I really am sorry, I wasn't ignoring you. I noticed this morning that your post got lost in the shuffle, last night.
Do ho narm. That's an argument that is used all too often. I suggest that a surgeon standing idly by and knowing someone is suffering is in fact doing harm. Harm by ommission.
It's not surgery or nothing. I understand in your case, your therapy experience was horrific, but that is a special case. All therapists aren't like that and there have been people who had success with therapy. That is not standing idly by and doing nothing.
We have to look at "health" from a holistic perspective - the idea that health is solely physical is a huge issue here.
Absolutely, removing "normal" functions of the body is a negative. It has to be balanced agains the positive and the emotional relief of being "whole" (yes, it is contradictory that to feel whole we have to be "maimed").
I am sorry, but I have a hard time accepting that removing a limb or severing a spinal chord is considered treating the mind and body, especially when it's the mind that is having the problem.
You are comparing apples and oranges. You use the example of anorexia, severe dysmorphia and you speak of delusion to say that surgery shouldn't be offered. BIID is not BDD. BIID researchers have repeatedlly found that transabled individuals are not delusional.
I should not have used the word delusional and I will apologize and refrain from using that word again. I will say that quite a lot of the literature draws parallels between BIID and BDD. Nothing is exactly like BIID, nothing is exactly like BDD, nothing is exactly like GID or any other initialed disorder.
Again, apples and oranges.
Not counting the fact that there is psychological treatment available to people with eating disorders. Yet neither psychotherapy not pharmacotherapy have done anything to help with BIID.
The only thing that does help is surgery. So until there is a psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy course of action, please don't keep on denying us the only thing that works.
Okay, there is no cure for cutters or anorexic either, the urge
never goes away. There is therapy. That's not the only thing that works, though. The second link in post #26 mentions a person who had successful therapy.I found link to someone who had success with drug therapy.
Transabled individuals who have managed to lose a limb through surgery or self-injury and achieved their required body have not suddenly wanted more. Once the correct body is achieved, there's no need for more. Note that the need for an impairment, in the case of BIID, develops and shows up at a young age. In most cases, it's pretty much set and doesn't move.
If you do enough research, you'll come across stories of people who cut off a toe or finger, then another one, and another. It would be easy to interpret that as "proof" that there is a high risk of repeat request for surgery. What people aren't looking at is the fact that the people who do these things to themselves either don't have BIID, or trying to appease their BIID by doing something less drastic - for example, hoping that removing a toe will diminish their anguish rather than removing the entire leg.
I've found them. I am not trying to prove that amputation doesn't have positive effects on individuals suffering from the disorder.
I can understand your inability to comprehend that aspect. But are you able to accept that your inability to comprehend it doesn't mean it isn't real?
I never said it isn't real. Is there any way you can help me comprehend?
I refer you to the published academic writings of Dr. First, Dr. Ryan, and many other noted psychiatrists and neurologists and medical professionals who ALL state that people with BIID are not delusional. Even those who are opposed to surgery for BIID agree that we aren't delusional. Are you a licensed psychiatrist with experience in diagnosing delusions and psychosis, and have you worked with people with BIID?
I apologized for using the word delusion. I wasn't calling the condition, itself, a delusion though. I was talking about romantacizing the experience of disabled people. I was specifically referring to the blogs I was reading. No, I am not a doctor. I don't think anyone participating in this thread have such experience, we are still allowed to discuss our interpretations.
Cancer tends to be in the part of the body that's being removed. If the cancer was in the brain and they were removing a leg, I would question that too.
Which clinical diagnosis? There is no such thing at the moment. There is no official definition of BIID, it's not in any diagnostic books
I am sorry, I was using clinical diagnosis as a diagnosis in the absence of a definitive test. A few of the personal stories actually use the term diagnosis so I figured perhaps their doctors at least had a set of criteria to work with.
In as much as there is no official definition of BIID, I'm curious to see where you found those people clinically diagnosed with BIID?
Further, as you have probably seen already, I write a lot about my experience of living with BIID. I blog about it and often write about how emotionally distressing it is. This doesn't mean that I don't have a disconnect with my legs - in fact, feeling my legs and knowing they are there, ALL THE TIME, is a major cause of the emotional distress. And FWIW, I've been told by leading psychiatrists that "yes, you have BIID" - even though it's not officially codified. *shrug*
That's what I am talking about. The studies refer to patients with BIID. I read two stories of people who said they were diagnosed with BIID. If there is not even a clinical diagnosis than how do they know they are studying people with BIID?
