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🚫 No Body's Perfect 🚫
THIS NEWS IS ABOUT'IT'S CRUEL TO SHOW MY UGLY FACE'
BODY DYSMORPHIC DISORDER (BDD)
Stunning woman with body dysmorphia hates her looks so much she takes 200 selfies to find one she likes and tried to ▒▒▒▒ herself three times
Alanah Bagwell was so convinced she was ugly she didn't leave her room for four years and 'wanted to ▒▒▒'
BY SALLY BECK AND ALISON MALONEY
5th November 2016, 12:39 pm
A BEAUTIFUL woman who takes over 200 selfies a day before finding one she likes has revealed that she thinks its “cruel” to show her “ugly face”.
Alanah Bagwell, who suffers from body dysmorphic disorder, spends four hours doing her make-up every day and is so convinced she is unattractive she has made three suicide attempts and self-harmed.
Alanah Bagwell, photographed by Rankin for the BBC4 documentary No Body’s Perfect
The psychology student from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire said: “I feel so bad for other people having to look at me. It’s cruel to let them see my face.
“I was trying to take a picture of me that I liked but I’d delete all of them. If I posted a picture on Instagram which got hardly any likes it would just make me believe I was disgusting.”
Her hatred of her looks was so strong that 6ft tall blonde didn’t leave her bedroom for four years as a teenager.
The 20-year-old said: “It started when I was about 14-years-old. I had long blonde hair and I’m really tall and people would stare at me in the street.
“Middle-aged men were the worst. I thought they were looking at me feeling completely repulsed but my mum said the opposite was true. I just didn’t believe her.
The pretty blonde is battling Body Dysmorphic Disorder
“I hated myself so much I wouldn’t go to school and I wouldn’t leave my bedroom. My mum had to bring me food and drink, because I had no energy to get myself anything. She would bath and wash my hair once a week too.
“I’d sleep a lot and watch lots of daytime TV or box sets, things like Desperate Housewives, Homes Under the Hammer or Jeremy Kyle.
“By the time I was 16, it got so bad I wanted to ▒▒▒ so I tried to overdose on painkillers. My mum bought a medicine cabinet with a lock but I broke it open. My last attempt was when I was 18. I took 30 Paracetamol and was hospitalised for three days.
“I would self-harm too, cutting my arms with scissors or bits of glass. Sometimes it was so bad I would need to go to hospital for stitches.
Alanah on holiday in Bavaria when she was 14, the age she began to hate her looks
“When I was 16, I googled: ‘I’m so ugly I want to ▒▒▒’, and a link to the Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation came up. The symptoms they described were the symptoms I was suffering but I still didn’t believe I had it.”
One in 100 people in the UK suffer from BDD, a clinically diagnosed anxiety that causes people to have a distorted view of how they look.
A small scar becomes a major flaw or a blemish can seem out of proportion, and sufferers become preoccupied with perceived imperfections.
It affects all age groups but usually starts when a person is a teenager.
Getting a diagnosis was a turning point for Alanah, who is taking part in the BBC show Nobody’s Perfect because she wants to raise awareness of BDD, but the road to recovery has been tough and slow.
Alanah at 14 with younger brother Ross
Mum Scarlett, 55, read an article about BDD and discovered that a BDD study was being conducted at the Maudsley Hospital in London.
She persuaded Alanah, then 17, to take part and she was offered 12 weeks cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as part of the study. The sessions were all in London and she only managed five.
With mum Scarlett on a family holiday
When she was 18, a charity paid for her to stay at the private Priory Clinic in North London, for five months, and that was a turning point.
“When I first arrived someone checked on me every 15 – 30 minutes until they thought I wasn’t going to harm myself. I had two sessions of CBT a week and gradually, I was introduced to exposure therapy.
“A group of us suffering from BDD or social anxiety, would have to go to a cafe and order food, or we’d have to travel on public transport during the rush hour. We thought we’d be ridiculed.
“I felt horrendous, you’re meant to be in an anxious situation and you’re facing your biggest fear. I wasn’t sure it was worth it because I was just convinced it was my appearance and nothing would change that.
“I was told to try it for a month and if it didn’t work, I could go back to bed and live like I was before. I didn’t change my opinion about my appearance but I dealt with the anxiety better.”
In No Body’s Perfect photographer Rankin, 50, who’s taken pictures of hundreds of celebrities including Madonna and Kate Moss, and disabled artist Alison Lapper, 51, meet four subjects who are struggling with their body image for different reasons.
The three others are, amputee Damian, 48, who lost his leg as a teenager to cancer, Carly, 35, who’s suffered from Alopecia from the age of 11, and 22-year-old David, who has Neurofibromatosis, which causes growths to appear on his face.
Of the four, Rankin was most worried about Alanah.
He said: “I honestly thought she wouldn’t turn up. Photographs are her nemesis so there was a lot riding on taking her picture.”
The plan was to produce a photograph so beautiful that Alanah would see herself clearly for the first time in years. Rankin already thought she was stunning.
He said: “She’s already got what she’s trying to achieve but she just can’t see it.”It was extreme exposure therapy for Alanah who said: “I know Rankin is an amazing photographer but I was convinced mine would be the only photograph he’d take that wouldn’t work out.
“I felt very self-conscious during the shoot. There were so many people around and I thought they were probably all staring at me thinking how ugly I was.
“When I saw the photograph, all I could see were ugly blemishes, my arms looked fat and my eyes looked uneven, although everyone else thought I looked beautiful.
“How I feel about it changes day by day, but it’s hanging up at home and I haven’t made Mum take it down.”
Since the photograph was taken Alanah has started university and is studying psychology. She still has down days, and has weekly CBT sessions with a BDD specialist, but a year ago she was barely leaving home.
The pretty blonde with her family, a few months before she stopped leaving the house
“Life has completely changed since the shoot,” she said. “I thought I would pull out of it but I didn’t completely hate it. I would actually be prepared to do another one.”
In April, a fellow sufferer told how she thought her thighs were so big she wouldn’t fit down a street.
No Body’s Perfect, BBC4, Thursday 10 November, 9pm
Stunning Alanah Bagwell is so convinced she's ugly she tried to ▒▒▒▒ herself
https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2122...f-three-times/
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Originally Posted by paprika
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