I'm 34M. Throughout my 20s I struggled with severe body dysmorphia, focussed mainly around my face.

Treatments and therapy were helpful and served a very good purpose. However, one thing above all else was most effective: true mirror exposure.

I'm not sure how often this is explored or discussed on this sub, but true mirror is when you use a mirror reflected into another mirror in order to see yourself as others see you, not as you see yourself in a mirror. How we see ourselves in a mirror is reversed compared to real life. We become used to this reflection over time, because it's how we see ourselves every day. Then when we see ourselves in pictures or film, it's the opposite of what we know, and therefore we hate it. We see extreme asymmetry and faults that others don't notice because it doesn't conform to what we look at.

For true mirror exposure, I used a handheld mirror (a makeup mirror) and reflected it into my bathroom mirror. There, I saw myself as others saw me, instead of the standard reflection we usually see.

Initially, it was shocking, noticing lots of asymmetry and flaws on my face that I hadn't noticed before. I kept doing this for about 10 minutes a day in order to study it and get used to it. After a while, I became more used to this true mirror reflection and less used to my standard reflection. Further down the line, I became more happy with how I looked in the true reflection because it became more normalised, and all the asymmetry I had initially noticed started to go away. I became happier with my appearance.

For anyone struggling with this aspect of body dysmorphia, I cannot recommend this method enough. At first it is a big shock to your brain, but exposing yourself to this over a period of weeks will really help you learn about your true features and you will start to see the positives in your face and the severe asymmetry will become less and less noticeable