Comments on: BIID amputee says he’s happy.

By: Chloe

Chloe — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:44:44 +0000

I totally relate to everything Claire said. I have a physically genuine disability that, at times, necessitates assistance in getting dressed, undressed, eating, etc. It sucks! I don’t like it at all. It’s not related to paraplegia, and it doesn’t help with the BIID. If anything, it makes the BIID feelings worse because it reminds me that I have the wrong disability.

On the other hand, my back injury provided a good amount of sensory loss in my leg. I love the feeling of not having feeling there. It is a delicious, albeit small, step in the direction of paraplegia. It is absolutely worth the chronic back pain that also resulted. I do find it comforting.

By: inVivo

inVivo — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:54:03 +0000

This is a sequence from BBCs Horizon, he voice-over seems different
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/obsession_script.shtml

By: Claire

Claire — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:11:45 +0000

I concur with surrogate disability needing to be closely related to BIID. I *do* have an unwanted, physically genuine, disability, unrelated to paraplegia, and it does nothing to alleviate BIID.

However, my recent self-injury attempt, while it didn’t give me nearly as much as I needed, is somewhat related to paraplegia and I’ve been very happy with it, even the bad parts such as the unwanted chronic pain. I don’t enjoy the pain, but the small amount of mental relief it provides is more than worth the physical pain. I find comfort in it.

By: Chloe

Chloe — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:44:05 +0000

John, the idea of surrogate disabilities is very interesting from a theoretical point of view. I hadn’t even thought about it until my interview with Dr. First. He asked me about how various amputations would affect my need to be paralysed. If my right leg was amputated, I would still need my left leg to be paralysed. However, if my left leg was amputated, I think I would be happy enough with that, provided it was a complete hip disarticulation. Very curious.

However, I suspect that a surrogate disability would have to be rather closely related to the manifestation of one’s BIID. Dante’s “A Little Bit of Everything” exemplifies this rather well.

By: John

John — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:12:16 +0000

This anecdotal example, and all of the others suggest, to me, that the next study that Dr First (or others interested in this field) should consider is searching out as many BIID cases who have through intention, medical help, accident, or whatever, achieved their needed disability or something close to it. Such a study should also include those who have acquired a different disability than desired (say fingers amputated instead of a leg or a SCI instead of an amputation). My guess is that there are enough people out there who have acquired a disability intentionally to put together a decent sample size and ascertain the consequences of achieving the needed disability and whether or not ’surrogate’ disabilities satisfy the needs stemming from BIID. That would be the medically responsible thing to do.
What would be the answer? Always hard to say but every or almost every anecdote that I have read about is happy with the results (these are all amputations or deafness–still like to hear from a realized paraplegic wannabe).