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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Breaking Point

Breaking Point

Written by Sean on Thursday, August 11, 2005

And once again I am falling on that merry-go-round ride of the (in)famous transabled attack! Ahh, things aren’t so happy on that front. I’m hanging on, but my thoughts are definitely turning in that direction. I heard somewhere it only takes 8 pounds of sideways pressure to bust the knee. How much would it take to snap the spine, I wonder?

Having done quite a bit of butchery work (not slaughter, just straight out working on carcasses), I’ve had the occasion to cut through spines/spinal cords of a variety of animals, from smallish lambs to biggish beef. Looking at vertebrae in those animals, I learned it wouldn’t be all that easy to try to stab oneself in the back and actually get the cord. I’m not entirely convinced it would be easy to manage to break one’s spine the way you break up a lamb’s spine, by bending it over the corner of the workbench, and pushing on each side. There’s a trick to it, and it’s not *that* difficult, but it isn’t easy either. It takes practice. And you aren’t stimmied in your work by such details as skin, internal organs, etc.

And of course, you can’t practice on yourself until you get your SCI right! Liable to do serious damage. That wouldn’t be good, now, would it?

But then, I’ve grown tired of this roller coaster. I’m not suicidal (not now anyway), but I’m less and less certain that suffering through this continual and continuing emotional pain is worth it. Perhaps it would be worth risking death to achieve an SCI.

Of course… Of course, it’s not just death one risks, is it? While I don’t believe that disabilities are a fate worse than death, I’m not sure I’d be happy ending up with a traumatic brain injury instead of a spinal cord injury (or on top of!). Yeah, I’d adapt, but I’d still likely be fighting my transabled demons, on top of dealing with the rest. Not quite the reduction of emotional pain I’m aiming for, eh?