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Is it ever enough?
Written by Sean on Monday, February 25, 2008
One of the problems many people have with the concept of surgery or self-injury is that they say it is not going to be enough. They say that once someone has chopped a leg off, they’ll need to do the other leg, and then do other things to themselves. They use examples of people who’ve done a toe, then a finger, then more toes, etc. I’ve met these people too. And I think that there are two explanations that solidly contradict the idea of "it’s never enough". There’s also solid, albeit anecdotal, evidence that it *does* get enough.
The first explanation is that these people may not have Body Integrity Identity Disorder at all! So few medical professionals know and understand BIID, it is easy for them to assume that if someone chopped off a toe, they did it because they have BIID. But it could have been done for any number of reason. Maybe they are in extreme body modification. Maybe they hear voices. I’ve read some medical papers and frankly, the case studies discuss apotemnophilia, but does not "read" like BIID (or apotemnophilia, which was the label available at the time of writing, before BIID was coined).
The other thing is that people may need a lower leg amputation, but can’t engineer it, so they resort to what they can relatively easily achieve themselves, a finger, or a toe. Alternatively, they may find their need too big to handle. They may be trying to tell themselves that they really shouldn’t be cutting off a leg, and thinking that a finger would be enough. And it might even satiate their need for a bit. But in the end, cutting off a finger does not achieve the self-image they’ve had for a long time.
In fact, I was just talking about this with someone recently, who needs a lower leg amputation, but who has cut a finger. He said that he felt some relief for a while after his finger, but that it just hit him twice as hard that he needed the leg gone, and he had always needed the leg gone, so he’s stuck until the leg is gone. People looking at his "story" could easily take it as an example of "they do an amputation but always end up wanting more".
Then you think of people like Lily, or Robert Vickers, or Tegumai, or the others we’ve heard of. They got what they needed, and it was enough. Of course Lily hasn’t gotten where she needs to be, so will likely seek more, but she’s not seeking a second procedure. But I bet you everything I own that once she’s a DAK, it’ll be enough.
Yeah, "enough" is reached when the desired body image is met. We need to have the body aligned with our body image, and until and unless that is done, we’re not happy, but once it is done, we have no need for more procedures.
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