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Post by sittingpretty on Oct 8, 2008 14:19:11 GMT -5
You guys shouldn't have invited me to post! I'm a curious girl with a big mouth, never afraid to ask if I don't know.. I warn you..
I wish I could ask this question without seeming like an insensitive attack, I'm not sure I can, but I can assure you all that I mean no harm!
Hmm, how to word this.. Alright so I'm watching Discovery Health. Along comes the guy with a severed hand, rushing into ER for medical care.. By the end of the ordeal they had come to realize the guy was a devotee (is that the proper term for someone desiring an amputee?) This was a probably a year ago, and since then Ive had plenty of time to arrive at my opinion about the whole situation. Personally, I have been exposed to some strange things in my life and someone needing to cut their arm off its perfectly acceptable to me. To each their own. Once someone gets past that initial reaction of "What the fuck, is this guys nuts?" You have to admit the guy has earned and deserves respect, even if its ever so slightly. He wanted it, He needed it, He did it. Which leads me to the pretenders, wanna be's , whatever the politically correct term is. (sheesh) Again I have nothing against someone who feels incomplete, but I don't think I have EVER heard of a pretender who went that extra step. I know there's a few stories around the Internet of people attempting to become paraplegics, but never anything to do with the spinal cord. Its just a bunch of leg wraps and muscle atrophy.
So, does anyone actually ever do it?
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Post by matisse on Oct 8, 2008 18:56:08 GMT -5
Well, the obvious issue is that there's no way to do it without putting your life in jeopardy.
By contrast, for amputation there are well settled procedures for both getting rid of a limb and also for dealing with limbs that have been cut or torn off through accidents.
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Post by dolly on Oct 8, 2008 20:05:20 GMT -5
By the end of the ordeal they had come to realize the guy was a devotee (is that the proper term for someone desiring an amputee?) noooo!!!! devotee would be the right term for someone desiring an amputee, yes. but you are really talking about someone desiring an amputation. totally different story. devotees are people who are ATTRACTED to people with disabilities. that's what the whole paradevo board is about. we ( the ladies and gay men of paradevo) are attracted to MEN with disabilities. pretenders pretend. wannabes "want to be". but that's not what devotees are. claire has BIID (medical term for wannabe-ism) as well... but the reason she comes to paradevo is because she is also a dev. (she's attracted to men in wheelchairs) she's the only one of us i know of that travels in the other circles, so she may be able to answer your main question.
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Post by Claire on Oct 8, 2008 21:49:53 GMT -5
Matisse is right. You can't do it without running serious risk of death or some injury that you *didn't* want (like quadriplegia, or a TBI). I have known people desperate enough to try, but honestly I don't feel comfortable discussing what they did in public. Suffice to say that it didn't work, and they ended up with only a little paralysis, and a whole world of nerve pain, and they lived to reflect with chagrin upon their own stupidity and the lack of resources to help those of us who get to that point.
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Post by sittingpretty on Oct 8, 2008 23:09:26 GMT -5
Yeah Dolly I wasnt so sure they were callde devo's but I dont really know much about the amputation side of things, and those guys are definitly devoted to 'their' cause.
I guess I can understand the general health concern. Stupid of me to not think of it, but I suppose being alive, I tend to forget just how it easy it can be to die.
One more question claire. Of the people you know.. would you say there are more people desiring to be a para or quad?
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Post by Claire on Oct 9, 2008 8:23:46 GMT -5
From what I've seen, more people with BIID need to be paras than quads. I don't hear from them much because they don't tend to hang out where pretenders congregate...since they can't really pretend. Lots of depression among the ones that I've met. (Edited to add: Also, people who need paralysis of any type tend not to hang out in the BIID places because they're very amputee-centric. ) The level of paraplegia needed can be all over the map. Higher, lower, complete, incomplete, loss of bladder/bowel/sexual control, or not...it's all over the place. Blindness and deafness too, not just paralysis and amputation. There's a study going on right now for people with BIID who need something other than amputation, maybe we'll know more when that comes out. (And, incidentally... PLEASE PARTICIPATE if anyone reading this is among this group). If you're curious about this subject, this Newsweek article is a good place to start. Then, Transabled.
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Post by roger888 on Oct 10, 2008 1:30:53 GMT -5
Hmm, how to word this.. Alright so I'm watching Discovery Health. Along comes the guy with a severed hand, rushing into ER for medical care.. By the end of the ordeal they had come to realize the guy was a devotee (is that the proper term for someone desiring an amputee?) This was a probably a year ago, and since then Ive had plenty of time to arrive at my opinion about the whole situation. Personally, I have been exposed to some strange things in my life and someone needing to cut their arm off its perfectly acceptable to me. To each their own. Once someone gets past that initial reaction of "What the f*ck, is this guys nuts?" You have to admit the guy has earned and deserves respect, even if its ever so slightly. He wanted it, He needed it, He did it. I think this man is incredibly selfish,he didnt give any consideration for the people who have had to clear up the mess he has made of himself.What about the time & resources lost by the health resources when they could have been treating some else?Reminds me of someone who has gone drinking all night & fallen over & broken is arm.Shows nothing but a total lack of responsibility. This might sound like a very negative,narrow minded view but over here we have something called the National Health Service which is founded by taxes out of the workers pay.Anyone seen to waste this service unnecessarily usually gets heavily criticised.You might argue that everyone pays into this so they can do what they like or if they are insured they can get private health care.Only problem is,what if the health care they receive through self harming is more than they have paid in?They might be able to cover the treatment through insurance but then that contributes in a small way to everyones premiums going up. Very good thread,never knew there were people like that who would go to those lengths to feed a fetish.
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Post by E on Oct 10, 2008 7:42:31 GMT -5
Reminds me of someone who has gone drinking all night & fallen over & broken is arm.Shows nothing but a total lack of responsibility. This is why I always remain seated while drinking heavily.
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Post by Claire on Oct 10, 2008 8:36:24 GMT -5
I think this man is incredibly selfish,he didnt give any consideration for the people who have had to clear up the mess he has made of himself.What about the time & resources lost by the health resources when they could have been treating some else?Reminds me of someone who has gone drinking all night & fallen over & broken is arm.Shows nothing but a total lack of responsibility. This might sound like a very negative,narrow minded view but over here we have something called the National Health Service which is founded by taxes out of the workers pay.Anyone seen to waste this service unnecessarily usually gets heavily criticised.You might argue that everyone pays into this so they can do what they like or if they are insured they can get private health care.Only problem is,what if the health care they receive through self harming is more than they have paid in?They might be able to cover the treatment through insurance but then that contributes in a small way to everyones premiums going up. Very good thread,never knew there were people like that who would go to those lengths to feed a fetish. Roger, yours is a popular sentiment, but unfortunately that opinion is based on a lack of information about just what exactly BIID is. BIID stands for Body Integrity Identity Disorder. It's the desire for amputation of a limb (or paralysis, or blindness or deafness). Dr. Michael First of Columbia University is an eminent psychiatrist who is the editor of the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- this is the bible of reference for psychiatrists and psychologists throughout the world). One does not become the editor of the DSM is one is nobody in the field. Dr. First conducted one of the first in-depth studies of BIID with main objective of determining what type of disorder BIID is. His study, entitled Desire for amputation of a limb: paraphilia, psychosis, or a new type of identity disorder concluded that it is NOT a fetish (or a psychosis). The word "paraphilia" means a sexual disorder, or a fetish. His conclusion was that it is not a paraphilia, but an identity disorder. It is much like Gender Identity Disorder in that we feel that we were born into the wrong body. There are some sexual elements to some people (not all) with BIID, but the underlying disorder is not essentially sexual in nature. Dr. First's study has become so accepted and well respected by the medical community that most people now call it Body Integrity Identity Disorder, coined by Dr. First, instead of the old name "Apotemnophilia". BIID is a feeling that one's body is wrong, that the body that one inhabits doesn't "fit". Most people are aware of these feelings at a very young age: from as young as 3 years old (my own first memory dates back to age 5). *Nothing* sexual about it at age 3, or 5. Generally it starts as a mild curiosity and grows in intensity throughout one's life. You feel like your body doesn't belong to you...or more specifically, your arm, or your leg. It becomes an obsession, because you can never get rid of that feeling that your physical self is *wrong*. Depending on its severity, it can effect nearly every moment of your life. You feel you NEED to be rid of your affected limb (or sense) in order to be able to function normally, mentally and emotionally. It takes up too much of your attention so that you can't fully concentrate on anything else...like your work, or your children. Most people with BIID suffer from depression which doesn't respond well to treatment. A psychiatrist recently told a friend of mine that he felt that only resolving BIID would finally resolve his lifelong depression. BIID doesn't respond to any medication -- cocktails of drugs have been tried, anti-psychotic medication, antidepressants, drugs that treat OCD -- nothing works. BIID doesn't respond to "talk therapy" or cognitive behavioral therapy. It is known as an " essentially untreatable condition". Drs. VS Ramachandran and Paul McGeogh are behavioral neurologists who work at the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California San Diego. They have found compelling evidence that BIID is neurological in nature and stems from a congenital problem with the part of the brain that processes body image. You can find this information in the Newsweek article, and also here, and here. I actually participated in this study. BIID is not a whim, a fetish, a decision that one has made. It's not being selfish. It is a very serious mental illness, probably arising from birth from a neurological irregularity in the brain, that can and has resulted in death through suicide or botched attempts to make your body feel "right". In countries like yours where medicine is socialized, people with BIID already take up resources that taxpayers pay into, trying ineffectively to rid themselves of this intense, obsessive longing. Years of drug and talk therapy, totally ineffective and completely wasted. And yet, we have to try, don't we? Make no mistake, mental illness carries a very large social and personal cost (important link, please read this one if you don't read any others). No one makes the choice to be mentally ill. Mental illness is REAL and it is disabling. In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act defines "disability" as a physical or mental impairment. There is one other thing to consider. There is a small but vocal population of people with BIID who have actually acquired their desired impairment (most of these are amputations -- as Matisse said, it's "easier" to amputate a limb than to injure your spinal cord). These people unanimously report that when the offending limb was amputated, they were finally freed, and cured of BIID. The experience a mental freedom that they never knew before. No regrets, except to not have done it sooner. They become happier and more productive individuals. They can get on with their lives, no looking back. They are not a drain on society...they CEASE to be drains on society and contribute more to it! If you wish to question these people I can put you personally in contact with them, or you can simply join the " fighting_it" group in Yahoo groups and ask away. So, this "incredibly selfish" man has suffered a lifetime of mental torture, has probably experienced depression and lack of productivity and seen various psychiatrists and psychologists who either told him that they had never heard of BIID and couldn't help him (I was told this FOUR times), or else tried cocktails of drugs and bombarded him with talk therapy, maybe for years, all of which did not work. He probably knew from others that if he took the steps to obtain what he needed, all this would disappear and he could get on with his life. It was a desperate act to relieve suffering, and not by any stretch of the imagination "selfishly feeding a fetish". You are right to be angry and shocked that someone would do this. I am, too. But your anger shouldn't be directed at the man who suffers from BIID. You can direct your anger towards the fact that so far, there have been very few attempts by the medical community to try to understand and treat BIID. And while understanding of the condition is growing, still no one knows how to treat it.
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Post by roger888 on Oct 10, 2008 12:25:43 GMT -5
Claire, Thanks for the detailed explanation,that was helpful.Can't say that I'm angry about someone like that,takes a lot to make me angry My first thought was for the people around a case like this who have to pick up the pieces & the psychological damage they are exposed to.Its a small part of the issue but that's what encouraged me to contribute to this thread.
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Post by matisse on Oct 10, 2008 13:40:18 GMT -5
His actions however were selfish and self-centered. His actions FORCED others to get involved. Many people were involved in the event. There were people at the hospital, those who drove him there (whether ambulance or friends car), blood clean up at the scene. He may not be able to help how he feels, but he is in charge of what he does. I saw a portion of a documentary on the limb stuff that my wife was watching. This stuff is well documented enough that some standard medical organizations in Europe will actually do the surgery once they have spent enough time to diagnose the problem. However the show focused on people who have a very severe negative reaction to a limb, which seems somewhat different than wannabes, who can live a fairly normal life without surgery.
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Post by Sean on Oct 10, 2008 17:07:41 GMT -5
There are 2 different issues here- the disorder and the action. <snip> He may not be able to help how he feels, but he is in charge of what he does. Hello Faith, you're right, to a point. There are two issues. In fact, there are three. There's the disorder, there's your "disability status", and there are your actions. I have BIID. I can do nothing about the fact that I have BIID. I have accepted that, and shed guilt and shame, after a very long time. I need to be a paraplegic. I am not a paraplegic. That's my disability status. I am unable to accept my AB'ness, the Godess knows I've worked hard at it. And then, there are my actions. For instance, I live as a wheelchair user. Have done for a long time. More than a quarter of my life. If I had a relatively safe and "guaranteed" way to self-injure. I would. It would have an impact on me, obviously, and on my family and friends, and even on society and the medical system. On that basis, you would probably accuse me of being selfish. You would probably say I could control my actions. Please don't forget that this is a MENTAL ILLNESS, which cannot be mitigated by medication or psychotherapy. The only known way to make it go away is to become an amputee, or paraplegic, etc. Right now, I have a negative in impact on my life, and that of my family and friends and colleagues, and even on society and the medical system. I cost society for treating me for my chronic and severe depression related to BIID. I cost my colleagues because they have to pick up the slack when I'm too ill to go in to work. And the impact on my family is harsh. And this has been the case for DECADES. So, were I to be able to become a para, this action that is admitedly primarily for me would see a reduction of the burden I cause on everyone. I saw a portion of a documentary on the limb stuff that my wife was watching. This stuff is well documented enough that some standard medical organizations in Europe will actually do the surgery once they have spent enough time to diagnose the problem. However the show focused on people who have a very severe negative reaction to a limb, which seems somewhat different than wannabes, who can live a fairly normal life without surgery. Matisse, how do you describe a "normal" life? I wouldn't describe my life as normal. But that's another topic entirely Would you be able to give more info about this outfit? I've never heard of it and would be interested in researching it more. Thanks
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Post by matisse on Oct 10, 2008 18:09:31 GMT -5
Sean, unfortunately I don't recall any specifics about the show, other than a vague recollection that the amputations were being done in England. The show was probably on one of those discovery channel or medical miracle type of channels that chicks seem to like.
For the "normal," I don't really have anything to add.
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Post by sittingpretty on Oct 10, 2008 20:27:48 GMT -5
The guy on tv wanted to lose his wrist and hand. He did the job himself in his kitchen. He went to the ER where they treated the wound. He said he had lost his hand in the lawnmower blades.?? I dont remember the details of the story but the doctors were very interested in retrieving his hand from his house and getting it back on, the guy said 'no this, no that'. Someone went to his house, found the hand and realized this was a forced effort. The doctors back in the ER got wind of it all, and were pretty upset with the guy for wasting there time and not just being upfront. I dont remember the exact ending but the guy left without his hand.
They never mentioned the end results nor did they spend much time on the disorder.. It was one of those Untold Stories Of the E.R. tales...
If that helps clear up the (un)selfish acts.
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Post by Ouch on Oct 10, 2008 20:36:56 GMT -5
Sean- My issue is not with wanting to be disabled or even doing so. If that man wants to mutilate is arm, it is his body and he has a right to do that. I don't care if he gets a tattoo, dyes his face purple, burns his skin or cuts off his arm. It is his choice. My problem comes when his decision involves others who probably don't want to be involved. I am guessing none of the people at the plant (or wherever the machine was where he did this to his arm), or the person who drove him to the hospital or the workers who fixed it up, really wanted to participate. If he, or anyone who wants to disable their body, can do so with only those who want to freely participate in the event- then that is fine. But, yes, I would consider selfish when someone puts their need to disfigure themselves above the need for others who do not want to be a part of it. Again... just my opinion. Faith, food for thought? At least as I understand from what others have said: it is only being as selfish as someone asking for help from bystanders after being shot several times and needing assistance and transport to the nearest hospital. The compulsion becomes so powerful that it becomes like instinct for them to injure. Like taking your hand away to avoid being burnt after sticking it too close to a flame, or a hot surface.
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