The bizarre disease of body identity integrity disorder (BIID), where there is a need to remove one or more healthy limbs:
Removing the next leg will not be any easier than the first; the pain will be horrendous. But I have no regrets about the path I have chosen. In fact, if I regret anything, it is that I didn’t do this sooner. For the first time in my life, I can get on with being the real me.
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“Even my sister doesn’t accept me as an amputee. She lives just up the road but hasn’t come to see me in months. In her eyes I am not a complete person any more.”
Or maybe she’s avoiding you because you’re a little nuts?
I’m surprised to see the lack of psychiatric care mentioned in the story. I don’t know if I could be as accepting as her husband.
There was a fascinating article in Atlantic about 5 years ago on this. The medical term they used was “apotemnophilia”, that is ‘wanting to be an amputee’, as opposed o the sexual arousal/ fetish folks…
I had an experience with this in Medical school. Guy cut his RIGHT habd off with a skill saw. (Hard to do) We re attached it and kept him in 4 point restraints. Had Psych consult. They spent an hour with him, the whole crew, Attending, cheif, residents, students, and concluded he was fine, sane, no danger, take off the restraints. Within 20 minutes he’d pulled the reattached limb off, blood every where. He got his wish. I was on the ortho service.
Is this disorder any different than the one with the 14 year old German girl/boy who want to cut off his penis to feel normal?
Why can’t we just accept this fella as he is? Just a plain old amputee born in the body of a biped.
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