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Hyper-hyper awareness of one’s legs
Written by Sean on Thursday, November 13, 2008
Last September in a conversation on the Yahoo! Group Fighting-It, I mentionned that I was usualy hyper-aware of my legs. Someone asked if anyone had tried "hyper-hyper-awareness", forcing onces to think of nothing else but paralysis for long periods of time.
This was an intriguing idea. I wrote about this hyper-awareness in "Fidgety legs". I more responded more in depth about what’s going on in that respect in an email to someone, where I wrote:
I am constantly aware of my legs. When I am sitting in my wheelchair,the awareness is that they are “there” and feeling and that I could, should I wish to, move them. I am also very aware of the slightest muscle clenching from my hips/buttocks all the way down. If I feel these muscle clench, I immediately relax them. This is pretty much ongoing all the time I’m in the chair, even if I do something absorbing, like carrying two bags of groceries in my lap trying to cross a busy parking lot full of potholes going uphill. I am aware of the pressure of my shoes against my feet. I am aware of the heat of my body on the cushion. I am aware of the pressure/rub of stitches along the legs of my pants. I am aware of the pressure of my socks against my calves. With each movement I make, I am aware that I would not be moving/balancing the same way were I paralysed. It’s not something I have to focus on, it’s just there, in my awareness, like a tiny pebble in your shoe would make you aware of it’s presence. It’s like that *All. The. Time.*
When I am not in my wheelchair, my legs are making themselves felt even more. If I walk, which I do at home, nearly each step reminds me I’m not paralysed. I do not hate my body nor my ability to walk. It just feels wrong.
Often in the evening, as I watch television in my recliner, or in bed before falling asleep, I find myself rubbing my feet against the rough texture of a woolen blanket. I also flick my toes against one another, or gently slap my hand against my thighs or calves to see how relaxed and/or atrophied they are. While I do that, I am wishing I couldn’t feel my legs, or that I weren’t able to move them at all. I can fully enjoy a book or a movie, or conversation, all the while being also focused on my legs.
It is as if I was compartmentalising, perhaps a skill developped over the years to allow me to still be functional in the world despite constantly feeling like a fish out of water.
I wondered if I’d be able to think only of my legs for long periods of times. At least 4 hours it was suggested. The post in question suggested to give myself the order "Now I’ll think of nothing else but paralysis for at least four hours, constantly". The idea was first put forward by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Neurologist, although not in relation to BIID.
I tried this a few times. It’s not too dissimilar from meditation, although the object is different. With meditation you try to achieve a state of non-thinking. With this, you are thinking and focusing your thoughts only on your legs. It’s harder than one would think at first. I tried about 6 sessions of 4 to 6 hours each.
I am reporting that I have not felt better, nor worse, after each of these sessions. Maybe there’s something to it, but without the guidance of someone specialising in this "technique", I didn’t get anywhere.
Tags: BIID, Neurologist, Paralysis, Therapy
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2 Comments
2 On 14 November, 2008, Claire said:
For me, concentrating on my legs makes it worse. After my recent trip to the researchers, where I was concentrating a lot on how my legs felt, I had several days of the worst BIID in a long time. That also might be because I walked, unaided, everywhere, at their request. They wanted my BIID/anxiety level up so that they could study it. (That was perfectly fine by me, btw…I’m just mentioning that it DID go up!). My BIID level has constantly been up since that trip. Perhaps that’s why wheeling helps so much, because I don’t have to think about my legs at all, not even subconsciously.
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1 On 13 November, 2008, Gordo said:
I often feel the same way too. That’s why, after wheeling for a few hours, when my feet start to get cold and numb due to inactivity, I actually welcome that because I’d feel less of my lower body that way. And it becomes hard to even move anything below my waist due to that inactivity.
So it seems that the longer I wheel, the more “realistic” I look/feel, compared to a paraplegic.