New member saying hello

[Guest]

Thank you, Triassic.

[BA]

Touche' Triassic. You are right.

[E]

Triassic said:

Is a pre or post-op transexual a liar.

If he has a penis and then tells someone he is a woman, then yes. That's kind of a silly question, isn't it?

[BA]

Touche, Eric, you are right too!

See what I mean? This gets way too deep and every person who gives a cogent thought out response is going to be right in their own way. Bottom line is that I do not think someone with BIID of any type can help "fix" who they are.

But is it a pretender that has BIID or a wannabe? Is a pretender more like a cross-dresser and a wannabe more like a pre-op transexual? Hmmmm. I wish someone who was actually going through this, aka a wannabe would explain some more about this. I could do with being more informed and less judgemental.

[jenny]

AB, I would guess given the response this guy that got most wannabes who visit this board are lurking.

[obscure]

I think you would be fairly correct in that assumption, jenny. I believe that I did "come out" as a wannabe in a post quite a few months ago, but as you all know I have been mostly in hiding up until rather recently. To be honest, I had the fear of having the same thing happen to me that happened to this poor guy. I completely understand that this is a touchy subject, especially in a board such as this one where many individuals who frequent the forum are victims of a spinal chord injury who probably couldn't understand in the slightest why anyone would wish to bring something of that nature upon themselves. It's already been shown that many individuals don't feel especially open to hearing about the thoughts or experiences of a wannabe. In fact, I personally know that the original poster of this thread feels completely run off the board for the way that his simple "coming out" was taken.

What you or anyone else wants to know, AB, I would try to answer to the best of my ability. Given that you're the psychiatric nurse around these parts though, you're the one with the fancy terms and the book knowledge of an experinece that I know as nothing more than my life. I certainly don't mean to insult or belittle the experiences of anyone else through my desires. I suppose I can see how a person could take my wishes the wrong way after going through the hell of hospital stays, rehabilitation, home rennovations, and the looks and stares that are surely received every time they go out into the open.

I think the biggest misconception I have seen in this post is the idea that wannabes want the attention that goes along with a visual disability. That couldn't be any further from the truth, as far as I'm concerned. I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again: I would be just as satasfied and happy with being locked up in my home as a paraplegic as I would being out in the open for everyone to see. It isn't about others acknowledging me or treating me as such, it's about me feeling like one.

When I live in the body that I've been given, certainly full of imperfections but not the ones that I want, I feel incomplete. Like there's something incorrect about the very body that I'm living in. It's a painful thing to feel a stranger in your own body. I'm sure many of you can relate; I'm sure quite a few of you felt like this after your injury. To look down at your body and wonder, "What the hell IS this?" That's how I feel every day of my life.

[E]

I see a difference between pretenders and wannabees, though the two can overlap. A pretender, to me, does not desire to be permanently disabled whereas a wannabee, a sufferer of BIID, certainly does. In my posts, I've been specifically referring to pretenders.

I have nothing but the highest level of compassion for sufferers of BIID. And I say sufferers because I do view it as a mental condition that is SUFFERED from. I've heard someone suggest therapy, but I'm not sure enough information on BIID exists to formulate effective treatment. I don't know the solution. I don't know the cure. I just know that it must be awful.

I know that sufferers of BIID do cross over into the "pretender" realm in an effort to feel more comfortable. I understand the reasoning. But, for me, it doesn't change the deceptive reality. I don't condone it any more than I do an alcoholic, who suffers from the disease of alcoholism, getting wasted each night and affecting those around him, or a drug addict stealing to feed his disease, or a pedophile abducting a child, or a nymphomaniac using a man, or me, in a state of chemical depression, driving my chair into the pool with the seatbelt on. You see, all of these people have mental conditions they battle with that they undoubtedly wish would go away, but the results of those conditions remains a problem. The alcoholic, the drug addict, the pedophile, the nympho, and the depressed gimp all wish they could stop.

Granted, sufferers of BIID aren't hurting people NEARLY as bad when they pretend... and that's almost how you can say it's okay, but the truth is that lying is wrong. Deception is bad, and there's no way around that. I can understand why. My heart goes out, but sympathy does not, and should not, equal approval.

[obscure]

As far as I'm concerned, we each tell ourselves lies every day as a way of making the world around us more bearable.

[fabo23]

Hey what's up everybody new wheeler say hi. I was browsing online and I ran into this site and I decided to give it a try to see what the devo world is like. Well I'm 22 Hispanic i have Cerebral Palsy I've been in a wheelchair all my life I'm currently a student. well that's about it I hope there's devogirls out there that like guys with CP cause most of them seem to like Quads more not that is bad but most of them do so any devo chicks lthat like vatos with CP drop me line.

Pretty boy

[obscure]

Wow, what a completely improper place to make an introduction.

[Cake]

Um...yeah so much about perfect timing.

E, I totally agree with you - except the last part of your post, because
obscure, I believe you're right, too.

I'll ask a provocative question now (and it's provocative on purpose):
Why is lying such a bad thing?

[BA]

obscure, I am glad you are out and I've gotten to know you via posts as a very intelligent and lovely person. I want to make it clear that being a Psych. Nurse gives me NO CLAIM whatsoever on the workings of other people's hearts and minds. (I have often been loathe to say what I do for a living, lest someone feel "analyzed", I HATE that. I am not a Psychiatrist. I work with teens who have eating disorders and other self-destructive behaviors. I am certainly no expert in BIID, only what I have read in textbooks, which is very little..... so YOUR experience is where I can gain my understanding and knowlege.

In other words, obscure, you feel like you are in the wrong body? Have you always felt this way? I know other people have spoken about this topic on the board before, specifically Sean, but actually never a female.

I am sorry that people have been run off this board.
I understand how some of the injured/disabled people on this board can't swallow this whole concept, because they'd give their eye teeth to get back what you wish to lose.
I understand how it feels to be a dev and to think of that as "deviant", tho' I am much better with where I am at now than I was a few years ago (thanks to here).

[obscure]

I've felt this way for as long as I can remember, AB, yes. I remember playing "doctor" as a child, but the entire game held such a twisted concept for me. I ALWAYS wanted to play that specific game because it made me feel... more alive somehow. I don't know how to think back to my childish mind, but I know that when I was finding ways to immobolize myself and act out these secret fatasies that even then I had some idea were wrong, I felt right. It was humiliating in some ways. I cried so often because of it. People thought I was a great actress because I was this poor little "injured" girl crying for her "hurts." But really I was crying because it was something so profound that made me feel so right and I knew from then the negative connotations. It was an injury. It was bad. It was something to be healed from. And that wasd never anything I wanted with it.

As I became older, I still had no personal experience with immobolizing injuries. I had no physically disabled friends. Hell, I never had a friend who broke a bone and wore a cast. But still, I continued to act on these desires that I knew I had. My sister and I played soccer at the time, and I would take our shin guards and place them on either side of my kneecaps to lock them straight and keep me from bending them. I would take my father's ACE bandages and bind them up as tightly as I possibly could so I couldn't move my knees at all. It was such a good feeling, so much more right for me. Often I went to bed this way. I always fell asleep so much BETTER when my legs were immobolized.

When I was about 12 or 13 I discovered a site of people who were pretenders of leg casts. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was good enough. When I entered the chatroom, I was literally laughed straight off of it for being as young as I was. People told me there was no way in hell that I could possibly have these interests at 13, and I wasn't "mature" enough to understand. I felt like something in me completely shut down.

I tried so hard to deny it for a long time then, I tried to "forget" about it, to make it go away completely. That's pretty much the stage that I'm still at right now. But the problem is, I can't. I never do. I never do forget about it at all.

A friend and I roleplay to each other, not centered around sex but rather more in the way of creating a collaborative story. Or acting, without having to actually be a good actor -- just a good writer. I always play a disabled character, and I always feel so good about it.

Every single night when I go to bed, I imagine myself in some scenerio as a disabled person. EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. It settles me. It makes me feel so good. The best thing that can happen is me having a dream where I am disabled, because it just feels so RIGHT.

[Claire]

Thanks, obscure, for the tip to check out this thread.

I see many misconceptions, some understanding.

First, you can't "get help" for BIID. I have seen two therapists and both had never heard of it. The psychotherapist referred me to a psychologist, and the psychologist told me it was "too marginal" and there was nothing she could do. She then referred me to a psychiatrist who I haven't seen yet. There is little research on it, and what has been done has been inconclusive. I do know of a study being done at UCSD in which they are looking at it from a neurological (as opposed to psychological) point of view. But for now, there are no known psychological therapies, nor drugs, nor any other treatment that will alleviate BIID symptoms save two. Those two are: 1) pretending, for temporary relief, and 2) actually achieving the desired disability. I have yet to talk to a para wannabe who's done this, but know several successful amputee wannabes and in every case, once they acheived their desired disability, the obsession went away, they achieved a level of mental peace that they never before experienced, and have no regrets. There has been a documentary on this, most of you will have heard of it, I'm sure. It's called "Whole" and it outlines the journeys of these wannabes, how they acheived their amputation and what they felt afterwards.

The problem is, it's a lot easier to blow off a leg or freeze it off with dry ice than it is to engineer an SCI at an exact location without endangering your life or incurring an injury you didn't count on. Not so easy to say "if you want to be a para, just do it!"

I can echo much of what Obscure has said. For me, this goes back to my first memories. I played at being disabled as a child. I did have contact with disabled people and I do think that had some effect on how my BIID developed, although my memories of wanting my legs not to work properly pre-date the contact I had with disabled family members. For anyone with tons of time on their hands , I go into a lot of detail about this here: transabled.org/stories/but-its-not-the-disability-i-wanted.htm

And, nearly every night, I go to bed with thoughts of being paralyzed. I have done this for decades, before I had any idea that there was another human being on this earth who had the same feelings that I did. It calms me, stills some of my inner demons, to be able to think of myself inside of the body that my mind has always told me I should have.

[obscure]

Claire, though I have yet to even check out your website (which I fully intend to do tomorrow when I have more free time to devote to the task!), I'm already in tears at how this one small post has confirmed so much of what I have thought and felt alone in for such a long stretch of time.

I have known of amputee wannabes -- they seem to be much more abundant than SCI. I've heard so many amputee success stories (and some videos of those successes I will never forget), and it almost makes me even more disgusted that it isn't something as "easily" acheived for me. I use the word "easily," of course, very reluctantly.

I've heard of many male wannabes as well, but never a female. I don't think I have ever in my life come across another female SCI wannabe who also identifies herself as a devotee. It's an experience that I've been waiting for for such a long period of time to just meet you and have the opportunity to hear your side of things. It truly makes me feel less alone for one of the first times in my life.