As her daughter recovers from severe body dysmorphia, one mum fears the cost of living crisis could make it worse
It was three years before Kelly Boone saw her daughter’s face free from a thick layer of make-up.
Avella was 11 years old when she first began exhibiting symptoms of severe body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) – even going as far as to consult a cosmetic surgeon and begging for rhinoplasty.
At the most severe, it left her housebound and she would cover her head with a towel just to go to the toilet, refusing to let her family see her without the thick layers of foundation.
On one “devastating” occasion, her father Patrick opened a package that had arrived for Avella – it contained injections and filler bought off a dodgy website.
It was not the first time Avella had tried “self-surgery”.
“She didn’t actually use any of the things she bought – by luck,” Kelly, from south Devon, said.
“It was crippling. She was a recluse, just living in her room.
“I was sliding trays of food across her bedroom floor with her in a darkened room at one point.”
As Avella, now 17, makes steps towards recovery, Kelly fears the cost of living crisis will make things harder.
Two showers a day
Although Avella no longer wears layers of make-up she has a strict hygiene routine – including two showers a day – to help her cope with her body dysmorphia.
Amid the soaring cost of energy, bills and inflation, there are concerns it could become harder for the family.
The family’s monthly gas bill has risen from £400 to more than £500. But for Kelly, the price is non-negotiable.
“She’s starting to recover and the gains we’ve made, we can’t negotiate on that,” Kelly told Sky News.
“It’s quite ritualistic and quite necessary to her, and we can’t make any concessions on those, whilst they might be a luxury to some people.
“So we cannot cut down our water bill, the cost of gas – these things are non-negotiable, so our bills are extortionate.”
Avella also cannot get public transport. “She cannot sit face to face with someone,” her mother said – so instead they have to drive her to therapy appointments, and previously to college.
“I can’t believe how quickly my tank gets down to zero,” said Kelly. “It’s very expensive.”
Read more on the cost of living crisis
Avella, aged 11, before she began showing symptoms of body dysmorphia
‘Her recovery has to be at her pace – not at my energy bill convenience’
Kelly said seeing Avella suffer is “excruciating”.
“I would do anything to swap places with her,” she said.
“It’s been really difficult and gut-wrenching, but we’ve also had some really high moments.
“Like the day she decided to wipe her make-up off and come down and show us.
“It was the first time in three years we had seen her without any make-up on.”
As the family takes each day “hour by hour”, none of them want to see Avella slide back to where she was before.
The mother of three said: “Any requested change to her routine, other than what she does for herself of her own choosing would cause immediate anxiety and distress.
“This can snowball to affect other aspects of how she perceives herself. Her recovery has to be at her own pace not at my convenience due to rising energy bill concerns.”
One in three fear for their children
Kelly is not alone, as new research shows a third of parents think the cost of living crisis will significantly affect their children’s mental health.
These children, who have spent their formative teenage years living through the COVID pandemic, face coming of age in a cost of living crisis.
A poll of 2,150 UK parents – by Savanta ComRes and commissioned by the King’s Maudsley Partnership – found a third of parents (33%) feel their child is currently experiencing mental health difficulties.
This rises to 43% of parents with children ages between 16 and 17.
The most common symptom, or behaviour, noticed by parents is anxiety (68%), which is cited by nearly twice as many parents as the next most common response – which is depression or low mood episodes in their children (37%).
Read more: The real cost of being born premature
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
‘Grossly underfunded’
Kelly, like many parents, experienced delay after delay in getting treatment for Avella.
Bruce Clark, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist and specialist in OCD, BDD and related disorders, said he had seen a “huge rise in mental health presentations to services, both in referrals to generic services” as well as emergency crisis referrals since the pandemic.
The clinical director of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, who works at the South London and Maudsley Mental Health Trust said while there are charities that help fill some of the gaps, the sector – particularly around research – is “grossly underfunded”.
The London trust is on the brink of opening a new pioneering mental health centre for children and young people, the Pears Maudsley Centre. Part of the new centre will involve a clinical hub, with research vital to improving support for young people.
“There was always an aspiration to deliver for 35% of the mental health needs in the community,” Dr Clark said.
“Well, we want to do more than 35%. I’d like to find ourselves in a situation with the right clinical research background to deliver as close to 100%.
“You’d never find that acceptable to say we’ll treat 35% of the cancer morbidity in our society, so it would be brilliant if we could not have that limited aspiration for children’s mental health.”
UK
Mohamed al Fayed ‘carried Viagra’ and ‘cherry picked’ women from Harrods shop floor, ex-employee claims
A former member of the Harrods management team has told how Mohamed al Fayed would “cherry pick” women from the shop floor.
Speaking to Sky News anonymously, the woman described the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, as “demonic” and said he “controlled everything with fear”.
Lawyers representing 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Fayed branded him a “monster” who was “enabled by a system that pervaded Harrods” at a news conference on Friday.
The former employee of the luxury department store, which the Egyptian businessman took control of in 1985, worked at Harrods at the height of his power.
“We were all told Harrods is the greatest place on Earth – but he controlled everything with fear,” she said.
“The power dynamic was so strong, in the blink of an eye you would lose your career and they would try and destroy you. It was this dark psychological trap and everybody was caught.”
She said she heard stories Fayed, known to staff as “the chairman”, would grope people although she was never a victim herself.
Harrods department store in London. Pic: AP
“The chairman would walk around the store and he would cherry pick people from the shop floor, if you had blond hair and brown eyes you were favoured,” she said.
“He used to say, ‘I want that one up in my office now’. He used to carry Viagra around in his pocket, and people were so scared of his ‘floor walks’ – if you weren’t smiling enough you were in the shit, if you smiled too much you were also in the shit.”
Read more: Egyptian tycoon was never far from controversy
The ex-employee, who worked at Harrods in her first job after leaving university, said when women were called to Fayed’s office they “couldn’t say no”.
“I would sit her down and I would say I need to let you know what you are walking into,” she said.
“It’s suddenly a pay rise, and you’ll be invited to expensive events and lavished with expensive gifts but really you need to be aware of something.
“I said you will get invited to Park Lane, and parties where there will be lots of rich men, and you would be invited to sleep with people.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
She said she was once asked to see Fayed in his lounge-like office where he was wearing his slippers and said: “When are you going to come up and work for me here?”
The woman said she told him she did not want to work there and went back to her normal job.
“Afterwards he would smile at me and was courteous but then I started getting extra money in my pay packet. I went to the pay office and they said it’s a bonus for what you are doing. It didn’t last long but it happened just after he’d asked to meet him.”
The woman said she now feels “really conflicted” as she was “vulnerable too”.
“It was my first job leaving university. It leaves me feeling angry that we put up with things in that generation, that was our norm,” she added.
Harrods has said in a statement it is “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse and apologised to Fayed’s alleged victims.
The department store has also set up a page on its website inviting former employees to come forward if they have allegations.
A body has been found in the search for a missing hospital chaplain who starred in a Channel 4 documentary.
Katherine Watson, 50, was last seen in the Heaton Road area of Newcastle, at about 1pm on Thursday and Northumbria Police had become “increasingly concerned” for her welfare.
But after “extensive searches”, the force said a body had been found in the Jesmond Dene area of the city. Although formal identification has yet to take place, “it is believed to be Katherine”, they added.
“Her next of kin have been made aware and are being supported by specially-trained officers,” it said.
“This is an incredibly sad outcome and our thoughts are with Katherine’s loved ones at this difficult time. We will continue to support them in any way we can and we ask that their privacy is respected.”
Also known as Reverend Captain Katie Watson, she joined the army in her late teens, serving in Bosnia in the 1990s and as part of the Royal Military Police.
“Once you have seen genocide first-hand on the streets of a European country, there is nothing left in the world that can faze you after that,” she told the Church Times in 2022, as the Geordie Hospital documentary was first aired on Channel 4.
“I have seen the worst of humanity and I have seen, and continue to see, the very best of it.”
Ms Watson worked at the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for more than 16 years and was made head of chaplaincy in 2020.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Channel 4’s documentary Geordie Hospital was a six-part series that filmed hospital staff through a shift, featuring a cast including porters, surgeons, dental nurses and chaplains.
Speaking about her role in the show, Ms Watson said: “We only have two things to offer, the gifts of time and presence, but we give them whole-heartedly.”
Read more on Sky News:
Parents die on Hawaii ‘babymoon’ holiday
Victim on how her upskirting report led to France mass rape trial
There was an outpouring of support online for Ms Watson following the news she was missing.
“She baptised our baby boy when he passed away at birth and presided over his funeral,” one person wrote on X. “She’s such a wonderful person who gave us unwavering support through our darkest hours.”
Another said: “The compassion and care you gave me and my family when our mum passed last year was a tremendous blessing and support.”
Sir Keir Starmer will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes, Sky News understands.
Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner also announced they would take the same approach moving forward.
The decision by the prime minister, chancellor and deputy prime minister follows scrutiny of Sir Keir Starmer and his wife for accepting donations.
The prime minister has accepted work clothing donations worth £16,200, and multiple pairs of glasses, to the value of £2,485.
According to the MP register of interests, Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations too, to the value of £2,230.
Sky News understands that in June, the deputy prime minister also received a donation by Lord Waheed Alli, a television executive who has donated to Labour over the last 20 years, of £3,550.
The donation was registered but its nature, now understood to be work clothing, was not published.
Sky News understands that since the backlash over the freebies, the registrar was contacted to ensure the donation was published with all the necessary details.
The chancellor has not accepted any such donations, according to the MPs’ register of interests.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Nigel Farage has called out the PM for accepting free gifts
Sky News revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.
Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP as his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.
This had all been declared as per the rules but backbench MPs had been expressing concern that the government’s rhetoric of tough decisions on the economy jars with the image of a prime minister accepting freebies.
The row started over the weekend with controversy over Sir Keir’s wife’s clothes.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said earlier today she is “satisfied” with the prime minister’s explanation of why he has taken the freebies.
She said if he “wasn’t doing a good job in our country” then she “would be more concerned”.
Ms Phillips went on to say it’s not that she doesn’t think it’s important, but added: “I haven’t had a single email about it.
“I have had lots of emails about people not being able to get on a housing list.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
People react to the prime minister receiving gifts and freebies
Challenged on the fact that it looks bad having just taken away the winter fuel allowance from pensioners, Ms Phillips said these are “completely separate things”.
“And had he never been to watch the Arsenal, there would still be a £22bn black hole that had to be paid for,” she added.
She said: “All I can say is I’m absolutely knackered trying to make things better.”
What has the PM said in response to criticism?
Speaking to journalists this week, the prime minister said “all MPs get gifts” and he thinks the need to declare them is “a good framework”.
“Wherever there are gifts from anyone, I’m going to comply with the rules,” he said.
“It’s very important to me that the rules are followed. I’ve always said that. I said that before the election. I reinforced it after the election.”
On his acceptance of Arsenal tickets, he added: “I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say: ‘Well, bad luck.’
“That’s why gifts have to be registered. But… never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports6 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports11 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company