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Influenced By Other Transabled Individuals
Written by Jerry on Sunday, January 11, 2009
There has been a recent discussion on a Yahoo! group that elicited a post I thought really would benefit from appearing here. With Jerry’s permission, I am posting it here, preceded by the comment/question that prompted his post.
SeanNow my therapist says that maybe my desire to become an amputee is a symptom for this problem: that I follow other people’s opinions too often, too much, instead of following myself, spontaneously, without too much thinking if it is rational or not, what others might think, how others might see me, how I might see myself, etc.
Do you think, or rather: do you feel there might be truth in this thesis?
I am not sure what you think that your therapist has been telling you. One possible reading of what you have said is that he is suggesting that you have somehow been "captured" or "mind washed" by being involved with a group of people (such as on this listserv) that are focused on BIID. He might be asking something like, "Are you sure that this interest in amputation is really your own interest, and not just a response to the fact that those around you are talking about and interested in amputation? Are you being caught up in someone else’s enthusiasm? If you were to ‘follow [yourself] spontaneously, without too much thinking … what others might think …’ would you still be interested in having an amputation? "
Now, of course, if this is his question, I can’t answer this question for you. But I can tell you that he would not alone in asking this question of people with BIID. My wife suggests to me regularly that my "BIID" is just the consequence of my being caught up with this sort of a crowd — that I should free myself from this crowd and let my head get straightened out. I think that this assumption of my wife and possibly your therapist results from a difficulty that most folks have in imagining that anyone would really want, on his/her own, to have an amputation. Let me offer some arguments against this hypothesis, at least for my case.
- I (at least) am not the sort of person to be carried away by other people’s fascinations. I (at least) have always been someone that tended to "march to my own drummer." It is very unlikely that I would be persuaded by someone else to want an amputation if I did not already want it on my own.
- In my personal history, my fascination with amputation goes back to my childhood — at least the age of 9 or 10, and probably before. It has persisted now for more than 60 years. For at least the first 55 of those years I didn’t talk with anyone about this fascination. It just doesn’t make sense that I have now been "taken over" by other folks in the way that my wife suggests.
- And how was it that I found this community that is supposedly drawing me in? After all, given all the communities that one might accidentally trip across, it is most unlikely that I would ever have found the BIID community other than for my own deep fascination with the issue. And in my case, this is actually historically clear. Because I had a fascination with amputation, I looked for and found places on the web with stories about amputation and amputees, eventually found the Secret Garden. If I were just a devotee, then I would have stopped once I had found the stories. But through the Secret Garden I became aware that I was not alone in my "pathological" interest in actually being an amputee, and then I looked for more information about this, eventually hitting on thte BIID sites. And through these connections I found out about Whole, and Michael First, and the group at San Diego, etc. It is pretty obvious to me that it was my own fascination with being an amputee that led me to this community. So the fixation has to have preceeded my involvement with the community.
- Finally, I now have had confirmed by the San Diego group that I share several neurological anomalies with other people with BIID that distinguish us from age and sex matched controls. So whether these neurological differences are cause or effect, I resemble "phenotypically" other folks with BIID.
Now I go through all of this because I suspect strongly that it is a general assumption among folks that don’t have BIID that no-one in his/her own free mind, independent of the social pressure of others around him/her, would want an amputation. So these folks, finding an otherwise inexplicable individual with BIID, search for an explanation for BIID in hypotheses like the above.
The reality is that no-one knows the cause of BIID. Anyone may make an hypothesis, but then (s)he should examine his/her hypothesis in a reasonable way. I don’t think that the assumption that BIID is "caused" or "intensified" by association with other folks interested in amputation, or being too ready to "follow other people’s opinions" is at all likely. As a matter of fact, I think that it is a rather hare brained idea.
A final note. One of the more unfortunate tendencies of any sort of "religion" (whether a theistic religion or one based on psychoanalytical theory) is to find not only causes for "bad things that happen to good people" but also "sins" or "failings" that have led to these bad things happening. In this way, we (or maybe someone else) becomes responsible and guilty for these things having happened. I have previously discussed that I think that the Book of Job is exactly about this sort of thing. Now if there is anything unjust, it is burdening the "sufferer" with the guilt of responsibility added to the "bad thing" itself. If your analyst is suggesting that you have brought this BIID on yourself by your being too ready to follow other people’s opinions, then shame on him.
Tags: Amputee, BIID, Therapist
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14 Comments
2 On 11 January, 2009, Sean said:
I doubt that BIID is a reflection of self-hatred as a result of being denied to be ourselves as very young children. The theory might explain loads, but it doesn’t resonate as “right” within me.
It is reasonalble to say that we may be caught up in the enthusiasm or spirit of the mob, but one thing for sure abouth THIS site is there are no feeble minded dimwits contributing here. I don’t think anybody has developed BIID as a result of logging onto this site.
Those of us who have dealt with these feelings nearly all of our lives have not latched onto some sort of fad or the latest psycho-babble crutch (no pun intended) to enable us to feel sorry for ourselves.
As one discovers the BIID community on the net, together with the devotee and fetish related material, we may at first find some sort of connection, but only in that there are others out there with the same type of feelings.
Having logged onto this site for about two years now, I can honestly say that my desire for surgery is actually less than it was in the past.
There are some valid points here though, questioning the need for an amputation, all of which I think need to be examined before hopping onto the operating table.
Maybe not higher education, but I think we operate at a higher cranial voltage than others.
5 On 15 January, 2009, Claire said:
On fighting_it someone once postulated that people with BIID must have above-average intelligence because the level of discussion was so much higher intellectually than in certain other groups.
I think that only people with above-average intelligence have the ability or desire to do the kind of reading and writing that one has to engage in to become a part of this particular online community. Perhaps the people with BIID who have average or below-average intelligence simply don’t participate. It’s a deep quest for meaning and understanding we’re on, here. I wonder where they go, what they do, how they cope?
I also have less desire for an actual injury. Oh, I feel as much as ever that my body needs to be paralyzed, but that need has been tempered by wheeling in two ways. First, wheeling simply reduces the BIID need. Second, my experiences as an (almost) full-time wheeler have taught me that, in my case anyway, actually becoming a paraplegic would simply be trading one problem for another, and might not increase my quality of life overall. I say that for myself alone; I know for a certainty that some other people have BIID so severely that surgery/injury is the best possible course for them, regardless of the undesirable effects that an actual physical disability might have.
Sorry for once again ‘thrusting’ Youtube links upon you all, but Claire’s question needs an answer. What do the people with BIID do, who chose not to participate, or who don’t intellectualize their struggle with BIID so much. I think this may be one such person. I am quite envious as to his/her simple reasoning. ‘ I didn’t want my legs- so I cut them off..’ Maybe that IS the way to go? Less talking, and more action? I’m playing Devil’s advocate here, but honestly- what else is there to say?
It’s a shame that the tabloid presentation of this person’s struggle do more damage than good to the BIID ’cause’, and that a more eloquent case pro BIID couldn’t have been made, but there you are- A case of actions speaking louder than words methinks….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA43DS2c12c
Ronald, I thought that was pretty funny because an Electroconvulsive Therapy unit is being constructed right next to my lab. Maybe I’ll be able to get my voltage cranked up a bit ;)
And I’m only in this community for the free beer. (Oops did I say that out loud?)
8 On 15 January, 2009, Sean said:
Ana, less talking and more action is fine, but what about those of us who can NOT get action? What do you suggest I, for example, do to safely acquire a spinal cord injury at the level I need without busting my kydneys or smashing my skull in the process?
Chloe;
I think I was referring to something internal(lol).
Electroconvulsive therapy? Is this the same as “shock therapy” ala One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest??? Do you work in a museum?
Ha ha! :) FYI, Ronald, sticking a screwdriver in the back of the television set in order to change the channel is still alive and well in psychiatric hospitals.
You may be joking Ronald, but sadly ECT is going in psychiatric hospitals as we speak. Museums not necessary.
12 On 15 January, 2009, Sean said:
They’re even refining the process and calling it “deep brain stimulation”, whereby they introduce electrodes inside the brain, with a pacemaker-like device in the chest, to have continued and/or regular shocks. Although that is apparently quite successful in treating tremors as well as otherwise untreatable chronic depression…
ECT is mostly used as a life saving treatment when the depressed person is so ill they are refusing food and fluids. It actually works remarkably well for some, barbaric as it sounds.
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1 On 11 January, 2009, Phil said:
By chance I just read this and found: I am the one who wrote the sentenced cited by Jerry.
I have to come to my therapist’s defence: She never meant that I was guilty for my BIID or that I caused it myself.
More like: I cut off so many wishes and impulses of myself without being aware of that, so that the desire to have my legs cut off is like a symbol or symptom of this.
She thinks that very very early as a little child I had no other option if I wanted to survive.
This is in line with a theory of Arno Gruen which I recently read about: that neglecting one’s own (secret, deep, forbidden) will and desires can cause a form of self-hatred (a person hates itself for betraying oneself to some extent).
Cutting off parts of my body is not exactly an act of love, at least at first glance. Maybe it is an outcome, a symptom, of a certain self-hatred?
This all is not to be seen as chosen voluntarily by me (or any other “transabled” person). One could see it more like this: It was forbidden to do what I wanted, and it was even forbidden to realize that I was stolen my freedom to be myself, do my thing. So the suffering could show up only as a symptom which is hard to decrypt.
Well, that’s the theory that was meant. I don’t say the theory is right. It is an interesting line to think along. And parts of it feel quite right. But at the moment I think it does not explain my desire. But it explains some of my habits, I think (to feel guilty all the time, for example).