Dan: Hello
welcome to Head Shrink Inc. my name is Dan Bates.
David: And
I'm David Simonsen.
Dan: I am a certified
counselor and I typically work with families and youth and individuals that are
mandated by a judge.
David: So
they have to see you.
Dan: Meet
me.
David: Yes
correct.
Dan: Because
they're forced.
David: And
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and have a PhD in Psychology and
I work with at risk youths, families and couples.
Dan: Just
for FYI, I'm not a chain smoker so, this is a cold.
David: Oh,
I thought it was more about you just getting emotional the whole time. It
sounded like you were about to cry.
Dan: Yeah.
David: The whole time.
Dan: No.
David: So you're not about to cry?
Dan: No.
David: Does tears streaming out of your
eyes are just pain?
Dan: No.
those tears are just the weather. No.
David: Tears
of joy for being in the room with me?
Dan: Yeah.
Tears of joy. So today we're talking
about a disorder called body dysmorphic disorder. You may be thinking, that's a
really crazy name, what does that even mean?
David: It's
cray-cray.
Dan: It's
cray-cray but, essentially, just pulling from the name, it's like the essential nature of the
disorder is, you see your body in a distorted way. So the characteristics of
the disorder is self-loathing of your body.
You obsess over certain imperfections and it's usually associated with
anxiety and depression and so, from myself, I can relate a lot with this
disorder because when I was growing up, believe it or not, I wasn't handsome
stud that I am today.
David: Really?
Dan: I
know. I was chubby kid, who was obsessed
with video games, and wasn't funny and intelligent, and …
David: Oh. Was that? How was that?
Dan: Just
an all around ladies man.
David: How was that changed?
Dan: Chuckle.
So, like a lot of kids would make fun of
me and call me fat and I just hated the
locker room, you know what I mean? I hated
having to undress in front of other people because I was just ashamed of my body and so …
David: Because of your man boobs?
Dan: The
man boobs, the kid boobs, yeah.
David: Oh, I had kid boobs too.
Dan: And
so, it's like, of course you my bodies changed a lot and I'm not in that same
place but …
David: So then, for you that was changed at
some point though?
Dan: Yeah.
I changed, like I mean I kind of grew into my body, I'm six foot seven now and
so it's like …
David: Whoa. You did grow into your body.
Dan: I
did grow into my body. So, I mean it's like, I like my body now and I'm not
ashamed of it.
David: So
the difference between somebody that has BDD or body dysmorphic disorder is
that it becomes an obsession for them, whatever the issue is, whether that's
their skin, whether it's how their nose looks, whether it's how their feet are
shaped. I mean any number of issues that …
Dan: Yeah.
David: It dramatically affects their lives
and they can't …
Dan: Right.
David: Stop thinking about.
Dan: And
here's the crazy thing, it's not, they're not, people with BDD are not ugly
people. They could be very attractive
people, but for whatever reason, societal pressures, media, their own thoughts,
they obsess over certain aspects of their body to such a degree that it's
obsessive, and it results in self harm, pain, depression, like I said.
David: So we have a great story.
Dan: Yeah.
David: To
go with that. That our guest producer
Jordan Thompson is going to tell us about.
Jordan: In 2010, on a
warm summer evening in Washington State, Bethany Storro, a vibrant 28 year-old
was, walking downtown Vancouver towards a local coffee shop. A woman approached
her and said, "Hey pretty girl, how
are you? Would you like a drink of this?" then out of nowhere, the
woman splashed a cup of liquid into Bethany's face, the liquid was acid.
Bethany fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Here's Bethany Storro, It was
like fire to my face. Somebody screamed out, Did someone do this to you? I just said yes
and that's when it all began.
Paramedics rushed Bethany to the
hospital, while police launched a search for the attacker. Soon, the first,
before, and after photos of Bethany were released to the public. On the left, a
stunningly beautiful woman in her 20s and on the right, an image so shocking,
media outlets, more often than not, warned viewers before airing the photos.
Two days after the attack, Bethany's doctor said a pair of sunglasses she
bought just 20 minutes prior to the attack likely saved her vision.
"And I don't really normally wear sunglasses, I just don’t like them or
anything. It's a miracle because, I mean 20 minutes, that's like, that's Jesus
for sure I mean you know!" Bethany’s sight is especially important to
her, because she's hard of hearing, and her primary way of communicating is
reading lips. Bethany and her family hold a press conference from the hospital.
Bethany's entire head is covered with bandages with just three small holes for
her eyes and her mouth.
Police then released a composite of
Bethany Storro's attacker. She identified her attacker as an athletic, black
female with a ponytail. Six days after the attack, Bethany was released from
the hospital. She was shocked to hear her community raised $28,000 in just a
matter of days through fundraising and charity work but 10 days after the
attack, with no leads from the police, some locals started raising the
question, is it possible that she injured herself?
Some local publications pointed to the
lack of splash patterns on her face. They also question why there were no
witnesses at one of Vancouver's most highly trafficked areas and some people
found it very fishy that Bethany, who had no problem holding press conferences,
canceled an appearance on Oprah Winfrey show. Police also found no record of
Bethany buying the sunglasses prior to the attack and finally, Bethany used
fundraiser money to buy clothing, dinners, a train ticket, and an Apple
computer device. With all those questions surfacing, something finally
broke.
On September 16th, Bethany
Storro admits it was all an elaborate hoax and injuries were self inflicted. "People are shocked, saddened and
downright dumbfounded that this troubled young woman would not only mutilate
her own face, but tell a lie to the world..." "Washington state woman
who splashed acid in her face as part of bizarre hoax has pleaded not
guilty..." "A story that took
a bizarre turn when she admitted that she made it all up..."
Bethany Storro had something called body
dysmorphic disorder, a serious disease, that in the majority of the cases,
individuals are obsessed with the minor or imagined physical flaw. On top of
that, she had also been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and
depression. She had been on medication before, but records show she was not
taking anything the day that she burned her face.
Here's how it went down. Bethany applied
drain cleaner to her face several times that day in an apparent attempt to
commit suicide. When she couldn't bring herself to drink the drain cleaner, she
decided to show up outside the coffee shop and scream for help. Bethany Storro
was quoted saying; "When I realized
it wasn't killing me, I thought maybe this is the answer to all my problems, to
have a completely different face. I thought there'd be no evidence of me doing
this to myself."
Storro said her body dysmorphic disorder
started when she was 15 or 16, when she withdrew from friends and started
spending hours in the bathroom staring at herself and examining what she
perceived as flaws. Following her admission to fraud, Bethany pleaded guilty to
making a false statement to a public official and was sentenced to mental
health treatment. The three theft charges were dropped once Storro returned the
$28,000 but many people believe the true punishment was lifelong mutilation
inflicted by Bethany Storro herself.
David: Hello we're
going to talk to Marcus Griffith today. Marcus is a freelance journalist, he
worked for Vancouver Voice and now
currently does some freelancing for The
Vancouver Vector and he is working on a bigger, more long-term project
that's to be announced. So we wanted to
bring Marcus on because he … as we're talking about, the Beth Storro Story, he was one of the, or
the first person to question the validity of the story that she was bringing to
the to the newspapers and to the police.
So, I'm curious Marcus, what was the, what, was it gut thing or was it
kind of, what was it?
Dan:
What tipped you off? Yeah?
David: Yeah?
Marcus: Just
like everyone else, when I first heard of Bethany Storro’s story, I accepted it
at face value. It was in the process of trying to locate the perpetrator, that
I came across some information that casted doubt on her initial stories. Then as more information came out, they were
just increasing holes at her own story and there was a lot of conflicting
statements from bystanders and witnesses to the alleged incident.
I was focused on, this was an incident
occurred in my own neighborhood, a few blocks away from where I live, I
obviously have a more vested interest in the case than a lot of other
journalists, and I was going out to try to find who did it so that the story
headline I was originally going for was finding the perpetrator. Now why the Columbian or the [inaudible
00:12:10] didn't send a reporter out to actually do an independent
Investigation, there’s going to be great questions heading their way.
Dan: Well, Marcus it
seem like there was a lot of, because I mean I was in the same boat as you
were, like heard about this story, my heart was wrenched, I mean I couldn't
believe this happened blocks away from me, and so I mean I gave like $10 at the grocery store for the fund, and so, I
mean it seemed like everybody just bought into the story and didn't want to
question it like there's a lot of fear surrounding, you know, looking further
deeper into it. That didn't faze you,
you went out and kept looking.
Marcus: Well
it did phase me. I mean, it did face a lot of people. I mean a part of the
issue was when you look at the media coverage at that time, is that people that
believe Bethany were the most vocal. The people who had doubts, for the most
part they keep it in themselves, It's very much the Emperor's new clothes
phenomenon. No one wanted the state being treated obvious, and as whether or
not it phased me is kind of question the horrible decision for us to write our
first article about the caustic questions surrounding the acid attack and that
was a very soft punched article.
We were very polite and even apologetic
in the beginning of the article about needing to question it but at the time we
came with the article, we had enough evidence and enough people questioning the
story that we felt we were right to question it. I was very aware of the catch 22
I was in, if we were right, that the story was a hoax, we're dealing with a
person who really was causing a lot of emotional harm to the public. If we are
wrong and she really was attacked, we would be, for the lack of a better word,
very rude people adding trauma to an already sticky issue, uncomfortable to the
end.
David: What was the worst that you were
called or that your newspaper was called?
Marcus:
At the time we were labeled The Devil's
Paper by a couple of groups. I
received dozens and dozens of emails with death threats, demands that I get
fired. I was called everything from a hack to a Satanist. I had someone spit in
my coffee that I knew.
David: No, wow.
Marcus: Part
of it was some people bothered to apologize, but at the same time, from a lot
of people who reacted very emotional to this question, they took the position
that Bethany was attacked, and they knew her, cared about her. They had trouble even imagining that this
could be a lie, and here I was, some guy just, throwing salt in the wounds for
my own perverse amusement. From that
perspective I understood why there is [inaudible
0:14:55] and it was a very traumatic experience for a lot of people.
One of the questions I had at the time
and still has never really got a satisfactory answer is why was it so hard to
believe that a middle aged white woman would lie about an acid attack but so
easy to believe a middle aged black woman would conduct an acid attack? I mean
there is a fundamental issue with that disparity and because Bethany fabricated
an African American attacker, she did bring the race component, and for a
couple of weeks, her attack was hijacked by white supremacists worldwide as example of racial issues. There
is that level of racism that Bethany invited in for reasons that we still don't
know.
Dan:
I think I've misspoke early. I understand why, how that could be a huge risk
for you to kind of stick your neck out and look at the story from a different
way. How do you think or why do you think that you
know, the hoax could cause emotional harm to the community?
Marcus: Well
we look at it at a couple of different perspectives. One, the idea that a hoax
is victimless is not true. One, there are a lot of people who gave money for
the wrong reasons. There is a lot of African American women who match the
description, that were spot by police or profiled, there are several women I
knew who stopped coming to downtown because they sort of looked like the
suspect. There were people who were profiled. There is the emotional harm
because the next time there's an issue, people are going to be cynical and what
if the next time is real, and people withhold support because they like, well,
we’ve been burned once.
Dan: Right.
Marcus: There's
also this harm when you emotionally whiplash anyone, it causes adverse effects
and the community rallied around here and that have to realize the shock that
it is wrong, and then there's that emotional harm into the community is that
numb feeling, that disbelief, the gut wrenching, [inaudible 14:03] they were thinking about this horrible attack
being real. That was a bit of a rollercoaster for people, and not the fun type.
Dan: Yeah
and you know what too? You brought up a good issue because when this happened I
was proud of our community, rallying behind her. It was like a source of like, yes you know,
out of all the crap in the world, we're actually, the community as a whole is
responding rightly to her, you know like, this is great, and then to find out
that she wasn't being honest was devastating.
Marcus: And
back at, during the time of the incident, I even myself, was very supportive of
the fact that we are living in a society and a community that rallies around
us.
Dan: Exactly,
exactly.
Marcus: After
attacking Washington on a male that happened shortly before Bethany's attack,
there was the acid attack on the Arizona woman which happened shortly after the
attack.
Dan: Right.
Marcus: In
Vancouver, we really rallied around this
person we thought was a victim of a horrible attack and so, when not minimizing
the attacks on the other cities, those definitely civic, not necessarily pride
but civic involvement. We belong to a community that are going to take care of
our own.
Dan: Right,
right.
David: So Marcus, when
did the diagnosis of body dysmorphic disorder come into the story?
Marcus:
Well that is a curious question. That
came up long after I kind of disengaged. I questioned the validity of that
diagnosis, obviously I haven't been privy to her medical reports or interviews
or say assessments but like most mental health diagnoses that are largely
dependent on self report, I would have to air a voice of caution in believing any of Bethany Storro's
self reports. How can we go from
believing she committed one hoax, and now we're going to believe in the very
next statement she comes up about why she did the hoax? I don't think there's
any signs of evidence that her hoax was a product of depression or body image at
the time though it's curious that they arose months and months later.
Dan:
So are, I didn't know that, because when I heard the story I always heard it in
connection with BDD. So are you saying that addition, the BDD aspect came in
after?
Marcus: I'm
not privy to her personal timeline, her personal medical reports [inaudible 0:19:36] but during the time
as it was unfolding.
Dan: Right.
Marcus: You
know she allegedly was trying to do a do-it-yourself acid peel. she researched
on the internet on how to do it. She
went to a local convenience store to pick up latex gloves, and the drainer. She picked up all the tools she did, she went
to an isolated park bathroom to do it, to conduct it, and somehow it ended
badly and then hours later, the idea that to hoax started. Nothing in that
transparent says that this was really a suicide attempt, this is being done
because she hated her image. Now, obviously as a cosmetic procedure, she
obviously had some critiques about her appearance but women get acid peels, and
then all the time that's still perfectly fine.
Dan: So
the stuff, the stuff that you just described about you know, latex gloves,
Park, I mean, is that all documented somewhere?
Marcus: Yeah,
that came out in police reports and at the time that was what came out. That was some of the information that really
started me talking about the hoax was my understanding, and it has been a
couple of years, so it could be a little blurring. There were debit card purchases for the
drainer, on the latex gloves or something that was on the police report, about
why they were suspicious of it because the search warrant they had to search
her house was for drainer and gloves and things be used for applying plastic
substance to her face so that was really, you know, the big call for search
warrant we had was for a drainer and gloves.
Dan: So
are you saying like she felt a need to do the acid peel because of the BDD or
you just said you weren't sure of the timeline or…?
Marcus: Well,
again, not being ever privy on her mental health record or report, I want to be in a little bit of a caution….
Dan: Right,
right.
Marcus: But
there was nothing about the incident or how it unfolded that suggested that she
actually had some type or embarrassment over her look.
Dan: Okay.
Marcus: She
was extremely media friendly. Everyone remembers the photos she posted while in
the hospital, the one where she looked depressed, the one where she was happy,
she was confident, in a room full of reporters with international news. This behavior is one that you typically don't
associate with someone who has serious self doubt about their look.
Bethany was, for all types of purposes,
running a very sophisticated media campaign, the only time she got shy was one
she was emailed and asked questions about certain specific details about the
nature of the attack, and that was not conducive of body image, that strikes
more like of someone trying to cover up a lie, rather than someone who's
embarrassed by how they look.
Dan: Yeah
and I've seen several pictures of her and it, it doesn't, the extent of the burns,
none of her eyes are affected, her lips aren't affected, its, it looks like it
was around her forehead and cheeks and nose.
Marcus: If
you look at the photos, it was that, the burn lines mimic a very carefully
applied cosmetic pattern, which is, blend to the idea that this was a
do-it-yourself acid peel gone horribly wrong.
She, the chin line, the forehead line, the eye line, those were all very
clear, very carefully articulated lines.
They were not conducive to the person being in an altered state who's
trying commit suicide, you know, her statements were not adding up. Since the
incident, years later, now when she has the book out, talking about, you know,
body image issues, she doesn't seem,
still doesn't explain certain details that refute that.
So as far as I'm concerned, absence of
more convincing evidence, I'm writing off her books and claims of body images
are just another hoax to sucker people out of more money because she's
mastered being victim to get attention. I know that is kind of harsh but she
was going on Oprah and talk about her acid attack and according to her own
friends at the time, try to launch a career as a Christian inspirational
speaker. She re-thought and cancelled her Oprah appearance because she was
worried that Oprah would talk about other things.
I think the quote from the time was “We’re
going in another direction.” so even at the time she was trying, appear to be
trying to find a way to launch a public speaking career, and that doesn't
really match up with someone who has serious body images issues.
Dan: Yeah.
Well you make a lot of good points Marcus. Alright well, it's been a pleasure
talking with you and we really appreciate you coming on and giving us your
perspective so thank you very much.
David: Where can people find you if they're
wanting to track you down?
Marcus: We're
in the process of making a new online news entity called The Ogre News, traditional spelling, for the Vancouver area. It's an online news site, it's still being in
kind of the launch phase, but we'll see if it can evolve into a greater project
over the next few months.
David: Okay, so ogernews.com?
Marcus: That
is correct.
David: Alright, thank you Marcus.
Dan: Thanks Marcus.
Dan: So
this raises a lot of questions. First of
all, what is BDD? What are the symptoms
and so let me just rattle off a few things.
Camouflaging, so like you cover up the parts of your body that you're
ashamed with. Comparing your body, your appearance to others, seeking surgery,
checking yourself constantly out in the mirror,
avoiding mirrors, grooming a lot, a lot of exercise, and then like,
grabbing the part of the body that you dislike.
So that's BDD in essence. It’s obsession over the part of your body
that you don't like but what was, what was going through her mind when she was
doing this is, my guess is, she was in the bathroom, she hated the aspect which
would be her face, and so she went to go kill the thing or destroy the thing
that was causing her pain.
David: No,
no. The problem you run into is that, if you say, oh she had no, granted I
don't have any access to any of her
mental health records and I've never talked any of her doctors and I did reach
out to Bethany. I did reach out to her mother, and they never
responded back to me, to be a part of this show. I did
reach out to Bethany's ex-mother in law and she basically said I'm not, this is
what she wrote me, I'm not in any way shape or form interested in helping
Bethany, she is a liar and manipulative person who I never want to see again. She will wrap you up around her finger,
pretending to be authentic but it is all a lie.
So obviously she's biased, the
ex-mother-in-law. So, and just to be fair, she, she's probably been hurt not
just by this issue but because Bethany was involved in their lives with her son
I believe. The problem I have with saying yes, Bethany has BDD, is that all the
people that really do have BDD that really suffer with BDD, I think this
diminishes the diagnosis for those other people potentially because those are
the people that really don't go outside because they have an issue with
something. These are the people that
really can't function in relationships and really are obsessed about their
looks because if you currently today go to Facebook and you search for Beth
Storro, as of right now, her Facebook is completely open and she freely posts
pictures of herself, now maybe she's cured from the BDD.
The cure rate of that I'm not exactly
sure what it is, but it's hard to believe that she had it to the extreme of
where she put acid on her face and was going to kill herself to now she freely
is posting lots of pictures of herself on Facebook and writing about her latest
facial procedure. That does not strike me as somebody that has BDD diagnosis.
Now, she may have depression, granted. She
may have some other kind of challenges but the specific BDD diagnosis, I
question that. I'm not saying it's, it
is impossible for her to not have it, but given the actions that I see, I don't
pay attention to what people say often, I pay more attention to the actions.
Dan:
That's fair but you do have to consider the possibility that her doing this
hoax, in turn, got her the help she needed. It was an ineffective way of
getting help, but it was, it was a way, I mean, we deal with people who do that
all the time. They have pain in the
relationships and so they don't have effective ways of communicating the
problem or solving the problem so they do it in a bad way but it is a way.
David: Yeah.
Dan: You
know, I'm willing to look at the inconsistencies but you’ve got to understand
if she is someone in pain, and with a mental health disorder, I'm not expecting
her to be consistent.
David: Right.
did she look up BDD or was it something that someone suggested and then she
kind of latched on to that? I don't
know, but we'll probably never know unless she actually is willing to take the
hard questions. I think in the meantime it's, it's a good thing to, for people
that are listening to the podcast and if, that if they have friends or families
that struggle with this issue, to get them help, and the best help can be done
with the local psychologist or psychiatrist because this is something that
could be really debilitating to the person.
If they don't have the help that they
need, then they could just struggle for the rest of the lives unfortunately. So
I think this story has come to, came to national attention because, Oh look at
this crazy diagnosis of BDD you know, and so it made great news, national news,
local news, international news, and so this was put up as, okay this is what
BDD can do, and I don't, I'm not convinced that that's a good example.
Dan: Yeah
and David I, I got to be honest with you, I do agree with a lot of what you're
saying. The inconsistencies, even though I just got done saying, she has mental
health disorder, so it makes sense that she would be inconsistent. There are characteristics of this disorder
that would make her more prone to not being in the spotlight, not wanting to
draw attention to yourself because her self perception is she's ugly. Why would
she want to put a spotlight on herself and part of it is shame, and the fact
that she was in a public bathroom, why is she in a public bathroom? Why isn't
she home? The fact that the scarification is so uniform, there's just too many,
there's too many things about this that make me think, I don't know if this is
true BDD. Now, I have experience working with people who have related symptoms
like anorexia and bulimia who also have a, a dual diagnosis of BDD and for them
it's like a very shameful, private thing and to go to extreme lengths, and I
mean by extreme, I'm not just talking about like …
David: Covering something up?
Dan:
Covering something up, but they will go to extreme lengths to hide, to keep
secret what they're doing, they won't draw attention to it all, and if there
was a spotlight cast on them, they would just like go into a hermit hole, they
would not like embrace it.
David:
I want to make sure that if you know someone or if you yourself listening to this have some issues with BDD, we really
encourage you to go seek out a specialist, a psychologist or psychiatrist that
can help you, give you some ideas or avenues to go down to help with this,
because like I said before, it can be debilitating.
Dan: Oh
absolutely.
David: And it can cause
relationship issues and issues at your workplace and things like that.
Dan: Yeah.
It can lead to eating disorders and eating disorders are like the number one
killer for the, anorexia has the highest death rate out of any, out of all the
mental health disorders. My
recommendations would be, find help with a counselor, psychiatrist, access
support groups like Eaters Anonymous
and then you know, don't keep it secret.
That's the big thing, that's the killer about this disorder is secrecy,
don't keep it secret, come out to your friends and family, get support.
Alright, well, you're welcome, that's all I'm going to say, for this story.
David: Hey
we are Head Shrink Inc, Dan and I. I'm mostly Head Shrink Inc, Dan is the Inc
part, I'm the head shrink.
Dan: David
is the …
David: Come on, come on weedy man, weedy
smoker man.
Dan: He's
the shrehh. He's the shhhh.
David: Oh
good one. You can follow us on Facebook where Dan thinks he is amazing because
he is getting followers or twitter where I'm amazing because I have so many
follower @headshrinkinc is where I am at twitter.
Dan: Or
you can go to HDshrinkinc on twitter.
David: Oh that's creative. Good job.
Dan: Well,
you know …
David: I have taken your head shrinking
already.
Dan: I
do what I do.
David: Or email us @
headshrinkinc@Gmail.com. We're trying a
new format here with a more produced podcasts, more story, more storied podcast
so let us know what you think, we look forward to your comments.
Dan: Alright,
bye.
