BIID - Body Identity Integrity Disorder

BIID - Body Identity Integrity Disorder

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Site Admin
Published on Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:17 am
Rift: eTransgender :: Transgender Forum

To the general public, people like me are sick and strange,
and that's where it ends. I think it is a question of fearing
the unknown.

You might think the above quote is about Transgender individuals. It certainly could apply, but it's not. It's a quote from a individual who has Body Identity Integrity Disorder.

Unfortunately, for some reason, people with this disorder, who want to actually chop of their functional arms and legs often use transsexuals as a comparison to their cause. I don't like this. This isn't the same thing. Hey if you want to go make a paraplegic out of yourself, go for it... but, I think it harms the transgender movement by associating individuals who truly want to do physical harm to themselves.

I have something called body identity integrity
disorder (BIID), where sufferers want to remove one or more
healthy limbs. Few people who haven't experienced it
themselves can understand what I am going through. It is not a
sexual thing, it is certainly not a fetish, and it is nothing
to do with appearances. I simply cannot relate to myself with
two legs: it isn't the "me" I want to be. I have long known
that if I want to get on with my life I need to remove both
legs...’
Source

The difference of the two is major. Transsexuals don't lop off their body parts, they change the appearance and function to become more acceptable to societies taboos. We do it in order to fit in, and to correct an imbalance between what nature has screwed up. For all intensive purposes, it's corrective surgery, not some intense desire to remove our current organs. People with body Identity Disorder simply have intense feelings to remove body parts, much in the way body dysmorphic disorder causes people who are skinny to always think they are fat. BIID is closer to boob jobs, and cosmetic surgery then a transsexual's sex change, and I feel compelled to argue they have no right using transsexuals as their poster child.

I would like to comment about BIID ? Its a mis-understanding that BIID refers to people who want to lope off thier body parts!
I want to clear this up ..
BIId has many levels to it ..
For one thing ..there are individuals like me who are wannbes -but have seen the logic behind self injury as being bad.
My wannbeism is realted to wanting to be paralyzed ..and the deep need to wear heavy stainlees steel leg braces.
5 years ago 'I finally came out' and began wearing leg braces publicly..it was such a big relief ! My need to wear leg braces is linked to my sexuality ..and was causing me to be insane .
I think'pretending' its very similar to wanting having a sex change but not doing it ? To me my needs are connected with wearing braces ,in which there is a self image change ..due to a deep desire to be differant then what God has made me .
Pretending to be paralyzed in a big turn on for me..I know some 'pretendars who are men and dress like women..except they also have the need to be crippled.
Some pretendars of course go to far ..in thier need to be paralyzed.
(Which is the fulfilliment of a deep sexual fantasy..that in the end makes no rational sense ,because after you are paralyzed ..you lose the ablity to get a erection ?
BIID is in my 'mind' a term used for people who can't be happy ..unless they find some way to amputate thier limbs or become severly paralyzed in accident.
I read some stories that wanting to be crippled was so strong that in some cases it ended in death !
I have joined a few BIID groups and when I ever tried to talk down 'self-injury' I often got negative comments from the BIID crowd .
They call themselves transabled ..many pretend using wheel chairs ,they gety really angry if you try to rationalize with any of them
Some wannabes dress like women ..many also are gay men who get turned on by leg braces..and its a whole kind of gay sexual fettish .
The man who helped me get my first set of braces is gay ..and he has a huge collection of braces.Once I tried on his braces..I was basically hooked and a whole new life style happened..as I had to have leg braces.
I often have tried to discover what made me so attracted to anyone wearing braces ..?The mental problems of a pretendar are similar to a transexual ..in that in the macho world we are held as a sick people

I became interested in braces when I was a kid..I began my brace festtish a early age by tying my legs onto wooden boards in order to experiance what it would be like to wear hkafos..
I tried trying my legs back ..to see what a amputee was like ..but wearing braces was the real me !I suffered for many years carrying this around..in secret strapping my legs up so that they would be locked stiff.
When ever I saw anyone wearing leg braces ..I often became sexually aroused and jealous that I wasn't crippled.
I never have wanted to change my sex..or lop off any body parts !
There were times I thought it would truely be much easier to be paralyzed ..in a partial way so that my sexuality would not be effected.
I live a secret life very similar to some people who dress up as the opposite sex ..except for me its braces and but I don't want to have my sex changed..
So for me..'pretending' is a little like the secret life a traansexual has ..because we both have a need to live a secret life .
It causes worry and stress if I get the slightest hint that anyone knows I am not really crippled..I mean I don't know if sex change can be completly compared to 'pretending' but its a bit similar ?
The body image change is differant ..in that I wear leg braces .
The tortue part is that it has to be hidden all the time

First, we are all entitled to our "sexual fantasies".

Transsexualism isn't a sexual fantasy however. It's a medical condition that requires corrective surgery.

On the otherhand.....

Transvestism is a term to describe someone who is sexual turned on by cross-dressing.

It's 2 different camps, and while I often hear them confused.... they're worlds apart.

It sounds like there is a similar situation for BIID. Based on this... I couldn't care what people do to get "off" so to speak. But when people are trying to "CHOP-CHOP-TIMBER" their limbs and use transsexuals to justify this, I 've got to call foul.

I think you misunderstand what BIID is. There are some people who want to have limbs amputated and there are others that seek blindness, paralysis, deafness, multiple sclerosis, and other conditions! I personally think that there is indeed a similarity between BIID and GID. Both are essentially trapped and have a largely misunderstood condition. For many surgery is the only option (if there is one at all).

Both seek to alter a physically healthy body (mental issues are another story) to conform to the brain's self-image. Transsexuals sterilise themselves; it's a bit naive to not consider this harm. Is it not harm because transsexuals actively seek surgery and is is a person afflicted by BIID harming themselves because you do not seek it?

BIID and GID are not sexual fantasies but they each have their equivelants: autogynephelia and crotomophilia (granted, that term is limited to amutations) which arguably detract from those who do not have sexual fetishes related to BIID or GID. (Personally I think that people like Anne Lawrence are a bad thing for transsexual acceptance.)

Your last paragraph could easily be modified to have been said from a person afflicted by BIID and could easily claim that GRS is cosmetic, like a boob job or nose job. Wouldn't you be upset if they did? I would. My GRS saved my life.

You see for me, and it might be different for others... it's not the surgery that's important.

While it's apart of the equation, I think it's self-created because of social taboos. I think in order to dichotomize transsexualism you have to prioritize it. Bottom line, the most important thing for me is to be "free" to act, think and do what comes normal to myself. Being male, I was constantly acting, consistently putting a facade up, a commercial for normal when I was nothing but. I didn't want to do it any longer.

Sure, in some biomedical explanation, something caused my brain to veer closer to a female brain then a males. But how do you possibly explain the in BIID individuals? Your brain can't veer towards a disabled persons brain? There's no such thing.

Transsexuals are born with female brains. People don't come out of their mother's womb saying "I want to chop off my legs."

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I really think GIID individuals are searching for an explanation, when there isn't one currently. While maybe at some point there will be one, I don't think this is it.

For me surgery was important. It was a defining point in my life that clearly delineated crushing depression and relative happiness.

However, a week after it was done it was over and life was...normal (if a bit sore). Nearly two years on I can remember my time in hospital quite well but even a month after surgery (and moreso now) surgery was just an event in my life. No more important than, say, coming out or finishing high school. Now I feel more confident in myself to blend in with my peers, there's no worry of a wardrobe malfunction.

I don't think there needs to be a reason for a treatment plan to be devised for things like BIID and GID. There is no disease lik AIDS to defeat. For most people afflicted by GID the cure is simple: either therapy, hormones, living 'full time', surgery or any combination thereof.

For someone who seeks paralysis the treatment is simple as well: sever the spinal cord at the right place. For deafness and blindness these can be done at home at will at any time (luckily for me as I fall into the former group). Amputation is also doable; "surgeons" were doing it in the mid-18th century for soldiers with a hacksaw and a lot of whiskey.

Is there such a thing as a "disabled brain" (brain damage aside)? Maybe. Probably not. By extension is there a "Deaf brain"? Well, what does one mean by that? That all Deaf people should think in a similar way to certain situations? Perhaps not from birth but after birth the brain is certainly conditioned by the environment. Is it such a leap to say that there is a BIID brain?

Such things are meaningless anyways, I think. Wether or not there is a firm cause, congenital or not, the suffering is real and those afflicted deserve compassionate treatment in the best way possible.

I see BIID and GID as being very similar in the experiences we both face. That doesn't mean the causitive factors are the same. I don't think it's wrong to piggyback on the relative success of of transsexuals (for BIID folk) because the experiences are similar and the same request is being made: Cause harm to a healthy body to ease suffering.

People don't come out of their mother's womb saying "I want to chop off my legs."

Actually... The majority of transabled individuals report memories of "having the wrong body" going back to a very early age. My earliest memory is actually related to the need to be paralysed. I was about 3 or 4.

But I think Marie is right, in the end, while it is of interest to understand where it comes from, the fact is, it matters little. What is necessary is to figure out how we can reach happiness/contentment. Studies have shown that medication or psychotherapy doesn't work. Anecdotal evidence shows that surgery does work, that it is, in fact, the only thing that works.

<shrug>

I am a genetic male that feels like a crippled woman inside and I have felt that way since I was 4 and I am now past 70. I long to wear KAFOs and walk on crutches and be seen as a crippled woman.

If anyone would care to communicate my email is donnahudsontv@sbcglobal.net