About
Transabled.org is a multi-author blog discussing the experience of living with Body Identity Identity Disorder (BIID).
About BIID
Body Identity Integrity Disorder, or BIID, is a condition where people who have a "normal" able body need to have a physical impairment. BIID is most often expressed by a need to have an amputation, to be paraplegic, to be deaf, or to be blind. It can be a highly disabling condition where individuals are thrown in deep depression because of the anguish caused by the dichotomy between their psyche and their body.
Perhaps the strongest analogy we can use to explain this need is to compare BIID to Gender Identity Disorder (GID). Someone who has BIID is very much like transsexuals who are in the wrong body and need to "change" sex. The causes are obviously different, but GID is perhaps the best known condition that most resembles BIID.
There is very little research that has been done on BIID at this point. You may find most of what is available on http://biid-info.org. As such, it is not sure if this is a psychological condition or a neurological condition. There is evidence from neurologists in San Diego that there is a neurological aspect to BIID. While many people feel this is a psychological condition, it has not been classified as such in any of the major manual of psychological conditions.
There are no psychotherapies nor pharmacotherapies that have been proven to provide any relief, much less cure, for BIID.
The only thing that seems to provide relief is to acquire the impairment needed.
About Sean O’Connor
Sean is a transabled individual. He needs to be paraplegic at the L1 level. He has felt this way since about the age of 3 or 4 years old. He has lived full time as a wheelchair user since the mid 1990’s.
About the word "transabled"
The word transabled was coined by Sean O’Connor because none of the words used to describe the condition to that point were appropriate. Some medical terms were being used, but that was unpalatable because they were too "medical", not personal enough. The word "wannabe" was (and is still) used, but it is not descriptive enough, too vague. It is also often associated with a negative connotation. As the experience of having BIID is in many ways similar to that of having GID, the word transabled was coined on the "pattern" of the word transsexual.
About this site
Transabled.org is a multi-author blog created by people who have body integrity identity disorder. We want to share our experiences, because we’re not alone, and we know others "out there" are dealing with similar issues. We need to share our experiences because we can’t keep these thoughts bottled up inside.
The site started way back when, at a time where there were not many websites in general, much less sites about body integrity identity disorder. There were a handful of sites offering photos of amputees and wheelchair users for devotees, but there was only one site remotely related to BIID (though that name didn’t even exist then): Susan P’s Legbrace site. It was hard to find information, first because it didn’t much exist, and second, because search engines were, well, in their infancy. Google didn’t exist(!), Yahoo was a directory and was outsourcing their search engine facility, MSN? - Ha! dream on.
But at the time, it wasn’t so clear what the goal of the site was. Sean just needed to talk about what he was going through. He has just discovered he wasn’t alone, and was living through so many things, he needed to write about it. And so he put everything on a website. At first, a handful of what we’d now call "static pages". Looooong pages, that were somewhat difficult to navigate. These pages were living on the ISP’s web space provided with the account.
Addressing a relatively small and specific niche market, the site has always had a relateively steady traffic. Some researchers read the site, and used it in their study.
For personal reasons, Sean pulled his site down a couple times, but put it back up again, because he just needed to continue talking about his life experience with BIID.
In April 2005, the domain transabled.org was acquired, the old content was moved to a database driven system, and more authors were invited to write for the blog.
In April 2007, the site underwent a redesign and presented a new look to the hundreds of daily visitors.
Plans and goals for the future? We hope to get more people involved in writing blog entries. We hope to grow the amount of traffic, and increase awareness of the site among transabled individuals, the general public, the press, and researchers. We aim to show the human face of BIID, show that we are dealing with hard and emotional issues, that we aren’t perfect, but are doing our best. We want to build bridges with the disability community, and establish a closer and friendlier relationship. We hope that everyone, including ourselves, will gain a better understanding of this condition that is eating up our lives.
As the t-shirt says:
Lose the Ego. Acknowledge your fear (you’re not alone). Share your stories. Find common ground. Tah-Dah!