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I Must Be Crazy
Written by Lane on Friday, April 10, 2009
Really, I’m not, but I love that small aspect of having a formally diagnosed mental illness. Being in the "in" crowd allows me to throw the word around without so much as a hint of guilt.
I wondered if this first post should be a brief biography, but that seems totally unnecessary. All of the wonderful authors at TA (Transabled) have done a fantastic job of telling my story – by telling their own. The well-formed thoughts as a youngster, the needs for injury, the fascination with impairment, the equipment, the pretending, the shame, the desperation of needing my body to fit my ideal image of myself, and on and on. In my story, I’ll throw some genuine injuries and disabilities into the mix, but even after reading this site for years, I continue to be surprised how much we all share.
Whether BIID is a parietal lobe defect, a biochemical process, or a malformed psychological pattern, BIID is certainly a mental illness. Lucky for me, BIID also became comorbid with depression when I was in my early teens. Recognizing my shift in mood, my parents insisted that I see a therapist. They were also adamant that I not tell a soul that I was doing so. Thus began the year that tore my family apart and isolated me from every friend and close family member.
At therapy, I took this and that test, had my IQ and such determined. I entertained myself by coming up with creative answers to their Rorschach tests and other nonsense. After the testing phase, I spent week after week with a psychiatrist – who never, ever had a clue about what was going on. Of course, I knew that the weight of my compulsions and the fear of their discovery were major factors in my mood, but since I was the only one on the planet (or so I thought) with those kind of thoughts, I felt it better to keep them to myself. The lack of results infuriated my parents and communication pretty much stopped until I was out of high school. Not a good start to psychotherapy.
So, I continued on through life, having and acting on compulsions to disable myself in this way or that – pretending myself through school and college. When I met my wife, I tried my very best to tell her as much as I could about my condition, but I probably don’t have to tell you that was less than 100% successful. I tried to get her to accept or even participate in my BIID activities, but was almost always rebuffed for the first decade of our marriage. She is the most wonderful in my life, so, although I’ve tried from time to time to bring her in, I never pushed things too far – far enough to endanger what we share.
Some time during the last six years or so, my mood began to shift. There were some great times. I worked on interesting projects for days and weeks on end while barely sleeping. I got things done at an incredible pace. This was great for my career and I thoroughly enjoyed those times. Quite unfortunately, the smallest bits of uncertainty would also cause me to enter into periods of complete despair. At the time, I thought that my environment, specifically my work environment was just very chaotic. It didn’t really occur to me that my mind and I might be an active player in all of this. I didn’t see any patterns to my behavior and viewpoint.
Fast forward to last year, when a seemingly small event in my life caused a horrendous crash into complete hopelessness. I had concluded – once and for all – that my BIID, coupled with my physical ailments (for another time), plus my mood instability would never abate. I was a burden on my family - a burden had to be removed. The only logical thing to do was to end my own life. I tried and botched this a little more than a year ago.
Clearly, I had failed at my primary objective, but my mind was finally opened to a new possibility. Maybe, just maybe there was hope in psychotherapy, psychotropic medications, and the whole psychiatric field. Before, I had fought it tooth and nail – and the aftermath was horrendous. But, I knew I needed help this time and I wondered if I actually disclosed the issues that were plaguing me, perhaps the outcome might be better.
[to be continued...]
Tags: BIID, Depression, Disabilities, Injury, Mental Illness, Psychological, Psychotherapy, Suicide
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16 Comments
“BIID is certainly a mental illness.”
I’m going to disagree with you here.
If, as various people have claimed (and I have no reason to doubt them) it doesn’t respond to psychopharmacology or CBT or other psych therapy in all cases (rather than just in specific cases), then it’s pretty much not a mental illness.
It might be a brain difference — the way that GID is turning out to be. But that’s not a mental illness.
I mean, this is why TS people get surgical treatment — precisely because the drugs and the psych therapies don’t work.
Someone once described it as the only curable psychiatric disease — all the others are treatable, but they don’t turf the patients out never to see them again. Depression recurrs. MD-ives are on pills for life. Sociopaths are pretty much unfixable.
GID people? One set of fairly simple surgery and their GID *goes away*.
(Well. It seems simple now from five years recollection. At the time it hurt. But you know what I mean.)
Well. Isn’t that kind of freaky? The only “mental illness” where they send you to a urology surgeon and he cures it? Mmm. Can’t help but think that’s misclassified there then.
Likewise, BIID appears to be curable if the psychs decide they can’t do anything and one had better talk to a orthopaedics surgeon…
Which again, isn’t typically the hallmark of a mental illness.
3 On 10 April, 2009, Claire said:
I’m on the edge of my seat for part II. :o)
@K. You make some excellent points.
As it happened, just before turning to ta.org for a break, I was at work ploughing through a massive master’s thesis relating to the etiology of intersex conditions as well as transsexualism. This is actually part of my job; my name appears in the list of references more than once. I had stopped to ponder a graph showing a very large incidence of partial 21-hydroxylase deficiency in transsexuals. This would seem to be further evidence, besides that already existing from neuroanatomical studies, that GID is indeed best classified as an intersex condition, along the lines of 5alpha-reductase deficiency.
So absolutely, I don’t consider myself mentally ill just because I’m a hermaphrodite. And yes, I can attest to the fact that the gender dysphoria, which many hermaphrodites experience, completely disappears with surgery.
It was wild to read your comment, just as I was pondering the etiology of GID as part of my work.
However… I have no problem with being labeled as mentally ill on account of BIID if it helps me get where I need to be. I’m not disagreeing with you. It’s just semantics. I’m mentally ill in any case, so BIID not being a mental illness is not going to make me not mentally ill ;o)
Didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers. There numerous definitions and viewpoints on “mental illnesses”, as well as a wide spectrum of definitions. Each and every person on the planet can find themselves in the DSM.
Personally, I subscribe to the impact definition. That is - how does this situation/condition/impairment/whatever impact your life. If it causes a problem and has a mental component, then IMO it’s a mental “illness”. For me BIID is mental and has an severe impact on my psyche.
Of course, when discussing these things, it helps to separate the cause of the “illness” (gonna keep using the quotes here) from the treatment. Someone may become depressed by a divorce, for instance. The solution may be CBT, or SSRIs or just plain-vanilla counseling. However, in almost all cases, marriage isn’t the answer - other coping and growth mechanisms were. In this way, the cause and the solution are asymmetric.
All this aside, there are very good points being made here and I appreciate the dialog.
For reasons we need not go into here, about ten years ago I had to do a three-day psychological workup and was pronounced sane. So there, I guess. Though I have often wondered about the competence of the people who pronounced me so.
7 On 10 April, 2009, Sean said:
Mental Illness, psychological condition, I’m not too fussed about the label. I’m a bit like Lane, if it cause a problem, and has a mental component, it’s amental illness.
In the end, I don’t so much care what I am labelled. What I want, is access to surgery.
I fully understand the push of many transsexuals to have GID removed from the DSM. But there are major issues with doing that. If it’s not labelled as an “illness”, then it means funding for transition and surgery wouldn’t be available!
Probably too complicated for a discussion in comments here…
@Brice. I have never met a psychotherapist or psychiatrist who did not have major psychological issues.
Since I am neither I can, with authority, pronounce you insane.
9 On 10 April, 2009, Seth said:
I don’t care what they call it, so long as I get my solution.
@Chloe, I think they catch what their patients have got — or maybe vice versa?
11 On 11 April, 2009, Phil said:
@ Chloe and Brice:
A psychologist or psychiatrist who never has experienced a psychical problem him-/herself wouldn’t be a good counselor or therapist. One needs to know how it feels from own experience.
I think that therapists who have overcome suffering or still suffer in their souls are much more credible and understanding.
For me the label (dis-ease, ill-ness) is not important. And even the approach is not important. If they find an alternative to surgery, I would go for it. I even hope I might find an alternative path to go on my own legs.
@Phil. I totally agree that mental health care professionals are the better for having been there themselves. A rather high proportion of my friends, including my best friend, are psychotherapists. It is a not infrequent topic of discussion that their personal experience has been invaluable in their profession.
@Brice - you can’t CATCH mental illness, LOL ;)
@Phil and Chloe - you’re right, but let’s clarify what we mean by mental illness as opposed to psychological distress. I don’t think it is necessary to have suffered from one of the severe mental illnesses to be able to work well with sufferers of those conditions, but what is helpful is an awareness and ability to reflect on one’s own vulnerablities and to have a clear insight into emotional distress. That may well be from personal experience or close association with it. It’s this compassionate empathy that makes the best ‘talking therapists’ and is a quite different skill from straight psychiatry.
I can definitely relate to your feeling more comfortable with a mental illness diagnosis. People take you more seriously because without the diagnosis, it’s always a result of your own weakness, lack of will power — in other words it’s your fault. With a formal diagnosis, people are more forgiving because they understand you aren’t as in control of your emotions as they would otherwise expect you to be.
At the same time, I resent people that just want to slap a label on us without dealing with our emotions. If they just call us off as a crazy, then they don’t have to worry about why we feel the way we do. All the sudden, it’s not founded in reason, it’s just our mental illness talking.
If BIID is considered a mental illness in that it means we will all be hospitalized for life, then no thanks. If it means we will get treatment that is comparable to sexual reassignment surgery for people with GID, then by all means call it a mental illness. As long as the real way to solve the dysphoria is not lost, it doesn’t matter what technical label we give it.
I can also relate to the “I was a burden on my family - a burden had to be removed” mentality. I have contemplated suicide on that account many a time. It’s hard to know you are a burden on your family. But if it’s any consolation you are also changing the lives of others positively.
Please, guys, my observation was at least in part tongue-in-cheek, though I have certainly known enough mental-health pros, especially psychiatrists, who are in at least partial denial over their own unresolved issues. Actually I’ve reached the conclusion that everyone has the elements of craziness in them and it gets labeled mental illness when the craziness is expressed in socially unacceptable ways. On the other hand, deadly serious totally logical rational persons tend to be exceedingly dull company.
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1 On 10 April, 2009, Chloe said:
I am SO glad you are still around to share your experiences with us. I for one would love to hear all your biographical details. Don’t leave stuff out just because it seems similar to others. It IS amazing how much we share, and I am excited to read everything about you.
I embrace the “crazy” label. I think it’s actually helped in telling friends about BIID. They already think I’m a bit nuts, from OCD and stuff, so it’s like “Of course Chloe wants to be paralysed; she’s nuts anyway”.