Too Ugly to Be Loved: A BBC Documentary

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Recommended: Psychological effects of body dysmorphic disorder

The BBC documentary ‘ too ugly to be loved’ conveys the lives of three individuals with body dysmorphic disorder. This video questions what happens when a person looks in the mirror and does not see what everyone else sees. The three people illustrated in the video are at different levels of severity in their BDD. BDD short for body dysmorphic disorder is classified in axis two of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a somatoform disorder. Somatoform disorders are mental illnesses that cause bodily symptoms, which can’t be traced, back to any physical cause. In addition they are not the result of substance abuse or another mental illness. BDD effects one in hundred people in which those who suffer from BDD believe they are grotesquely ugly and become obsessed with there looks.
Many of those who suffer from BDD are housebound, unable to work, and are unable to form lasting relationships. The most severe can take their own lives and cut their faces and pin their skin back as means of performing plastic surgery. People with BDD are plagued with negative thoughts and paranoia, which leaves them very anxious about their appearance especially when interacting with other people. The first person we are introduced to in the video is twenty four year old Kayla. Her life changed when she developed freckles and skin problems where she was than bullied in school. By the age of eleven she started to become seriously ill with BDD when she started to sand down her teeth all away to the nerves because she believed they were pushing her bottom lip out and making her face potent. Like many others suffering from BDD Kayla is housebound and will only go outside when it is dark. After Kayla goes to the leading doctor for BDD i...

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...aying for plastic surgery, others believe that the best way to help a person with BDD is to discourage their negative thoughts such as helping the person realize their irrational thoughts.
The first side of the family role controversy is those who believe that the only way to help those who have BDD is to encourage their desires. For instance, one of the first people who we are introduced to is Kayla. Kayla’s father would ultimately become 65,000 pounds in debt from her plastic surgeries. However, when asked why he encouraged her wishes by paying for the surgeries he said his daughter would always look in the mirror and become depressed and that there was a percentage she would commit suicide. For many it is the only clear way of making sure their loved ones who have BDD would not physically hurt themselves. However, the exact opposite of this thought is those who

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