Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > Wanting to Do Violence Towards my Legs
Wanting to Do Violence Towards my Legs
Written by Sean on Monday, December 22, 2008
I was watching television last night, as we often do. I was in the recliner. I was rubbing my left toes against my right ones, almost unconsciously, as I seem to be doing a lot in recent months. And suddenly, I was overhwelmed with wanting to do severe harm to my legs.
I couldn’t really concentrate on the show on the screen. I had internal visions of breaking my legs with a sledgehammer, of pulverising my feet in a 5 tonne press, of mangling my knees between two cars’ bumpers. I wondered how much force it would take to actually break my knees, considering it only takes about 5 pounds of sideways pressure to start doing damage. I saw my legs bloody and gorey and mashed all to smithereens.
I suddenly was angry, and feeling violent towards my legs.
This never happened to me before.
I don’t hate my legs. They just are. I wish they were paralysed. No more, no less.
But last night… Last night an unexpected wave took over me. I have no idea what the trigger was. And it wasn’t about becoming an amputee, or paraplegic either. It was about simply doing as much damage as could possibly be done.
It went away relatively quickly, within a few minutes. I’m a bit flummoxed.
Last night, the entire night was invaded by nightmare after nightmare. I woke up remembering some of them, and made a point of attempting to remember them, but of couse now I don’t. I know I was in deep sleep though. It took me nearly 30 minutes to pull myself out of the morass, when I’m usualy just up and awake instantly. And I’d had about 8 hours of sleep so should have been fine.
Tags: Amputee, Angry, Hate, Legs, Paralysed, Violence
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3 Comments
I liken it to the times I have stood on train platforms and fought the urge to step under a speeding train, or on bridges and other high places (the battlements of ancient castles come to mind for some reason) and resisted jumping off.
These thoughts can become habitual and don’t reflect actual intent; they’re a bit like reflexes.
Yeah- I’ve also had these thoughts a lot. It’s a common thing that I can ignore most of the time. Sometimes it gets out of control though- Once I was really angry at something that happened at work, and as I was leaving I got this urge to drive (motorbike) into the carpark wall so I did- well, at least I tried to, skidded on some ice and crashed into the ground…. picked the bike up and ‘limped’ it home…. Felt better though…
I’m a parent these days, so I need to keep my self-destructive urges in check..
Oh yeah- I’ve also courted the ‘knees between car bumper’ sort of accident, but I’m always in the wrong place at the wrong time…*sigh*!! I suppose it wouldn’t be great for the driver, but if they were driving that badly what can you do?
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1 On 23 December, 2008, Chloe said:
I have had these kind of thoughts a LOT for most of my life. It started when I was around 11 or 12 years old. A friend of mine told me about his older cousin who had his knees mangled between car bumpers. It seemed to me that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I had become somewhat disillusioned about my abilities to make myself paraplegic, so I was wondering about other ways to screw up my legs. Ever since then, whenever I have walked between car bumpers I have paused momentarily, tempting fate. Nothing ever happened.
I couldn’t recount the myriad ways I have thought of my legs getting screwed up. None of them could possibly replace paralysis for me, but sometimes I wonder if something would be better than nothing.
The most frequent fantasy along these lines that just spontaneously comes into my mind has nothing to do with my legs. Suddenly I will imagine chopping off my left hand with an axe. This happens several times a day. Once the imaginary deed is done I can get right back to what I was doing. It’s a bit odd since I don’t actually want my left hand amputated.
I treat such thoughts simply as something that my brain does. I’m not bothered by it.