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A Change in Perspective
Written by Chloe on Monday, September 6, 2010
Almost two years ago I included BIID in my laundry list of insanities. I mean, you have to be insane to actually want to be paralysed, right? I said then that BIID feels like a mental illness; but it’s not at all the way I view things now.
My mental health has been improving by leaps and bounds over the past year or so. If I had to pick a single experience that kick-started this process, I’d have to choose the car wreck. Yes, car wrecks can be great for one’s mental health!
The most obvious aspect is the near-death experience. No, I don’t mean physiologically. The injuries were trivial. However, people do in fact die in 75 mph double rollovers and I would probably be dead were it not for the fact that the driver’s seat was partially ripped from its moorings by the force of the impact, thereby allowing my head to shift a few inches away from where the roof made its foiled attempt to split open my skull.
But that wasn’t the important thing. The key aspect was that it gave me the excuse to use a wheelchair at work, with all the accompanying psychological benefits. It is beautiful that preconcussion amnesia prevents access to the cause of the crash. I can simply ascribe it to the universe saying "Here, this is what you need."
I am mentally healthy. I have no mental illnesses. I have no mental disorders. Hold on a minute! Didn’t the Prophet Sean state that I am completely insane? Well, I can see his point of view; and I’m not disputing it. However, I am not making these statements as matters of fact, but rather as matters of perspective.
What happened to the BIID then? Isn’t that a disorder? Is it? Is it really? Or…is it perhaps an entirely sane and rational response to my own neuroanatomy? Isn’t seeking to be paralysed completely logical given the circumstances? Perhaps it is only a disorder if we make it so by refusing to acknowledge, and act on, our feelings.
I went on a hike yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I know: difficulties, dangers, metaphors, blah de blah. I got lost early on in the mixed forest of juniper and oak. At a minor saddle I pulled out a map, compass, altimeter, and I figured it out. I needed to backtrack for about 25 minutes. Shit! I was really annoyed with myself for making such a major navigational error. As I put on my backpack and started walking again, the annoyance spilled over towards my leg. I was annoyed that it hurt. I was annoyed by the limp. I was annoyed at how much it slowed me down. But I want this, right? Why would I be annoyed by it? It had suddenly sunk in that if the BIID, wheelchair and leg brace all disappeared, I would still never have a leg that functioned on a hike the way it used to. There is a loss here, and I needed to acknowledge it to myself in keeping with my new mentally healthy self image. It didn’t take long to process; it took less than an hour. It wasn’t a matter of sorrow; rather, it was just an issue of admitting to myself that I experience a loss. With every gain comes a loss. No matter how wonderful ability reassignment surgery may be, it comes with a loss nonetheless. I believe it is psychologically healthy to acknowledge this loss.
With every loss comes a gain. I lost my car in a wreck. Sounds bad, right? But I gained my mental health. What happened to all that other stuff: depression, anxiety, OCD? These are mental disorders too. It says so in the DSM-IV! And I’m still taking Prozac.
The word "disorder" sounds a bit like the word "disability" doesn’t it? Exactly what does disability mean? I have yet to meet someone who is not more able to do something than I am. I have yet to meet someone who is not less able to do something than I am. How do we make a determination of who is or is not disabled? Doesn’t it sound rather like a value judgment; from another perspective there are only differences.
My psychotherapist sometimes suggests to his clients that instead of a "disorder" they have an "order." It’s just a change in perspective. I have obsessive compulsive order. I have body integrity identity order. My response to my body identity is quite orderly.
The peak was off in its own little mountain range all by itself, so the views in every direction were unencumbered and phenomenal. (Choose your own metaphorical content.)
I had climbed the west ridge. To the east of the peak was one of the largest, sheer drop-offs I have ever stood atop, which was about 2000 feet. There was no urge to throw myself into oblivion, nor even the fantasy thereof. I threw a rock off and listened for the impact. I was about to give up when finally the sound came. <em>Wow! That really is a long way down</em>, I thought. Not a bad place to come if one did have the urge to die. I’m still trying to get used to not having suicidal thoughts. Mental health is weird. Okay, sometimes I curl up in a fetal position and cry. So what? Exactly how is that <em>not </em>mentally healthy?
The west ridge was thickly forested with white fir and aspen. As I emerged back out from the thick forest into the brilliant afternoon sunshine (metaphor alert), I sat on a rock to drink some water. My long, blonde pony tail hung by the left side of my face, brightly beautiful, golden in the sun. I looked at the grass. I was five years old…
I was happy when I was five. Nothing had gone wrong yet. And here I am a half century later, feeling as if nothing had ever gone wrong. I shed a tear on that rock; not from sadness but from relief.
How did I get to this rock? It seems like a magic trick; I’m not sure I can explain how to do it. Happiness comes from the inside, not from external circumstance. Perhaps the happiness is invisible if you are always on the inside. If you step outside of yourself you can get a different perspective.
No, Chloe isn’t insane; she’s just different (giggles offstage from friends and family). But, I’m serious. I can let go of seeing myself as mentally ill. I don’t need that any more. I can let go of the past. Everything is as it should be. The future is a fantasy. Everything will come in its time. I am here now.
I do know that I wouldn’t have got here without help, and this gives me quite a sense of humility. I thank all of the guides who have helped restore my mental health.
Tags: BIID, Disability, Disorders, Happy, Insane, Limp, Loss, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paralysed, Wheelchair
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5 Comments
@Nobody: While I was writing the post I tried to come up with some aspect of loss associated with my genital surgery, and couldn’t think of anything. This bothered me since surely there has to be a loss. Then you brought it up right away and it challenged me to think a little deeper. I found the answer! What I miss more than anything is being able to wear a retracted penis pouch and leg bag for urine collection. I knew there had to be something! The subject had never come up with my surgeon. Instead he had warned me “Your clitoris could turn black, shrivel up and fall off.” I started laughing at that one. I think it was the way he said it.
I agree about mind/brain being a false dichotomy. I have been the subject in many brain imaging experiments. In order to check the systems, sometimes I am told to think about moving a muscle without actually moving it. The motor area of the brain responds in the imaging even though nothing happens externally.
I don’t get too fussed over nomenclature, but I’ll just point out that many transsexuals reject the concept of gender reassignment. They are the same gender before and after surgery. Gender confirmation surgery is sometimes a preferred term.
“Gender confirmation”, I agree. The “reassignment” connotation is just coming at it from the wrong perspective. All those undergrad classes gender versus sex or “gender is in the mind not the body” …
How one identifies oneself cannot be changed surgically. The surgery simply removes the unhealthy disagreement between how one identifies and how that identity manifests physically. Have I got that right?
Here’s another perspective. A friend of mine had testicular cancer and had both testes removed. Nobody doubts that he is still a man. Whoops! Logical paradox alert! That’s what happens when somebody thinks they are nobody. Ha ha!
It just occurred to me. Did you choose that name because you want absolutely everything to be amputated? ;o)
“Basically, the brain IS the mind, and the expression “It’s all in your head” does not mean an affliction is imaginary; it means the affliction is real and centered in the brain/mind complex.”
The brain/mind complex…
Just re-read a book by Viktor E. Frankl recently where he quotes Ludwig Klages. Frankl writes:
“Rightly Klages has pointed at the fact that the task of brain research is not to look for the ‘seat of the soul’, rather to locate the cerebral conditions for mental processes. He shows this with the help of a tellingly parable: Somebody removes in an electrically lighted room the fuse, and the light goes out; nobody, says Klages, will now call the place where the fuse was as the ‘seat’ of the light.”
@ Chloe:
To me, more and more acceptance appears the key to any development, and self-acceptance as the necessary first step.
Self-love would be the next stage. I can’t imagine what development would be possible if we all were able to really LOVE ourselves.
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1 On 6 September, 2010, Nobody said:
“I believe it is psychologically healthy to acknowledge this loss.”
As a layman unfamiliar with the subject, I assume part of the psychological portion of gender reassignment treatment is exactly this. One has to acknowldege and understand *all* the ramifications of the physical (surgical) portion of the treatment.
Such treatment has both a physical / visible component and an invisible (usually called psychological) component, while the condition being treated is usually invisble (neuro-anatomical / psychological).
Because BIID is also an “invisible” condition with a physical / surgical portion of treatment and a non-visible portion of treatment, I suggest the psych portion would include and possibly require precisely this acknowldegement.
Basically, both GID and BIID treatment approaches have obviously physical treatments to conditions that are not obviously physical. If GID is considered a mental illness then reassignment surgery is an attempt to improve mental health via non-mental means. This technique apparently works for some people with BIID.
One thing important to note is … this division between mental and non-mental is a false dichotomy. Current imaging techniques show that state of mind is inseperable from brain function. Brain anatomy causes effects in the mind. Basically, the brain IS the mind, and the expression “It’s all in your head” does not mean an affliction is imaginary; it means the affliction is real and centered in the brain/mind complex.