Originally Posted By: tsuwm
context is usually helpful in these situations; i.e.

"An early sign of Beard's distress was dysmorphia, or perhaps it was dysmorphia he was suddenly cured of. At last he knew himself for what he was." sounds to me as though disfigurement or deformity is at work here.


Just to be pedantic, and while I quite like the quote, there is no actual disfigurement or deformity. Rather, there is the perception of such. The classical example is anorexia nervosa - the patient perceives themselves to be overweight when they are quite clearly not.