’s episode). However unbeknownst to most people, over the course of the seven years he has appeared on the ABC series, Ewing has struggled with body dysmorphia and until just a few years ago, a cosmetic-surgery addiction. Now Ewing has opened up about his body dysmorphia in a blog on Huffington Post. According to Wikipedia, body dysmorphia is a “mental disorder characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one’s own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.”
Ewing says that he got his first procedure in 2008 at just 19, as a young actor having just moved to Los Angeles with little else to do with his time but scrutinize himself. He thought getting one procedure would make him “look like Brad Pitt,” however after being talked into chin implants by a shady plastic surgeon, he ended up nearly disfigured. This led to years of additional surgeries and corrective surgeries, as is what tends to happen when someone falls down the cosmetic surgery rabbit hole.
Much of this was going on during the same time period I was shooting “Modern Family.” Most of the times I was on camera were when I’d had the numerous implants removed and was experimenting with less-noticeable changes to my face, like injectable fillers and fat transfers. None of them last very long or are worth the money.
At the beginning of 2012, all the isolation, secrecy, depression, and self-hate became too much to bear. I vowed I would never get cosmetic surgery again even though I was still deeply insecure about my looks. It took me about six months before I was comfortable with people even looking at me.
It’s unfortunate that such a bright and good-looking young man with a promising career could be going through such a difficult internal battle. If nothing else, hopefully his story help others out there who might also be struggling with the same form of mental illness.
(Via Huffington Post)
