Reid Ewing is probably best known for his recurring role as Dylan, the on-again/off-again boyfriend of Sarah Hyland’s character on Modern Family. Beyond Modern Family, he’s worked somewhat consistently on other TV and movie projects over the years, but Modern Family really is his claim to fame. I was always surprised that Reid didn’t have a bigger breakout – he’s tall, attractive and he’s got great comedic skills. As it turns out, Reid was hiding a secret this whole time: he’s been struggling with body dysmorphic disorder for eight years or more. He had his first plastic surgery procedure – cheek implants – done when he was 19 years old, in 2008. Two years later, with another doctor, Reid got a chin implant, then needed another surgery to repair it. He had two more surgeries over the next two years. He described all of this and more in a HuffPo essay – go here to read his full HuffPo essay. Some highlights:

His illness: “Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental illness in which a person obsesses over the way he or she looks. In my case, my looks were the only thing that mattered to me. I had just moved to LA to become an actor and had very few, if any, friends. I’d sit alone in my apartment and take pictures of myself from every angle, analyzing every feature. After a few years of doing this, one day I decided I had to get cosmetic surgery. “No one is allowed to be this ugly,” I thought. “It’s unacceptable.”

His first procedure: “In 2008, when I was 19 years old, I made my first appointment to meet with a cosmetic surgeon. I genuinely believed if I had one procedure I would suddenly look like Brad Pitt. I told the doctor why I felt my face needed cosmetic surgery and told him I was an actor. He agreed that for my career it would be necessary to get cosmetic surgery. He 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…”

The endless cycle: “At this point I was 20 years old. For the next couple of years, I would get several more procedures with two other doctors. Each procedure would cause a new problem that I would have to fix with another procedure. Anyone who has had a run-in with bad cosmetic surgery knows this is true. In terms of where I got the money to fund my procedures, it may not be as expensive as you would think. The new business model for cosmetic surgeons is to charge less and get more people in and out. I used the money I saved from acting and then borrowed from my parents and grandmother when I was most desperate.”

Shooting Modern Family: “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.

None of his doctors did mental health screenings: “Of the four doctors who worked on me, not one had mental health screenings in place for their patients, except for asking if I had a history of depression, which I said I did, and that was that. My history with eating disorders and the cases of obsessive compulsive disorder in my family never came up. None of the doctors suggested I consult a psychologist for what was clearly a psychological issue rather than a cosmetic one or warn me about the potential for addiction.”

Body dysmorphia and plastic surgery: “People with body dysmorphic disorder often become addicted to cosmetic surgery. Gambling with your looks, paired with all the pain meds doctors load you up on, make it a highly addictive experience. It’s a problem that is rarely taken seriously because of the public shaming of those who have had work done. The secrecy that surrounds cosmetic surgery keeps the unethical work practiced by many of these doctors from ever coming to light. I think people often choose cosmetic surgery in order to be accepted, but it usually leaves them feeling even more like an outsider. We don’t hear enough stories about cosmetic surgery from this perspective.”

[From HuffPo]

Reid ends his HuffPo essay by saying that he wants to counteract the message from shady plastic surgeons that it’s easy and fun to just get a little cosmetic work done, and that people should take a moment to really examine if “whether it is your mind that needs fixing.” He says that for him, plastic surgery became “a horrible hobby” that “it will eat away at you until you have lost all self-esteem and joy. I wish I could go back and undo all the surgeries. Now I can see that I was fine to begin with and didn’t need the surgeries after all.” I can’t even imagine. My God. This poor kid. If you read the whole piece, the doctors sound so horrible and dishonest too. Ugh.

Photos courtesy of WENN.