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Goods damaged beyond repairability
Written by Sean on Tuesday, July 15, 2008
These last few days have been horrible. It’s been a long time for me, where life has been mostly horrible. There have been a few ups, but by and large, the median is well below "nasty". I’ve recently started wondering if actually becoming a para could fix me. Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind, the only real solution to Body Integrity Identity Disorder is surgery. But perhaps it is too late for me. Perhaps it’s gone too long and even surgery won’t provide the healing I need.
For a long time, I thought that becoming a paraplegic was not the solution. I thought that surgery would not magically erase all the problems and make everything right in the world. I still think that way, actually.
Surgery is not the be all and end all, the panacea of all our ills. But surgery is the only known way to calm the BIID demons.
I have come to this conviction after a long time of consideration, reflection, and discussion. I have discussed this with dozens of other transabled individuals. I have further discussed this with medical professionals, both physicians and mental health doctors. I am convinced beyond anything that the only way to find relief from BIID symptoms is to finally acquire the body we need.
That would at least remove the constant focus on needing to be paralysed (or deaf, or amputee, or blind, etc). It is a considerable aspect of the mental anguish we experience, and that would make us better able to function and deal with the rest!
But I wonder if for me, things are not just too late. How long can a piece of machinery can endure stress without reaching the point of "fatigue", where the parts and metal just can’t handle it anymore? Is it just too late for me?
As my late wife used to say, even if they’d found a cure for SCI’s, it would be too late for her. Maybe they could fix the spine, but that would not address the damage to her body endured after 30 years of pushing a wheelchair. Her muscles were gone, her tendons shortened and shaped wrong, her joints were buggered, etc. Her body had gone beyond repairability.
Is it such with me? Have I gone through too much pain, and anguish and mental trauma, that I am too far gone?
Surely not, because compared to other people, my life hasn’t been that bad. But to be honest, when I look at my own life, I can’t say that there’s been much happiness. Were I to graph it, the baseline would be well below "nasty". Perhaps I’m just a wimp, unable to endure what’s thrown at me. Perhaps I don’t have enough fortitude. Perhaps I’m just not good enough. Perhaps, even, for some karmic reason, I deserve to have a horrible life. Who knows? Who cares? That’s besides the point, isn’t it?
The point is, can surgery help me, or am I beyond repair? And if I’m broken beyond repair, what’s my next option? Condemned to continue going through life with this pain. Not a life, no, not a life at all.
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Tags: Anguish, BIID, Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Depression, Surgery
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8 Comments
2 On 15 July, 2008, Sean said:
It’s a good question misfitbullet. I still feel that I need to be a para, and if I was offered surgery tomorrow, I’d jump at the chance.
I didn’t say that I am sure it won’t help me. I just wonder if maybe I’m beyond “redemption”. But I won’t know until or unless I do become a para.
Sean, sometimes I wonder if you are not your own worst enemy. OK, so you’re not in a position to become a paraplegic. Maybe in five years, or fifty, BIID will be as acceptable as transgenering, and you’d be able to take that step, so to speak. Meanwhile, though, you have put together a life that you wheel through most of, where most people know you as disabled, which indeed you are, just not in the way they might think. Many if not most of us are not in a position to do anything remotely like that. If anything’s going to get damaged beyond repair, let it be your legs by staying off them entirely. It’s not paraplegia but it’s probably as close as you’ll get for a while, maybe a long while. And meanwhile, keep helping the rest of us along. I don’t know what we’d do without you.
4 On 17 July, 2008, Claire said:
And meanwhile, keep helping the rest of us along. I don’t know what we’d do without you.
Amen, brother!
Several years ago, when I was in the grip of a major suicidal depression, my psychotherapist said to me: “There is light at the end of the tunnel; but you can’t see it can you?” I said “No I can’t”. She said “Well, it’s there anyway”. At the time, I didn’t believe her; but she was right. Sure, one’s emotional pain and mental trauma is never going to be completely erased. However, I am sitting here looking out of my window where the sun is shining. I can actually see the sunshine.
Somehow I seem to accumulate friends who have major psychological issues. I go to a support group too, where people are often in the depths of despair. I cry with them, and I hug them. I let them know the parts of what they are going through that I understand. I don’t pretend to understand what I don’t. I tell them that when things seem at their worst, it usually gets better.
I cried as I read your post, Sean. And, I am blinking through the tears as I try to write this. (Don’t ever worry about making me cry. I do it a lot; all of my friends make me cry).
I understand, Sean. Almost everything that you have expressed about your thoughts and feelings I recognise in myself. If I lived closer I would come knocking on your door. You would get a really big hug. No need for words; but the tears would be rolling down my cheeks.
We care about you, Sean; and we need you.
6 On 18 July, 2008, Sean said:
Brice, you know, it’s a myth that by not using your leg you can actually lose the ability of using them.
I realise that my life situation is “better” than a lot of yours, from a “living the dream” point of view. But it’s not impossible for you to reach this stage, with a bit of work and a bit of luck. Claire herself is now wheeling daily, in public too. Two years ago, if I’d told her that was in her future, she’d have laughed at me.
Of course, if you tell me that being a para is in my future, I would be tempted to laugh at you. I just don’t see *how* that can happen. But somewhere, there is that fragment of hope. I don’t see that fragment of hope, but I think it if wasn’t there, I *would* have killed myself.
Chloe, thanks. Perhaps you can cry for me too then, because my tears have quite literally dried off. It has been a Very Long Time since I cried. Nearly 20 years, except for a short cry when my wife died. During that time, occasionaly my eyes will “water”, but it doesn’t transform itself into the catharsis of tears.
And guys (and gals), without me, you’d do just fine. I’m not indispensable ;)
Well, I’m very glad that you have hope, Sean. I am an optimist. I believe that all problems have solutions.
When I was around six years old my desire to be paralysed morphed into a sense of destiny that I would in fact become paralysed. That has never left me despite the many intervening years. I’m well aware that this is not rational (yeah, like any of this is rational!). However, I still believe that I shall be paraplegic someday. “How” and “when” sure is a mystery, but I do have hope and faith. This is comforting to me.
Hmm, this was truly unintentional, but it sounds like I’m expounding a religion doesn’t it : )
(Chloe, I got approached by a pair of Christian missionaries who were trying to convert me using my “disability”… You don’t even come close to those people. :) )
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1 On 15 July, 2008, misfitbullet said:
This is just curiosity, but what happens to how you feel about becoming injured when you believe that it can not help you with depression? What does injury hold for you?