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Home / Thoughts / Other's Thoughts / In Denial

In Denial

Written by Claire on Monday, October 23, 2006

I keep thinking this isn’t really happening. I don’t really have BIID. I’m just imagining it. It’ll go away. I’ll be OK.

So I’ve joined the two Yahoo groups for BIID. I’ve made friends with other transabled people. I email Sean every 5 minutes. I’ve become a part of transabled.org. I’ve told my husband I have a rare mental illness. And now, I’ve just bought a wheelchair. It’s all a bit surreal. My brain can’t quite come to terms with any of it.

DON’T tell me I’m transabled

I’ve done all this but I don’t really have BIID. It’s just some weird thing I have, but it’s not BIID. Not really. Someday I’m going to discover that I’m not really like all the rest of you and then I’ll be OK. I find these small differences between my experience and someone else’s, so I say, that’s proof I don’t have BIID. I’ll have a good day, or a good 5 minutes, and I’ll say see? It’s gone. I never had it in the first place. I imagined it all. It’s something else.

But then I have to tell myself, if it’s “something else” then WTF is it? Did you imagine all the experiences you lived through and just put on the net for the whole world to see? Make that all up? Are you imagining all these people who are reading it and saying publicly and privately me too, me too, me too? Unfortunately, no. If you look at it rationally (as if there was anything rational about it!), it looks like classic BIID doesn’t it?

I’m having trouble accepting it, I guess. At one point last week I embraced it before the doubts set back in but in that short moment I found some peace and happiness. Accepting who I really am. On the Yahoo group someone mentioned that their depression goes away with their reaffirmation of their need to be an amputee, and it comes back when they try to deny it. But how to make yourself accept it? The doubts keep creeping back in.

I’m perfectly able-bodied and I’ve bought myself a wheelchair and I’m planning a trip to another town where I can pretend I’m a paraplegic. How freaking weird is that? I just don’t do weird stuff like that. It’s all wrong, I’ve let myself be influenced by a bunch of mentally ill people, and if I go ahead with this I’m going to be fucked up just like them. And it’ll never end.

But…I was already fucked up. I just didn’t understand how much. I’ve just gone off the deep end, this time. I suppose that means I have BIID. Except I don’t. Not really. I don’t know why I got up at 2am to write this. It’s going to go away…

[tags]BIID, Transabled, Denial, Acceptance, Pretenders[/tags]