New member saying hello

[wannabesgoaway]

jenny said:

For those guys who are pissed at the whole thing, think about this regards wannabes - you all have what the other wants.

Not true. They don't want my life. They want a fantasy.

[wannabesgoaway]

jenny said:

Nor have you.

I earn it every fucking day. Every single fucking day and night.

[jenny]

Wow. You're a very angry guy. Are you normally this angry when you post under your usual name and just hide it better? Is any of this making you feel any better? What kind of a reaction are you really hoping for with all this?

[obscure]

I'm going to tell you something that you probably don't get told very often. Being in a chair and all, I'm sure that most people around you treat you as though you're made of glass. They tiptoe around you for fear of saying the wrong thing and setting off your absolute tirade of harsh emotions that are really a cover for how miserable and pathetic you are. But here I go:

GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF.

You are not an incredible human being. You have not overcome more strife than the rest of the general population. You are not a survivor for simply having overcome a debilitating injury, and you do NOT deserve any special treatment because you live your life a full foot shorter than the average person.

[jenny]

Oh brother. Fubb, the other guy (I'm guessing Rollin), I have to tell you, other people know what it's like to have a Life Before and a Life After, with the two of them bearing no resemblance to the other, changed forever in one cataclysmic moment.

Do you really think you're the only ones who've lost everything in one single second? It happens every minute of every day.

[Cake]

jenny said:

Oh brother. Fubb, the other guy (I'm guessing Rollin), I have to tell you, other people know what it's like to have a Life Before and a Life After, with the two of them bearing no resemblance to the other, changed forever in one cataclysmic moment.

Do you really think you're the only ones who've lost everything in one single second? It happens every minute of every day.

Hell, yes. You're so right jenny...

[obscure]

Fubb, I HAVE heard of AIDS wannabes before, believe it or not. People who intentionally poke themselves with used needles or subject themselves to sex with as many individuals as possible in the hopes of contracting the condition.

[Pony]

....i don't think Fubb is saying that we are "special" in any way, but that anybody who WANTS, DESIRES, to trade places with someone paralyzed, who, by the way, usually loses bladder control, sensation of your genitals, simple functions and much greater risks for pressure sores that sometimes land them in bed for a year or more is just not understanding the significance of being paralyzed, and i'm leaving a ton of other stuff out, especially if you're a quad.

As for "Wannabesgoaway", yes, he's angry and beligerant, but he's obviously in great HELL, and the fact that somebody WANTS, DESIRES this because it's an unrealistic image they fantasize about makes the dude's blood boil.

I'm not angry at all, and enjoy my life immensely, but i pay an enormous price everyday for the wreck i had years ago. And until you have to be dressed everyday, face crazy frustration with everything from losing your balance to your hand spasming as you type this with a pen in your hand, then you don't realize what you WANT, ACTUALLY DESIRE...

The wannabes are ok with me coz, hey, it's NOT something they are choosing. And i don't believe in hurting someone for being who they are. But i thought Flubber said it right.

[BA]

OK, obscure, THAT is a very new one to me. I am SO trying to understand these facets of human behavior. I work with self-destructors every day of my life. I understand the motivations behind anorexia and bulimia and "cutters". I also understand, to some extent the Munchausen (sp?) Syndrome - but wanting to contract AIDS?

Let me both ask you, obscure and Claire, with my mind as open as possible, what has stopped you from achieving your "goal" at this point? I am by no means condoning it, because it tears at my ethics completely, but if you want something so badly, why can't you just somehow "get it done"?

...and now the other part of me is saying DON'T! and WHY?

[obscure]

Did any of you actually read a damn thing we've said here?

[BA]

I cannot possibly get inside a wannabe's mind, I can only imagine the torture you must feel within yourself on a daily basis. I understand that this is something that you do not want to have to feel. I also think that some of the posters are confusing BIID with "pretending" and while I do think they have some relationship to eachother, I think BIID is quite a different ballgame all together. It cannot be helped. If you think you would feel finally at home in your own body if you were paralyzed, then isn't there a way to just self inflict this?

Well, I guess I have stopped making sense this whole thing is making me queasy and I think as open minded as I am, it is time for me to move on to another post because I am having just such a tough time emotionally with this topic.

Perhaps then people with BIID are best supported by others who have the same feelings. It is such a controversial and loaded issue for many of us for lots of different reasons. It doesn't mean I wish to run you off the board. It just means, I need to take a break from reading the thread for awhile because I can't offer my support in any way other than to say, "I feel for you and don't know how to understand what you are experiencing".

[obscure]

AB, I think that's an excellent question, and the response is something of an embarrassment to me. Being disabled is something that I want to the point of inflicting it upon myself if that is the only way to obtain it. However, I see physical disability as the end aim in a long laundry list of things I need to change about myself in order to feel more of who I ought to be. It's the ultimate end result in the transformation to becoming the person that I want to be.

The first and most pressing, and the true singular thing that is holding me back from my goal of being disabled right now is my weight. You've seen my picture, AB. I'm no "SIF" because it's no secret that I am fat. Obese, actually. And you want to know something that'll really blow your mind? Try to wrap your mind around this one. A 20-year-old obese girl who thinks she's fucking beautiful, weight and all. That's right. I'm a motherfucking size 22, and I think I'm hot. Talk about a distorted image of onesself!

Why, then, do I feel that I need to lose weight in order to be in a chair? Plain and simple: to drag my fat ass around! To perform the necessary transfers, to have the strength to live my day-to-day life relying solely on a chair. And for something even stranger than that still. As an obese individual with full function over all four of her limbs, I accept myself. But my idea of paralysis has to do with some kind of perfection of my body. It is the utmost striving for perfection for me. And that cannot include obesity for vanity reasons.

I know this is rambly and not well explained at all. I've gone off in a hundred different directions here and not resolved anything. To put it simply, AB, paralysis is a sort of a perfection to me, and not something that I can obtain without other things being perfect along the way. I wish I could find something to relate this to? A FTM needs to remove breast tissue first to obtain the proper body for the form they are taking on.

[obscure]

But, evidently you weren't truly interested in knowing. I wonder if you feel like I'm justifying this in the way that some people justify their eating disorders, for an example. I know you're likely not coming back, but I'm going to continue to talk. You have to understand that a can of worms has been opened here, and now that I've been given the opportunity to speak frankly and openly for the first time in my life, I'm not going to give it up so easily. I'm not going to run away or be made to shut up. I do apologize to those who I am making feel uncomfortable about this, but the truth is that I've spent 20 fucking years feeling uncomfortable. I think I'm allowed a few moments of clarity.

I really do think, AB, that you're looking at this like you would look at an anorexic justifying starving themselves. Both are wreaking intense havoc on the human body in the hopes of some perhaps unattainable sense of "perfection." Anorexics never seem to know when to quit, they can't see how small is too small. What about wannabes? If I become a paraplegic, will I want to be a quadriplegic? I'm already hard of hearing. Will I want to be totally deaf? Blind? Where's the limit? It all starts innocently enough, right? A few pounds. Just a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

AND LISTEN UP, PARAS AND QUADS: I DO understand what I would be doing to my body. I'm not stupid. I know I'll have no bowel or bladder function, that I'll be in danger of pissing myself on a date or shitting myself in the middle of English class. I know I'll have to lift and change positions often to avoid pressure sores, and check my legs for cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises, bites and scratches that I won't have been able to feel. I know that the QUANTITY of my life will be lowered. But the QUALITY will be greatly, greatly, greatly increased.

That's right, I WANT all of this. You might hate it and want nothing more than to pass it off onto me. I'm sorry that can't happen. I'm truly fucking sorry it can't. Because I want it more than anything.

[Claire]

absinthe said:

I also think that some of the posters are confusing BIID with "pretending" and while I do think they have some relationship to eachother, I think BIID is quite a different ballgame all together. It cannot be helped.

Exactly. Yes, some people with BIID pretend. Frankly I can't understand why someone would pretend who doesn't have BIID. If you have BIID, it's therapy. If you don't...I don't know what it is. I've never talked to a pretender who didn't have BIID, actually.

absinthe said:

If you think you would feel finally at home in your own body if you were paralyzed, then isn't there a way to just self inflict this?

Not safely and reliably, no. It would be very hit-or-miss and you'd risk death or an injury you didn't count on, if you tried. It's not a good idea, although I do know people who have tried...it didn't work, and caused them a lot of pain. Most people are hoping for the medical community to catch up and offer a surgical cure for BIID, but I don't see that happening in my lifetime. It may, though, someday, just like the transgendered people and Gender Identity Disorder, if no one ever finds a psychological or neurological treatment.

That's one reason I haven't done it. Another is that I have three small children to take care of at home. Another is that it's against my religion to destroy a healthy body part. Another is that I have disabled people in my family, and in particular a paraplegic whose shoulders were totally destroyed from 20 years of chair use and who eventually died from complications of his disability. Another is that I have shoulder problems myself. None of this stops me from wanting it, just stops me from doing it. What I am afraid of, though, is that since BIID gets worse as you get older, eventually I will get so desperate that I may try to do it anyway. I'm not there now, and I do hope I never will get there, but I am worried about it. Most successful amputee wannabes finally did the deed in their 40s and 50s, later in life, when it got so bad they just couldn't take it anymore.

absinthe said:

Perhaps then people with BIID are best supported by others who have the same feelings.

Well, actually, I'm not here for support for BIID. I'm here because I'm a devotee! I just got involved in this thread because I happened to show up at the wrong time, I guess, and now I'm regretting it.

[obscure]

claire said:

BIID gets worse as you get older

Oh god no. Please say that isn't true.