This is an excerpt of my book  “Shattered Image”.  Shattered Image is the story of my struggle with, and recovery from, a compulsive behavior clinically known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). That struggle has included recovery from bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, and addiction to cocaine and steroids. I also suffer from clinical depression. For decades, I engaged in self-destructive behavior with the single goal of correcting a terribly distorted sense of self-image, a self-image rooted in early life experiences.  Release date is August 2013  See what people are saying about Shattered Image!

I have recurring dreams. Scenes from law school, struggles with addiction, and failed relationships are in constant re-run.  They are vivid and colorful. Like full length movies played out in my subconscious . They say this is common with recovering addicts. That’s what they say.

This particular dream begins as I arrive at a party. I’m by myself as I walk into a dark, empty room. I am embarrassed and alone. I don’t want to be alone. Even in my dream,I can feel the emptiness in my stomach. The ache of loneliness and isolation. I want to be accepted and popular. I know high school classmates will be showing up, and I want to be included in their fun. I order a diet coke. The bartender tells me they do not serve it. He offers me a Jack Daniels and Diet-Coke, my drink of choice pre-sobriety. I take the drink from him but I can’t raise the glass to my mouth. My arm won’t move.. I go to the bathroom to do a line of coke. I’m can’t snort it. The cocaine is just out of reach of the straw. The white powder vaporizing into the ether of the dream. There is always a barrier keeping me from drawing anything into my blood that will transform me into the Brian I want to see in the mirror every morning. Attractive, slim and confident. The Brian I never see. Sometimes I wake up with the familiar, peculiar smell of cocaine in my nose, the smell of ether and baby laxative. They say that is a sign of recovery. So they say.

I am walking through the room. I see a high school classmate. He said he was my friend. Before he and others assaulted me and tore my pants off.  Exposing my fat, ugly body to the world.  He is sixteen, I am fifty-one. He wants nothing to do with me. He makes fun of my weight. I run to to the bathroom and  look in the mirror.  I am no longer a heavy teenager. I am a grown, mature adult. Why is he making fun of my weight? Doesn’t he see me? The room is filling up. More high school classmates. More bullies of my childhood. They are all teens. How did I get so old? I ask “Can I join your group?” They all laugh and otherwise ignore me. I am right here! You know me! The room gets darker.  I can no longer see them. The familiar feeling, the familiar ache. The loneliness. An empty, gut-wrenching void. Wanting to scream in my dream with only a guttural groan emanating from my sleeping mouth.  Dream shifts. I am standing up against the gym wall at the high school dance, wishing someone would talk to me. They are back. My childhood bullies appear again. . They start pulling at and tearing my clothes, exposing me. I am crying. I am screaming. Why Don’t You Like Me!  They laugh in response. I am awake. The ache is still with me. The nighttime remnants of a once shattered image. It will fade. Hopefully a different re-run tomorrow night.

Dreams fade to morning, and morning brings with it decisions that will have consequences for both the mind and body. The choices I make through the day can leave me feeling calm and happy by sundown, or feeling like I’m still stuck in a nightmare. But this feeling is not a dream. It is the reality of Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

This is the fourteenth excerpt of my book  “Shattered Image”.  Shattered Image is the story of my struggle with, and recovery from, a compulsive behavior clinically known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). That struggle has included recovery from bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, and addiction to cocaine and steroids. I also suffer from clinical depression. For decades, I engaged in self-destructive behavior with the single goal of correcting a terribly distorted sense of self-image, a self-image rooted in early life experiences.  Release date is July -August 2013  See what people are saying about Shattered Image!

Summer, 1984.  Five in the morning.  Standing at attention. The early morning, thick Virginia humidity giving me the shower I had not had yet. Sweating my ass off.  Grimy, sweaty clothes I had worn for two days.  The fear and uncertainty of what I had gotten myself into manifesting itself in a paralyzing fear gazing out into nothing.

“GET YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR FUCKING POCKET CANDIDATE CUBAN! YOU ARE AN IDIOT PIECE OF SHIT CANDIDATE CUBAN! YOU SPEAK TO ME IN THE SECOND PERSON! YOU ADDRESS ME AS SERGEANT INSTRUCTOR!  ARE YOU EYEBALLING ME? “YOU WILL NEVER MAKE IT HERE. YOU ARE A D.O.R! (Discharge On Request), punctuating each letter like daggers directly into my gut.

My second day  at Officer Candidate School, Quantico, Virginia.  My radical attempt at self-help.  I did not enlist in the US Marine Corps because I was patriotic or some other noble cause. I did not want to be one of the “few good men”.  I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror and see a man.  I wanted to become the man that girls would look at and see past the ugliness I saw in the mirror.  The Marines could make that reflection right. The fat Brian.  The burgeoning alcoholic Brian.  The shy Brian. They would all be gone.  I wanted to see a Brian that I could love, and that others would love as well.  The Marines could make me into that one good man. I would get in great physical shape and gain self-confidence in who I was. The million shattered pieces of the mirror would be miraculously put back together in ten weeks over the summer. Humpty-Dumpty never fared so well.

In reality, what I was doing was at its core no different than the binging and purging, anorexia, or the binge drinking I had engaged in since college. I was looking for someone or something else to change me. Basic training, of course, isn’t a therapists office. The goal of basic training is not to make young men feel good about themselves. It’s about breaking down the ego of the individual and replacing it with the ego of the group, so that everyone can depend on each other in hostile situations. The Marines have produced tens of thousands of soldiers. It’s not their job to produce psychologically healthy adults. I simply had the wrong mindset. As with self-help, basic training is no solution for those with real psychological problems.

By my second day at Quantico, I was completely overwhelmed. I went from being a loner and doing as I pleased to fuel my unhealthy obsessions to having to conform within a platoon of candidates I did not know and a platoon sergeant and sergeant instructor whose job it was to degrade me.  Break me down and then build me up.  I was already broken.  Soon I was confused and terrified that I had made a huge mistake. On our second day, we all had to go in front of the Platoon Captain for a brief interview that all officer candidates went through.

Son, what were your scores on the PT test?” “This officer candidate thought he did pretty well.” “Son let me tell you something. You’re pretty arrogant. You did not do well at all. You are not in very good shape. If you don’t get those scores up you won’ make it here.”

The captain went on about my arrogance and unworthiness to be a US Marine. In doing his job, he had trashed the one remaining pillar of my self-confidence—my physical fitness. He was a grown man telling me I’d never become a grown man myself. I heard the voice of my mom calling me a fat pig and a dumb bunny.  I heard the voices of everyone who had ever picked on me or made fun of my weight. It was too much. I was terrified and lost. The final nail in my marine career coffin was the realization that they were going to shave my head. For someone with Body Dysmorphic Disorder,  that thought was terrifying to the point of severe depression. I had never thought about it before I joined. It seems trivial but for someone who already saw himself as a deformed it’s terrifying.  I knew right then I was not staying in the Marines.

As it so happened,  I had been having some knee pain as was normal for me as someone who was running over 80 miles a week at that time.  They sent me to Fort Belvoir Virginia to be examined. I  knew nothing was really wrong and knew that they would probably just tell me I had “runners knee” if anything at all. It was something I had lived with and could have lived with in OCS.  It however, would give me some time to think.  After some conversation, the Navy Corpsman who examined me knew what the deal was. He had seen it before.  He asked me a simple question. “Do you want to go home”? I gave him a simple answer. “Yes.”

My time in the Marines was over.  I was once again a bullied child running for cover.  I have often regretted sticking it out in the years since and wondered what my life would be life if I had. I also know that at that time, it was not something I could have gone through. Body dysmorphia did not fit with the Marine lifestyle. It wasn’t just the calculated abuse.  In the end I was simply looking for someone to fix me. Not even the Marines can do that. Only I could do that. Unfortunately, I was decades from figuring that out.

Shattered Image is the story of my struggle with, and recovery from, a compulsive behavior clinically known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). That struggle has included recovery from bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, and addiction to cocaine and steroids. I also suffer from clinical depression. For decades, I engaged in self-destructive behavior with the single goal of correcting a terribly distorted sense of self-image, a self-image rooted in early life experiences.  Release date is August 2013. Here is what is already being said about the book!

In a field strewn with myth and fiction, Cuban provides us with an absorbing account of his struggle with body dysmorphic disorder, giving a human face to a scientific problem. In my years of working in addiction medicine, I have seen that sometimes it is easier for a patient to realize the need to seek help when they see themselves in the stories of others; Cuban’s book is an important addition to scientific texts, and we are all the richer for it.”

Andrea G. Barthwell, MD, FASAM Past President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and Former Deputy Director of Demand Reduction, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

 “Shattered Image is one man’s compelling and rare account of his long struggle with and recovery from body dysmorphic disorder. In my professional experience, BBD is a condition that is not often recognized, and I am thankful that Cuban is shedding light on the eating disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and other psychiatric illnesses that can result from it.” 

Gerald A. Melchiode, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,  UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Tx

“Shattered Image is infused with relentless resilience in the face of  the eating disorders, addiction and despair often associated with Body Dysmorphic Disorder.  Brian Cuban’s candid revelations of the human spirit’s ability to overcome significant obstacles will strengthen and encourage all who are fortunate to read this page turner.”

Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC
President, Eating Disorder Hope  Fort Worth, Texas

“Having helped people learn to lose weight and keep it off for more than 25 years, I now believe Brian Cuban has had the courage to open an emotional door that will give both men and women a true understanding of how they perceive their body image and unlock that door for a lifetime of success!”

Larry North

Healthy Living Lifestyle Expert, Bestselling Author of Get Fit and Living Lean

“Brian Cuban tackles a subject nobody talks about with honesty, grace, and hope. This book will help countless people.”

Bob Beaudine Author of the best-selling book The Power of WHO & CEO of Eastman and Beaudine

Six Years Sober today. Six years removed from chaos and looking down into that dark, endless abyss.  It has not been an easy climb out, but as I learned to do that first difficult year of sobriety, all I can do it take it one day at at time and put one foot in front the other.  There have been, and there still are other challenges. Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Eating Disorders. Cocaine Addiction and Clinical Depression.  Each an individual battle in itself.  The potpourri of mental illness could have convinced me to throw in the towel. I almost did.  If I had done so,  I would have missed the best part of my life that had not yet been written.  I would have also missed the most important thing in the world to me after my sobriety.  My family.  My girlfriend who stood by me when it would have been so easy to walk away from the idiot addict I was.  My parents and brothers who have stood by me at every turn whether it was into traffic or finding the open lane. I love them all and am the luckiest guy in the world today to be sitting here getting to celebrate my father’s eighty-seventh birthday with my brothers.  Six years ago I could not have said it.  If I had, it would have been a lie.  I look forward to the future. The same as I started.  One step in front of the other.  One day at a time