Just kidding
Just kidding
I received an anonymous comment to my last post which reads:
I can tell you, why you want to use hearing aids and why amputation wannabes want to use prosthetics. The reason is, deep in your soul you do not want to be disabled, you do not want to be deaf. What you want are certain things you connect with being deaf, but you do not want to accept the big disadvantges, because noone wants to be disabled. It is not a paradox, it´s just a sign you are still sane, so to say. A therapist might be able to help you to overcome the desire to be deaf, or to be more precise, to overcome the illusions you have on your mind that you connect with being deaf. Though, the biggest problem is, BIID sufferers are very very reluctant to accept therapy, many say therapy does not help, but no BIID patient knows anyone who seriously made this step. Good luck and I hope you can learn to overcome these feelings.
Well first off I do not have a "soul". Secondly you're right. It's not so much a "wanting to be deaf" as a "not wanting to hear" which most people call deafness.
I am sane. I find it odd that it would be implied that transabled people are insane and the implication that "no one wants to be disabled." Clearly that is incorrect!
I wonder why the anonymous commenter believes that no one wants to be disabled. Is it because he or she believes that a disabled person's life is so unworthwhile that it should be forfeit or otherwise wish to be "perfect" (and what is "perfect")?
It's funny. Someone seems to know so much about me from a handful of posts and knows fuckall about what my daily life is like. (Unless Casey found my blog and didn't say anything...in which case...crap! Say something!!)
Anyways: I know who I am and what I want. I appreciate your comments even if they're way off-base. I'm well-prepared to make a decision.
4 comments:
It is me, the anonymous person again. First, I know what I am talking about, I *am* physically disabled and the reason is this thing you call BIID. Second, maybe my English is not sufficient enough to avoid misunderstandings, of course I don´t want to offend you and of course I do not know much about you, but I know a lot about BIID and the way human brains work and my opinion after so many years is that only very very few of BIID sufferers will be happy after getting what they think they need, most could overcome their need to become disabled. Actually, the best proof that most BIID patients do not need the physical alteration of their body is the fact that most of them do not make it come true, it is not because of lack of opportunity to get what they need, there are other reasons.
Do you realize that hearing aids don't give you your full range of hearing back? It's not a matter of turning the hearing aid on or off when you want. People, music, background noise...everything will sound different. It will be harder for you to hear conversations in groups, and no hearing aid can fix that (no matter what the companies tell you).
Your noise aversion sounds like it's related to your autism spectrum diagnosis. Perhaps seeking therapy for autism can help you with your sensitivity to sound?
@anonymous...
You say that you know a lot about BIID. Could you tell me how you came to have this knowledge? I'm rather curious about it. There are not many people with a physical disability that know anything about BIID, much less "a lot" about it.
You claim that the proof that surgery wouldn't work is that very few transabled individual made it come true. You say that there are many opportunities to make it happen. I beg to differ. For at least 30 of my 40 years, I've been thinking of a way to acquire the impairment I need (spinal cord injury at L1). But not one single method is "safe" (that is, won't kill me, or give me a TBI instead). There is NO way to become paraplegic, other than an accident, or through surgery. I *have* tried self-injury, and it did not work. Amputations, well, there aren't guarantee there either, even though it is somewhat easier. Yet, surgeons tend to repair/reattach limbs after an amputation attempt. So, if you think it's easy and there's plenty of opportunities, I'd love it if you could share them with me. Please feel free to contact me http://transabled.org/contact/
I'll address four issues here.
(1) I don't understand the title of the post. "Just kidding" seems a bit odd to me.
(2) The vast majority of BIID sufferers that I know - myself included - have spent YEARS in therapy, starting by focusing on the secondary effects of denying our needs as transabled individuals, but eventually coming to the crux of the matter, which is that our bodies are out of alignment with our identities, and that while we can learn coping mechanisms to deal with this, it does not, nor CAN it, go away - unless, and until, the body is brought into alignment with the identity.
(3) As for availability of opportunity to have one's body corrected to match our identities, those opportunities are only available if you happen to include methods that carry with them a probability of death or extreme complications that are far in excess of 50/50. Of the transabled individuals that I know (again, myself included), there is not one of us who is actually self-destructive; as such, we are generally NOT interested in causing our own premature deaths, nor in creating other unhealthy conditions for ourselves that would offset the benefit of having our bodies brought into alignment with our identities.
...and finally:
(4) Not all BIID sufferers are interested in using prosthetic devices. As for myself, if my body were to be adjusted to my satisfaction, I would not be ABLE to do, and I'd be quite content with that. Even if I could use prosthetic devices in such a case, I would, like a significant portion (if not a majority) of the congenital amputee population, reject them. In many cases, those who do, only end up using them under the duress of social pressures to conform to expectations of how one with a 'disability' is expected to behave and present him/herself.
Post a Comment