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Blog > Thoughts > Other's Thoughts > Chloe's Thoughts > Benefits Masquerading as Cause

Benefits Masquerading as Cause

Written by Chloe on Monday, November 16, 2009

Tora’s comments regarding "On The Origin Or Causes Of BIID – Abuse Or Not?" got me thinking. There are potential psychological, physical and financial benefits to having BIID. Others, and indeed ourselves, can mistake such benefits as having a causative nature with regard to BIID. The logic in making such a connection is faulty.

Tora was talking about the benefits she would have received if she had broken her arm. But let’s suppose a different scenario. Suppose that the manifestation of Tora’s BIID involved the amputation of her writing hand, rather than paraplegia. Would the benefits received from actually having the hand amputated versus actually breaking the arm be substantially different?

Tora pointed out that when you’re a little kid, an oddity like a cast makes you popular. When I was seven, a kid at school broke his wrist. Other kids, including myself, swarmed around him to check out his cast and ask questions. Like Tora, I remember feeling jealous about the cast. However, for me I don’t think it was about the popularity. I did a lot of recreational casting later in life, and almost all of it was in private. I wasn’t interested in people checking out my casts or asking questions about them.

A couple of years after the kid with the broken wrist, another kid was telling me about his cousin who’d had a hand amputated. I found this much more interesting than a cast. So here’s what I’m wondering: do kids in general react to an amputated hand in the same way they do to a cast? It would seem reasonable to me but I don’t have direct experience of it. There was no kid at the schools I went to with any obvious amputation. It was not until I was nineteen that I spent a sinificant amount of time with an amputee. It was the right arm, quite close to the shoulder but not a shoulder disarticulation. It was interesting to me, but not nearly as interesting as the idea of amputation of my left hand.

Tora also alluded to a physical benefit of breaking one’s arm. The girl at school who had broken her arm was allowed to use a keyboard in lieu of writing. Tora would have benefitted from this on account of her dysgraphia. Presumably a hand amputation would have conferred similar benefit.

I can relate to this. Especially from ages seven through ten, my handwriting was clearly the worst in the class. It was pretty illegible to almost everybody, including myself. This no doubt contributed to teachers thinking I was of low intelligence. It was also physically painful for me to write.

When I broke my right clavicle at age fourteen, I had to use my left hand to write during tests and such. Again I was not able to read my own writing. I am not just right handed but massively so, to the extent that typing is done solely with my right hand, with the exception of using my imaginary stump for the shift key. It was extremely difficult for me to use my left hand for everything during those three weeks.

The point here is that Tora’s BIID does NOT involve hand amputation. Tora, I apologise for going on at such length about you. Let me know if I am misrepresenting your situation.

If Tora’s BIID had manifested as hand amputation, it would be all too easy to point to those childhood experiences and say that losing a hand would have benefitted her both psychologically and physically. This may indeed be a true statement. However it does NOT imply a causal relationship.

Other related issues come to mind. Does BIID ever manifest as a need for a series of temporary injuries rather than a permanent impairment? I don’t know. Is there anyone out there with a need to keep breaking bones sequentially? This seems to be a different issue from those of us, including myself, who have made use of casting as a means to treat our BIID. See "Casts, Paras and Documentaries" for Sophie’s experience.

Some of us have alluded to the symbolic benefit of presenting as a PWD. Many of us have revealed that we have physical disabilities and/or psychological burdens which are more or less invisible to others. Does it feel more comfortable for us to show some visible sign which is representational of this? Perhaps; but is it really causal? Perhaps; perhaps not.

I have an observation from recent months. A number of friends have suggested that I can replace hiking with wheelchair marathons or some such. Most of my friends are aware that I have fibromyalgia. Most of them know that it limits the amount and intensity of wheeling that I am able to do. Yet, because it is invisible (for the most part) they forget; repeatedly. It is just as invisible in a wheelchair as it is out of a wheelchair, probably more so indeed. Sure, there are people with severe lower body fibromyalgia who use a wheelchair to get around. However, mine is primarily an upper body condition. I have to admit that it would in fact be nice if it were visible. It can get pretty tiresome to explain to people again and again that I can’t do whatever, that appears to be a simple task. And the same people forget; or perhaps they think that because I haven’t mentioned it in some months it must have magically gone away. The wheelchair does not help in any way with this despite the potential symbolism. If there happens to be a coincidence between the symbolism making visible something which is otherwise invisible, such as is indeed the case with my leg, there is no reason to deduce causality.

The question of financial benefit came up recently: "We Do Not Seek A Physical Impairment To Get On Public Benefits". To me this is the silliest benefit argument of all, and scarcely worth addressing. Over decades I have spent thousands of dollars on bandages alone. Throw in leg braces, wheelchairs, psychotherapy, lost productivity, etc etc, and we are looking at a considerable sum. I seriously doubt if there is anybody better off financially for having BIID than they would have been without it. BIID is an expensive ailment, the more so for lack of appropriate treatment.

There really are benefits to having BIID. I find social benefits in particular. For me, social interactions flow more smoothly when I am in a wheelchair. In addition, when I have told friends about my BIID, the most common outcome is that the relationship has progressed to a deeper level.

I’m not arguing against the possibility that various kinds of benefit might help fuel BIID feelings. But it behooves us, and others, to avoid the erroneous deduction that such benefit is necessarily causative of BIID.

Thank you, Tora. I think you hit on something profound.

Tags: Amputation, BIID, Cast, Impairment, Paraplegia, PWD, Stump, Tora, Wheelchair

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