Shine OnBritish teen says selfie addiction ruined his life
19-year-old Danny Bowman once spent 10 hours a day taking selfies.
Now the British teen is speaking out against the real dangers of selfie addiction.
His addiction started at age 15 and quickly spiraled out of control, leading him to attempt suicide due to anxiety that he couldn't capture the perfect selfie.
"I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realised I couldn’t I wanted to die," he tells Mirror of his 200 selfies-a-day addiction.
"The only thing I cared about was having my phone with me so I could satisfy the urge to capture a picture of myself at any time of the day."
His mother sought help, which eventually led to him being diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder -- an anxiety disorder characterized by an obsession with a perceived physical flaw.
"I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life," Bowman explains.
At Bowman's worst, he would cut class three times an hour to take a selfie, and eventually dropped out of school at age 16, at which point his health started to fall apart.
“I would limit myself to an apple and a bowl of couscous a day in a bid to be thinner and improve my skin,” he says.
He didn't leave his house for six months due to anxiety about how he looked.
Selfie addiction is a phenomenon that increasing numbers of mental health professionals are recognizing.
“Danny’s case is particularly extreme,” says psychiatrist Dr. David Veal. “But this is a serious problem. It’s not a vanity issue. It’s a mental health one which has an extremely high suicide rate.”
Bowman is believed to be Britain's first case and now receives regular therapy to help him cope with his technology addiction.
"I think this kind of thing can happen to anyone, for me it manifested itself in selfies; it could be something different for someone else," he says.
“People don’t realise when they post a picture of themselves on Facebook or Twitter it can so quickly spiral out of control."
