Lips Don't Lie? Part two: what's really going on
How to find out
In my last post, I looked at the words of someone telling a story about a cosmetic procedure they claimed had gone wrong. It included many deceptive indicators and some plain deception.
If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do before carrying on.
I’m going to look through the same words to try to work out what really happened.
I’ll use one main principle here, the words and concepts that someone repeats are the most important things to them. If we keep track of words and ideas that someone keeps going back to, we’ll learn what’s happening behind the words.
Let’s break it down
My top lip was massive, it was triple the size it normally is. My skin was so tight on my lip I thought it was going to burst, it was awful. I looked horrendous, I looked like a completely different person, it was just huge. I looked like I'd been punched.
As already noted, in this paragraph she says the same couple of things in multiple ways. She also uses the word “looked” three times. So, this is someone who is sensitive about their looks and disliked how they looked after the procedure.
It was embarrassing too, I felt like hiding away from people. I was essentially left with a 'duck' lip.
This is another set of words that builds the impression this is someone sensitive about how they look.
Keep count
I've had lip filler done by her before. The first time I had 0.5ml sometime early last year and then had them done a second time in December.
I loved it the first time, that's why I went back for more. Once the swelling goes down you want more The first time I only had half a ml and it was absolutely fine but this time I wanted a full ml - but she didn't put anywhere near that in.
This paragraph is all about counting and keeping track of numbers, suggesting this is an important activity to this person. She’s counting the visits to the practitioner and the millilitres of filler she has had.
It all just seemed a bit weird and dodgy from the start, to be honest, she made me put my own numbing cream on in the car, and then I had to wait for 10 minutes.
She only inserted the needle into my skin twice. When she was pushing the filler in it absolutely killed, it was like I'd just been stung by a wasp.
I’m seeing more counting, the minutes she had to wait and the number of times the needle went in.
I said to her 'I don't know what it is that's different but I can't stand that pain'. It was awful, my eyes were streaming. I couldn't cope anymore so I told her to stop - so basically she still had a full ml of the filler in there.
Here’s another mention for the amount of filler. I’ve seen enough now to know the amount of filler is really important to her.
She said she could get me some numbing stuff that would make my mouth completely numb but that it would be another £10. She said she would save it and that once she'd ordered the numbing cream we could use it then.
Numbers and counting continue, she’s counting the total cost here, saying “it would be another £10” not simply “it would be £10”.
I did think about the fact that the needle was just left but to be honest I just wanted to get out because it was too painful. I've never experienced that kind of pain in my lips before.
Pain is mentioned again. It’s critical for her to get across the pain and swelling that occurred during and after this procedure. However, she has already said that swelling happened when she had lip filler put in previously. She has also mentioned the numbing cream she had to apply, so she had to be aware that pain was a risk.
Masking
I woke up just thinking 'I want to look at my face straight away' and when I saw that I thought 'oh my god’. I work in a nursing home where there are nurses, luckily we had to wear masks. It was the only time I was happy about wearing it.
She is back talking about how she looks again and wanting to see how her face looked. She says she wasn’t happy with what she saw.
“I work at a nursing home where there are nurses” seems to be pointing out the obvious. What is so important about the nurses that she feels she has to add them to the nursing home?
It wasn't just swelling on my lip, the bottom of my nose was starting to swell as well. When I went to work my manager and the nurses said 'you need to go to A&E just in case you lose the oxygen in your lip, you could lose your top lip'.
She continues on the medical theme, she mentions nurses again plus A&E and an apparent medical diagnosis that she could lose the oxygen in her lip.
People at my work were worried in case the swelling would go higher up into my eyes. I left work, I lost out on a day's work, and I took myself off to A&E.
There’s another mention of a medical diagnosis with people worried that the swelling would go higher, and another medical mention of A&E.
There’s more counting with her saying she lost out on a day’s work, which is a way of counting money lost.
Hospital case
While I was there I was receiving phone calls from the practitioner [saying she would] come and smash my face at the hospital. She was so angry, she was saying things like 'what do you expect me to do? It's just swelling, what do you want?'
We have more medical terms here, with “practitioner” and hospital.
The theme of facial looks continues, as the most important thing she says that the practitioner told her was she would “smash my face”.
She also said I was stupid for going to hospital and wanted to know which hospital I was at, she was being really aggressive about it.
A further two mentions of “hospital”. It is really important for her to convey to us that she was in a hospital.
Money, money, money
She also wasn't willing to give me any refund - bearing in mind I've not used that filler there was a full ml still in that syringe. All I kept asking her was 'can you give me your insurance details please?'
There are two mentions of money here, talking about a refund and insurance details, and once more she is counting the millilitres of filler in the syringe.
She has mentioned the needle and syringe throughout. It is possible these are needed to tell the story, but they are also medical terms, and she has been using a lot of medical words.
She was just saying 'if you want insurance details then come to my door and get them' like in a threatening way. Obviously, she didn't want to do that, she refused to give me my money back and said if I put it anywhere that she was going to get me done for slander.
We have insurance and the refund mentioned again (phrased as “my money back”). I’ve seen enough to conclude that getting money is her priority. Especially as now in the story, the pain and swelling have gone away, she’s purely mentioning money.
I was concerned with her saying what hospital are you at, I was worried she was going to come. I was more worried about my lip and what was going to happen to my face.
Another mention for hospital, in case we didn’t get the fact that is where she was.
She also mentions her face and alludes to her looks again.
Doctor Happy
The doctors pressed on it and it went from white to pink straight away so the circulation was still there, so they were happy about that.
Another medical description talking of doctors and circulation.
They weren't really sure what had gone on because it was so swollen but they gave me some tablets to take and they said it would take the swelling down. I took them and within one or two days the swelling went down.
We’ve seen repeatedly that this is someone who likes counting, they’ve counted millilitres of filler and amounts of money. They don’t count the days it took the swelling to do down. Or are they hiding how long that was?
I went back to work the day after that. I've not had any contact from her since, and she's not given me any refund, I've just got on with my life.
Another mention of the refund, it’s much more important than the pain or the swelling. She goes to great lengths to convince us of the severity of those things, the refund mentions are more straight and factual.
I've not even thought about getting them done again but if I did I'd go to someone who's professional, who's got a shop, and is a proper, qualified nurse. I would never go to someone's house ever again that's put me off that.
She finishes up with more mentions of medical professionals.
Repetition
After looking at all that, what are her repeated words and concepts?
- Looks and her face
- Money, counting money, the refund, and insurance
- Millilitres of lip filler
- Medical matters, especially medical status such as doctors, nurses, hospital.
Conclusion
This is someone who hasn’t had a refund they think they deserve. They think they deserve the refund, given that not all the one millilitre of filler they paid for was used.
While the procedure did cause pain, that pain didn’t last. It did cause swelling, which was expected.
As the refund has been denied, she has attempted to up the stakes. However, the hospital couldn’t give her a solid medical opinion that the procedure had been carried out incorrectly (if they had she would have told us, she said they “really didn’t know”)
So, she has had to pull together medical “evidence” that something was up. The nurses at her work made a diagnosis, they told her to go to hospital. She wants us to know she was “in hospital” not just that she was at “A&E”.
Now it is no longer about the refund, but also an insurance claim. I believe she threatened the insurance claim to attempt to force the refund. From her description, it is quite possible she was aggressive or threatening herself when doing this. I mentioned in the first analysis that she appeared to be hiding some of her actions.
The practitioner clearly felt that she was at risk of reputational damage from this person and said they’d take action if they told anyone this story. Is that because they didn’t want the truth to get out? Or because they had had a threat that everyone would find out “what happened”?
End game
I’d bet many people reading this story thought “this doesn’t add up” or “there’s more to this than meets the eye”. By looking for deception and then unearthing what is really being said, we can take those gut instincts and turn them into something more solid.
Did you spot anything else? Let me know in the comments below. If you enjoy looking at words, then go to the Facebook page and join the discussion group to discuss this and a whole host of words which I post regularly.