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Home / Thoughts / BIID, no depression

BIID, no depression

Written by Sean on Tuesday, December 4, 2007

I’ve often said that depression and Body Integrity Identity Disorder did not necessarily go hand-in-hand. I’ve had periods in my life where I was depressed, at varying levels, but didn’t have particularly strong BIID feelings. I also have had periods where Body Integrity Identity Disorder was strong like coffee left in the coffee maker for 37.5 hours, yet depression was not there. Although it had been a long time for me where I wasn’t dealing with *both* at the same time. About a month ago, depression lifted. BIID was relatively quiet (because it never leaves me completely nowadays).

But for the last ten or so days, BIID is back with a vengeance. It is making its presence known, like a swarm of commuters in the subway in New York City at rush hour! And New York commuters in a bad mood are still more pleasant than BIID…

It is an experience hard to describe, life with BIID but no depression. When life is not dulled by depression, when things aren’t painted a flat shade of grey, when you still are tempted by food, when things don’t all taste like cardboard, when you actually look forward to things, when you can be bothered getting out of bed in the morning, when you don’t feel constantly tired, when you actually do give a damn, yet, there is a knife at your throat, and BIID isn’t letting go.

There is an empty space in my stomach. There is longing, need. My guts are knotted. I think about it constantly, yes, it is an obsession of sort.

And there is frustration, endless frustration, that a procedure that would take all of 15 minutes, a few stitches and could conceivably be done without general anesthesia is so far out of reach. It’s there, just in front of me, dangling, and I can taste it, and I can feel it. But it is not available, not really.

And from frustration grows anger. I am an angry man. That anger translates itself in so much tension in my back and neck that you can’t poke my back without hitting a painful "knot". I once read that anger like that often translates itself into malignant tumours. I don’t want cancer. I don’t want to be that tense. I don’t want to be that angry. I don’t want to end up bitter.

And from so much anger pressuring you, eventually, comes depression, to complete the endless circle.

With depression absent, things appear so much clearer. Thoughts seem more lucid. And it is somewhat scary, because at times like these, I realise just how much I do NOT want to live another 3 decades like the past 35 years have been. At times like this, I understand my cousin throwing himself off a bridge, because the only power one has in the end, to stop the suffering when nothing else works, is to end one’s life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suicidal, and I’m not going to kill myself. But I surely understand the logic from it, a logic stemming from desperation, and powerlessness.

[tags]Depression, BIID, Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Suicide, Thoughts, Suffering[/tags]