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Treatment for BIID
Written by Ada on Thursday, October 30, 2008
For my entire life I’ve successfully "treated" my BIID by ignoring it. <please read sarcasm into my usage of the word successfully>
As a child, I "treated" my BIID by being shy and introverted around people with disabilities. During my youth, I "treated" myself by denying it and shaming myself out of thinking about it. Later in life I "treated" my BIID by telling myself that I am a compassionate person, and that is why I would want to feel someone else’s pain (excuse the pun). After that, I "treated" my BIID by telling myself that I work with and am social with a number of people who use wheelchairs and that is why. Because I want to walk in their shoes, or actually, roll in their shoes to be able to relate better to them. Of course, all of these" treatments" were used before I knew what ailed me.
Enter: Sean. He pointed me toward resources and now I’ve been able to get some understanding and perspective for myself. Frankly, while I am still troubled, I feel better than I have in a long, long time. My depression is in a good state, and while by BIID is raging, I have some peace about it right now. These days, I’m "treating" my BIID by writing and posting here. It’s a lot better than nothing. And for the first time in my life, I’ve thrown away the emotional baggage about my BIID that I’ve been lugging around all these years.
As I learn about others, I am finding some similarities and some differences. One of the big differences I have found about myself, is that many people pretended as children. I went the other way. I was afraid of wheelchairs as a child. In fact, I wasn’t actually "afraid" but uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, because when I saw a person using a wheelchair, I believed what I thought and felt was wrong. In fact, when my life had caused me to be in a wheelchair for any reason, I was agitated. Extremely agitated.
Once, I broke my leg and someone scurried over with a wheelchair to assist me. I was ranting about how I didn’t need to get in a wheelchair. I could hop. I could hop all the way to the hospital if I had to! Don’t think I can’t! Don’t make me get in that chair. I don’t need a wheelchair. I told them to leave me alone. Let me do it myself. "I DON’T NEED A WHEELCHAIR" I ranted. I was manhandled into the thing and spent the entire time in that chair ranting about how I did NOT need a wheelchair. Well, of course I needed a wheelchair, because I had a broken leg. And I needed a wheelchair for that "other" reason. Nobody seemed to think anything odd about my reaction, and if they did they probably attributed it to "shock" because of my broken leg. I look back now and see that it was a very dramatic response by me in the situation. Other times I had cause to be in a wheelchair, I had a similar response. I spent most of the time telling the person pushing me I did NOT need a wheelchair.
The fact is, I knew the only reason a person is *ever* in a wheelchair, is because they need to be. For whatever reason. And I did not want anyone to see me in a wheelchair, ever, because they would know I needed to be in a wheelchair. That’s how I "treated" my BIID. I used my energy to get as far away from any wheelchair as possible. Good times.
Those days are over. I’ve dismissed the shame. As I contemplate pretending, and figure out if and how to talk to anyone in my real life about this, I may feel shame again. But I hope not.
Tags: BIID, Treatment, Wheelchair
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2 Comments
That kind of negation it sound familiar to me. When I saw a wheelchair I couldn’t even glipse at it because there is some kind of strong feelings that puzzled me.
In my life I’ve got two chances to sit in a wheelchair and I declined both, and of course, I regret about it.
I think that’s better because I had the sensation I could pee myself. I don’t know why but just only think about it and all my muscles relaxes, I feel like my feets shrinks and I have an inexplicable need to pee
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1 On 30 October, 2008, Chloe said:
Thank you for another interesting post, Ada. As a child I pretended a lot, but it was mostly with bandages. I didn’t have access to a wheelchair, and I didn’t know anyone in a wheelchair. I wasn’t around wheelchairs until I started working in a hospital. About twelve years ago some of my coworkers and myself were playing with a wheelchair, giving each other rides down the corridor. I was reluctant to get in, but my coworkers persuaded me. It felt very scary and strange; I wanted to get out as soon as possible.
As recently as April, I thought that there was no way I could ever go out in public in a wheelchair. I would be far too embarrassed and self conscious. My wheelchair was an impulse buy. How things change! Yesterday I was doing some grocery shopping in my wheelchair, as usual. Not once did it cross my mind that this was anything other than the “normal” way to do grocery shopping. Not once did it cross my mind that anybody might be looking at me and wondering why I was in a wheelchair.
My wheelchair did not come with a sticker saying “Warning! This product may be habit forming.”