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Do I Want To Get Cured?
Written by Tom on Monday, December 29, 2008
I have tried to get therapy for the past eleven years or so. Initially, I wasn’t quite sure why, but I felt there was something wrong in my life (other than my BIID) and I expected to discover what that was. I made several attempts with different therapists. Lately, I mentioned my desire to have my left hand amputated and I also mentioned what happened in my childhood with my father and the accident I had when I was eight that left me with a temporarily paralysed left hand and that temporarily also saved me from the sex abuse.For my therapist, this is crystal clear and my BIID is something I should be talked out of, to eventually come to realise that I can go through life happily as an ab person because what happened in my childhood was wrong and shouldn’t have happened. My therapist wants to restore things in the way they should be for me. OK, that is his role. But do I want to become “normal”? And, above all, do I want to get out of my BIID? The idea of it makes me very uncomfortable. I can’t really picture myself in such an ordinary, normal life. A normal, AB life makes me think of food without salt. No savour. My therapist’s view also makes me feel wrong and this is bad.
I have lived so far with the idea that I would become one handed one day. I have been through life with this belief, and thanks to it too. It has been my secret garden, my shelter; my protection, as well as my strength - as a secret hope of fulfillment - for all those years. But it’s not just that either. Not just the naive fantasy of the abused kid. The experience I had in my childhood may be the origin, and there may be a lot of wrong in it, but the image of myself as a one handed person is there anyway, and I like it. Do I want it changed? Do I want it cured? No.
My last interview with my therapist, two days ago, left me rather upset. I don’t want to be “normalized”. I don’t want to be made into a straightforward, ordinary guy. I would like support with my BIID. I don’t want my BIID to be negated. Looking at it as something I should walk away from feels like a negation of me, of my life history. Besides, can I just walk away from it altogether? I have tried that. Been there. Done that. Doesn’t work.
I want to look at it positively. Voluntarily living with a disability is an interesting challenge - even if it sounds sick to many people. Some do dangerous sports and knowingly put their health, their bodies and their lives at risk as well as others’. No one has anything to say about it, this is socially accepted. An acquaintance of mine has done para gliding for many years until the day it went wrong. He didn’t die, he is not even physically handicapped, but he is in constant pain and he has turned insane. Of course, he no longer works, he is unable to. And he has become a heavy burden for his wife and four children. The whole family is shattered. He is a dead weight for society too. And this is perfectly alright, totally accepted. How can anyone judge me if I want to be one handed, in those conditions? Living with a handicap makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. Especially as I would continue to support myself as I’ve always done.
I saw a documentary on TV about Sadhus in India. They are religious people living naked, homeless and pursuing holiness. One of them had decided to offer a personal sacrifice to his God: not using one of his legs for a period of two years. So he used crutches to get around (and they always move, they travel across India all year round). The idea here is: could I turn my condition of BIID “victim” into a positive choice?
There are also disabled people who say their lives have improved after they became disabled - voluntarily or not.
If I could readily loose my hand, would I do it? Sure ! No problem. Do I sometimes have doubts about this? Yes, I do, often. No one can set off to the unknown in total confidence without support and knowing that there is no way back. I am pretty confident I would have no practical problems, having practiced so much for so many years while pretending.
Being disabled is perceived as being diminished. Disabled people are most often denied access to happiness, to well being, to love, to pleasure. They are disabled, hence they must suffer, they must be sad, they can’t do anything useful or valuable in their lives, etc. True enough, there are many disability that cause a lot of pain and unhappiness and this is very sad. But this is not what I’m after.
I have seen a number of one handed or one armed people over the years. Not a great many, perhaps fifteen or twenty. I could make a precise count, I remember every one of them. I remember every one of them because I was always so fascinated and envious. Some had a bare stump, some wore a sock to cover it, some had a split hook or a plain hook, some had a mechanical hand covered with a leather glove, some had more or less lifelike cosmetic prosthesis… Some where visibly self-conscious, perhaps they where recent amputees, but most seemed just fine with their difference.
If I had a stump at the end of my forearm, I would be very proud of it. And I would take pride into doing things single handedly too (as well as one handedly:)). I would take pride if people said about me “it makes no difference, he really makes us wonder why we need to have two hands!”
Therapy? I don’t want to get cured. If I had to get cured, then the therapy would have to address my love for BIID and to establish good reasons why I should no longer live by it. It is hard to live with BIID, but in the meantime, I feel I’m much better off with it than without it.
November 16th, 2008
Tags: Abuse, Amputation, BIID, Therapy
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7 Comments
For me the cure is nothing less than surgery. Until then I will still have BIID. I await the start of my own therapy to see whether my therapist falls into the same trap as yours, Tom. I somehow suspect he will, however well meaning he may be.
I can accept that my need is irrational. It defies logic. But many, many things in life do just that and society does not abhore them. Chloe’s example being a case in point. We do not encourage people to behave recklessly because of the risk of accident, yet we admire those who race cars professionally, climb precipices, junp out of aircraft and so on. That defies logic too.
3 On 29 December, 2008, Sean said:
I think the idea of normalisation is an important one here. I encountered that myself not long ago. The shrink wanted to normalise me, according to his own bias, rather than work with me/for me towards appeasing the anguish. Normalisation is not the answer.
As for people with disabilities being happy after their injury… Studies show that approximately 80% of people with spinal cord injuries, 5 years post injury, say their quality of life is equal to, or better than before injury…
Which parameters did those studies take into account to assess quality of life? Was that mentionned? I’d be interested to know. Can you give us some pointers, Sean?
5 On 29 December, 2008, Sean said:
Tom, you can see references to those studies here:
medical bias against disabilities (or not actually link if the system eats the link: http://biid-info.org/Medical_and_societal_bias_against_disabilities )
7 On 30 December, 2008, Sean said:
I fixed it :)
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1 On 29 December, 2008, Chloe said:
The idea of being cured is rather confusing to me. It is something I have not really been able to bend my mind around. What would it mean? There are so many memories that have the imprint of my BIID. How do I relate to those memories if I no longer have BIID? I believe that my character has been significantly influenced by BIID. I think I am a more compassionate and understanding person because of it. Do I lose that compassion if I am cured of BIID? How would it affect my relationships with PWDs? I am scared that a cure might turn out to be a psychological disaster for me. Paraplegia seems much less scary.
That’s a good point about dangerous sports. How come it is okay for me to ski in a manner which puts me at risk, yet it is not okay for me to have a spinal cord transection?
It is also interesting about that religious sect in India. I am very far from being a bible scholar. However, my partner is, so I asked her about something. She brought my attention to this: “And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish…” (Matthew 5:30).