A life less ordinary
UGLY ME: MY LIFE WITH BODY DYSMORPHIA
BBC1, 10.45pm
DISGUSTED by her own reflection in the mirror, 29-year-old Liane is crippled by a condition that causes her to believe she is horrifically ugly.
“I actually repulse myself,” she says in this heartbreaking film following her journey through treatment for body dysmorphia disorder (BDD).
One in 50 in Britain suffers from the condition and here some of them tell their story. “I had a sense that I was freakishly ugly,” says Gareth, 39, while one woman reveals how she didn’t have children for fear that she was so ugly, anything she gave birth to would be “a hideous monster”.
Suicide rates are 30 times higher among those diagnosed with BDD.
But this documentary mostly follows Liane’s story, beginning a year ago as she complains that her hair is terrible and can make her face appear “lopsided”.
She’s on her way out to see boyfriend Mitch play in his band, but is completely consumed with how she looks and how she hates being seen in public. Mitch constantly tries to reassure her, but to no avail, and is sometimes silent for fear that saying the wrong thing will trigger more anxiety. “I don’t know why he likes me,” Liane says. There are also interviews with her parents who say she was a happy and carefree child. Cameras follow Liane as she meets Professor David Veale, one of the world’s leading experts on BDD, who attempts to undo some of her deeply entrenched habits. “It’s very dangerous to live in your head,” he tells her. It’s a powerful, eye-opening programme about a little-known illness.