transabled.org

My parents worry I’ll “influence” my 19 year old brother with my transabledness and ask me not to talk about stuff like that with him. I think he’s a very understanding person, he doesn’t understand BIID but he listens anyway because I take the time to listen to his stuff.

hmm - let’s think about this one.

If BIID is neurological then it seems likely to me that you can’t ‘catch’ it from anyone, any more than you could catch MS or diabetes from your parent. That’s not to say it might not, like them, run in families with a genetic predisposition. But there wouldn’t be anything you could do to stop it - if it’s there, it’s there - like brown eyes or big ears.

If it has a genetic basis but is ’stress’ induced, as many believe with Schizophrenia, then yes you might want to watch out, but I still doubt that such things as hiding wheelchair use would make much if any difference.
If there is no genetic link, but an emotional/environmental trigger (certain types of family dynamic/abuse etc), then as with things like depression and personality disorder, it may appear consequently upon certain complex factors including a parent with the same thing, but these are likely to be so very complex that you would not have a hope of controlling them sufficiently to prevent it’s development.

And after all, how many of us here had a parent who used a wheelchair for any reason? Very few or none that I can recall.

So I honestly done think it would make a blind bit of difference, Lane, whether your children see you wheeling or not. And if they are anything like most of the kids I know, they’ll likely scorn what they would see as your ‘recreational’ use of a chair, in much the same way that children everywhere tend to be scornful of their parents’ interests and opinions.

That’s my two penn’th anyway. Take your pick.

I’m with Cath on this one. My encounters with PWDs were always framed in my BIID, as far back as I can remember and that’s pretty far back, age 4 at least. They triggered nothing other than envy, in the measure they matched my BIID self.

It seems to me that BIID is impairment specific rather than equipment specific. Assuming the worst case scenario that you could possibly trigger a predisposition in your children, which I don’t believe, then it’s already been triggered by your impairment/leg brace/crutches. I don’t see how throwing a wheelchair in there could possibly make any difference, regardless of which BIID theory one picks.

My perspective is that the greatest gift you could provide for your kids is to be yourself around them.

Echoing Brice and Chloe, the brace is already present, what’s your wife’s hangup with the chair?

Same with my encounters with PWDs in childhood. I never did a second take on a kid using a chair, now I need one bad because all the gear is a symbol of a much needed disability.

Peter

Hi Lane,

I think it is impossible to “make” somebody gay or have BIID or becoming transsexual or many other things.

If you don’t show yourself and live your life to the fullest, your children might learn that it is good to hide one’s problems and desires and to suppress what they would really love to do.

But only you yourself can find out what is right for you and now. Maybe counseling could help to find it.

In general, I think that fear is not a good advisor. Only the heart is.

I would be very interested to learn about the questions you would like to ask one of your parents.

some conditions or diseases travel by line of sight, people believe they have what they witnessed. Mass hysteria, crowd hypnosis. It seems reasonable that somebody may all of a sudden develop BIID or think they have developed BIID after seeing or learning of it.

@Ronald:
I think the phenomena you talk about are not really on the same level with BIID.

Something with such an early onset and intensity is not very probable to develop just by sight.

Research has shown that there is no common psychological pattern of people with BIID, nor has there been a common trigger or experience which started it in most cases.

If you only think you might have BIID, you don’t have it. Who picks up depression because he saw others with it? Who becomes transsexual all of a sudden?

I don’t think that there is any danger that parents can either make or prevent their children of getting BIID. Just be nice to them, love them, care of them, let them enough room to grow and be themselves, and you as parents be yourself, too.

Lane. Be yourself with your children. Use your chair, it’ll enable you to go further, do more and have more fun with them.

I very much doubt that you using a chair will in any way encourage BIID feelings in your kids but if it does then you need to question whether your impairment, brace and crutches would have done it anyway.

Good luck, I hope you have a good chat with your wife.

I truly think the biid thing is hardwired. I also think there’s a familial tendency for it. You’ll never get it sorted out with data now available, and your wife should not blame you if one or more of the kids turn up with it.

@Phil I don’t know if I’m comfortable discussing the question re: my parent here yet. Maybe soon.

Thanks so much to everyone for your thoughtful comments on this issue that is so important to me. I will continue to do my best to be a good father to my children, and to introduce them to the whole of myself as opportunities arise. I will have to do this things at a rate that is comfortable for each member of my family.

I do still wonder if there is a trigger that can switch ON a dormant case of BIID, but as stated eloquently above, that trigger may be unrelated, or only loosely related to disability.

I’ll just do my best. Maybe the next generation will know much more than we do.

If the next generation know more than we do then maybe having BIID won’t be so bad. Perhaps society will understand that being disabled isn’t an inherantly bad thing and will consider our needs as odd but on a par with wanting to have black skin, which would be odd but not totally bizzarre I think.

Maybe for our children surgery will even be an option.

Try not to worry about your children Lane. I really think BIID is hardwired in some individuals and you using your chair arround your kids won’t make any difference. If an experience is likely to affect them then (going by the sample of site users and the comments I remember) it’s far more likely they’ll be affected by interaction or the sight of someone at school, their own age, or by a random stranger in public and you can’t protect them from ever coming into contact with a disabled person.

For what it’s worth, I have BIID and I don’t remember ever having contact with any disabled people at all until I was in my late teens. I must have seen disabled people in town etc but nothing that sticks in my memory until I was 18 or 19. I’ve had BIID and pretended I was disabled in games etc since I was 6 or 7.

@Beth If surgery is available then, I hope it’s brain surgery. That would theoretically make all of the pain go away.

I don’t remember having any significant contact with disabled people until I was older also.

A friend on my block did have spina bifida and some mobility problems, but really he just seemed pretty normal to me - nothing like my mind told me I should be. I didn’t realize he was different until 20 years later when I became aware of the symptoms and put 2 and 2 together. Not much of an inspiration for a life of BIID trauma.

The only way to really make the pain go away Lane is to make all the memories go away too, and if I were to do that I would lose an important part of myself, my personality. I’m a much better person now after the experiences I’ve been through.

@Sophie: I totally agree. What am I supposed to do with the memories of a lifetime of BIID related experiences, which have played a significant part in shaping my personality?

I don’t really believe in a “danger zone” even though I became aware of my BIID during that age. The reason for that is because I had little to no contact (even visually) with physically disabled people until well into my teens, when this “danger zone” would supposedly be over.

Hence, I don’t think it matters whether you expose the child to disabilities or transability around that age or not.