Living With Facial Deformity and Disfigurement - Coursework Example

Living With Facial Deformity and Disfigurement  Our faces are very important parts of our body though it forms only 3 percent of the human body. The power of face to influence judgment is beyond imagination and there are sufficient evidences which direct us to the fact that we judge others by their appearances. It is through the face and facial expressions that we communicate our emotions. Face is that part which uphold to the society. It is the better to say that face helps us to present ourselves to others. When the face suffers any kind of disfigurement it becomes difficult for us to face ourselves and at the same time others. Moreover in today’s society everyone wants to look glamorous and blemish free. Although we are aware of the fact that looks are superficial yet we judge people by their appearances at least for the first time when we meet them. Facial deformity and disfiguration means ugliness created in the face due to some physical anomaly. The facial deformity makes the face away from the normal and it presents a look which is very much displeasing for an onlooker. The causes of facial deformity and disfiguration may be categorized into two broad groups which are congenital and acquired. Congenital deformities are those which are present in an individual right from his or her birth or after some years of birth. The acquired deformities occur due to exposure to some trauma or illness.( Joseph and Milstein, 1987). Facial deformities may cause a lot of problems in our lives. Apart from the pain which is attached to facial deformities, it also creates a lot of social and psychological problems for the one who is victim of such a disability. And as we judge people by their appearances it might be a difficult situation for the one who suffers from facial disfigurement or deformity. Living with facial deformity may give rise to problems like teasing, taunting especially for children. Living with a facial disfigurement is a real challenge both for the adults as well as the children. Facial deformity is such a problem which makes an individual very much self conscious. He or she becomes ashamed of existence and loses all the interest to face the society. They withdraw themselves into a shell and embraces isolation closely. Even in the eyes of the society such an individual may become a subject matter of fun and enjoyment. Receiving of such a treatment hampers the ego of an individual with facial deformity adversely. The most common problem which the people with facial deformities and disfigurement face is the problem of unwanted gaze and disgust. When they are out in the public they have to undergo unwanted and curious gazes from the passersby. Many people look at them with pity and some look at them with disgust. They are kind of treated as untouchables in a public place. As a result they feel humiliated and want to hide from the public gaze. This desire slowly makes them withdraw themselves into isolation. They suffer cruel treatments due to something in which they have no role to play. Most of the people in the society fail to understand the extent of pain which these people undergo. The society fails to treat these people with sympathy and care. As a result they feel more marginalized and isolated. The facial deformity and disfigurement itself is a problem and then when such outside problems are added to it the problem becomes all the more complex. People tend to pose uneasy questions to those with facial deformities and such questions can make the existence of such people even more difficult. People with such impairment are of the opinion that the other people easily forget that behind that not so normal fact there is a person who has a heart. They have to face a number of difficulties in their lives which ultimately leads to harassment of such persons. First of all it becomes very difficult rather impossible for them to get a partner who would love them and care for them because of the fact that they have a face which is not a pleasing to look at. Secondly even in case of job appointments they feel discriminated. They are purposefully denied any important position because they lack the so-called face value and they are offered only menial jobs like cleaning of toilets. Apart from this the discrimination which they face in public places is even sharper because in most cases people generally avoid to take places beside those with facial deformities in buses or in other public transports. Thus we can see that at every step of their lives these people with facial deformities face harsh discriminations which hurt their self esteem and pride. They start feeling unwanted in the society.(“ Changing Faces”). In most of the cases the facially disfigured persons encounter a discriminatory treatment consequently they develop a negative attitude in their minds and they expect a negative treatment in all situations and due to such an anticipation they develop a shy and defensive attitude within them which in turn generates negative reactions from others towards them. Thus we can say that the vicious circle of discriminatory treatment continues the cause being either the victim himself or herself and in most cases it is the society which is the perpetrator of such a harsh behavior. (Baum, 1997). In various studies conducted when the opinions of the people with facial deformities and other researchers were taken they all said that they wanted the stigmas against them to lessen in the society because the way they are stigmatized in the society is very painful maybe more than the physical pain which they face due to the deformities and they wanted to get rid of the pain in order to lead a happy life. To deal with the psychological aspects of facial deformities the first thing we need to mention here is that when a child with facial deformities is born it brings an initial shock to the family. The family doesn’t know how to react to such a situation. The family especially the parents feel so shocked to receive such a child because parents have a lot of expectation from the child. They expect not only a normal child but a super normal child.( Craniofacial Society of Great Britain, International Meeting, Huddart and Ferguson, 1990). And when they see a child with facial disfiguration it becomes very easy on their part to understand that their expectations will not be fulfilled by such a child. Consequently what happens is that the child starts getting neglected by the family members may be not consciously but certainly unconsciously. They start feeling the burden of the child. Gradually when the child grows up he or she starts realizing that he is neglected, a burden for his or her family and again this makes the child turn away from all the family members. They in fact create a wall around them so that no outsiders can trespass into their territory. One more psychological aspect of facial disfigurement is the effect it has on bonding. It is said that the first few days of a child’s birth is the crucial time for developing a bonding between the child and the mother. The mother through kissing and caressing her new baby develops a bond with the child. But when it is the case of a disfigured baby the mother feels a kind of aversion towards the baby and hence does not reach out to him or her. As a result what happens is the initial period of bonding between mother and child is lost and this may have a long lasting effect on the child’s future. The child may in the due course of time fails to develop bond with anyone in the future. Again here we see that an individual suffers without any fault of his or her. Most of the people with facial disfigurement complain of the distressing situation which they face every day. It ranges from looking at them in the mirror to looking at the reflection of their disfigurement in the eyes of those who are not disfigured. They say that carrying out mundane daily activities like going to the office, going to a cinema, going for shopping or something as simple as standing in a queue involves a lot of challenge on their parts which is on the contrary very simple for the others who are the so called the normal beings of the society. They face such difficulties because they have to face innumerable questions which embarrass them and they really are at a loss as to how they should cope with the situation. Continuous marginalization of those with facial deformities instills a feeling of defeat into their minds. They start believing that they are good for nothing and they are the ones who have not been blessed. They gradually develop a feeling of detest towards the society and feel detached from the society. As a result they develop difficulties in interaction with the fellow members of the society and with time they are not even able to voice their needs to others. Consequently their needs start getting all the more neglected.    People have a belief that whatever is beautiful is good. Therefore in such a belief those with facial deformities and disfigurement fail to score. And people start believing that those with facial deformities do not qualify for the adjective “good”. It has also been found that those who have beautiful faces score more than those who do not have and this holds true in everything be it employment, marriage, social interaction and social desirability. Hence we can understand that those who suffer from facial deformities are disadvantaged in all these spheres. As a result people with facial deformities complain that they undergo a lot of anxiety and fear in a social situation. They develop a kind of phobia for the society which leads to social avoidance. It has been also found out that many of the patients with facial deformities tend to develop mental illness in the later part of their lives. This is mainly because they undergo a constant depression which originates from the neglect they suffer at the hands of the society.(Marks, 2000) All through their lives from the time they develop any kind of deformity at every step they are made to feel ashamed of their existence. They are made to realize that they are inferior to all the others of the society. This creates a mental pressure in them because they fail to understand the reason as to why they are inferior to all others of the society. Slowly they withdraw and start feeling guilty of the fact that they have a kind of impairment which they will not be able to alter even if they wish to. We know that one’s body and one’s face is not only important because it provides a basis for reference but also it is an important factor contributing to our self esteem. Therefore lacking either of the two adds up to a lot of trouble for those who lack it. The people with facial deformities and disfiguration often face harsh ridicule at the hand of their peers and they are also called unflattering nicknames. They are sometimes even mistreated as deviants of the society. And in most cases they think themselves to be freaks because wherever they go they receive a different treatment from the others. Thus they get pre-occupied with their deformity and move about in the society only expecting responses of pity, curiosity, surprise and repulsion and hardly they ever receive acceptance easily. Sometimes due to such a practice many juvenile delinquents develop because these young people gradually develop bitterness and resentment about themselves due to their physical ugliness and defects. Thus we can see that unequal treatment of those with physical deformities even give rise to criminal activities in the society. Hence we can infer that the problem not only hurts the ego system of an individual but it also has an adverse effect on the society.(Shibutani, 1999). From various studies we have also found out that the behavior patterns of others towards those with deformities and disfigurement to a large extent depend on the self-conceptions of the person himself or herself. One major cause as to why the people with deformities receive such differential treatment is because they have a very low self esteem about themselves. We have also seen that after a surgery when the deformity or disfigurement is removed there takes place a lot of changes in the self conceptions of the patients as well as others. For example the patient feels more interested in activities like dressing and the acceptance level also increases by many folds. This is one more important thing which may be considered that is a person with facial deformity or any kind of disfigurement loses all kinds of desire from pleasure deriving activities like dressing because they are of the opinion that they are ugly and no amount of dressing can remove their ugliness or the repulsion which they face from the other people who are the so called normal beings of the society. The study makes us realize that the difficulties which people with deformities and any kind of disfiguration face is huge and the main reason of their difficulties is the harsh treatment of the society. The treatment which they face becomes so cruel at times that those impaired people lose the desire to live and sometimes they also lose their mental balance. Before passing a harsh comment or before turning away our faces from those with facial deformities we should for a moment think that there is a human hurt behind the disfigured face or body and we do not have the right to hurt them. Instead we should treat them with care and love so that their pain is eased. We should remember that they are already in severe pain and we cannot increase their pain by mistreating them. As responsible beings of the society it is our duty to provide them the adequate support so that they do not fell cursed or neglected. Moreover we do not have the right to punish anyone for something for which he or she is not responsible and by treating them unfairly we actually try to punish them. People with facial deformities and disfigurement have equal expertise and intellect as the others so there is no ground on which we deny them equal opportunities to grow. We should behave with them as human beings and not as selfish giants.    References     1. Baum A, 1997, “Cambridge handbook of psychology, health, and medicine”, Cambridge University Press, USA. 2. “Changing Faces”, February 7, 2005, available athttp://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northeast/series7/facial_disfig.shtml, (accessed on 17/06/09). 3. Craniofacial Society of Great Britain, International Meeting, Huddart A and Ferguson M, 1990, “Cleft Lip and Palate: The presurgical period, initial surgery, and speech, surgery, and growth”, Manchester University Press ND, USA. 4. Joseph J and Milstein S, 1987, “Rhinoplasty and facial plastic surgery with a supplement on mammaplasty and other operations in the field of plastic surgery of the body: an atlas and textbook”, Norman Publishing. 5. Marks I, 2000, “Phobic nature of social difficulty in facially disfigured people” The British Journal of Psychiatry, available athttp://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/176/2/177, (accessed on 17/06/09). 6. Shibutani T, 1999, “Society and Personality an Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology”, Transaction Publishers Read More