BDC #23 - BIID: When you feel that your limb is NOT yours

For most of the people, losing one of your body part is one of the least desirable thing to happen. But do you know; for a small percentage of world's population, losing one or more of their super healthy limbs is something that supposed to be done? OK...I know, it is a super scary thought. Unfortunately, for people suffering BIID, having those limbs is one of the biggest tortures in their life, since those limbs are 'NOT theirs'.

OK...I see some of you start to furrow your eyebrows. 

BIID is an abbreviation of Body Integrity Identity Disorder. It is also referred as Amputee Identity Disorder, is a psychological disorder where they think that they will be happier as an amputee (a patient of body amputation). As mentioned before, mostly the sufferers believe that those body parts are 'extras' and not theirs, thus it will be better to be 'removed' from them. They feel as a whole being after losing those extras.

Woops, don't puke... I know it's unimaginable. 

Unfortunately lately, the experts found that the BIID patients are not limited only to the desire of removing their limbs. The experts said that basically, BIID patients need the feeling of paraplegic, or the feeling as a disable. It doesn't necessarily have to be amputated, but at least the limbs are not moving and they don't feel it anymore. Being paralyze over their bod parts is good enough. Thus, the definition is not limited to limb anymore, but also being deaf or blind. 

Fortunately due to the ethical reason, people with BIID can't just recklessly forced some surgeon to amputate their body part. Though as the result, some of them try to harm their selves by amputating their own selves, or try to do any other harm; like purposely make them selves fall into accident. To reduce these conscious-accident-cases, some therapies offer to treat BIID patients as disables; such as giving them wheelchair, bandage the arms, etc.     

BIID was firstly recognized from a note of sexologist in 1977, writing about two men who experienced intense sexual arousal when imagined becoming amputees. This phenomenon is called apothemnophilia. It is said as result of combination of neural disease and psychological disorder. 

Up to now, there is no specific cause has been revealed as the cause of BIID. Theories have rose creating countless debates within the medical experts. Some theories say that this disorder is developed during childhood and present as a result of traumatic child experiences. Various theories have been formulated as children seeing that becoming an amputee disabled might earn them more attention and love by their closed ones. The other thing that is widely recognized is that this is a mental disorder due to abnormalities of neuro-psychological condition on the right side of the brain. The brain's inner body mapping function does not incorporate the certain body part in its understanding of the body's physical form, thus the brain exclude that body part in the conscious part of the brain.

In the end, this super puzzling condition remains as one of the mysteries to medical science, and a lot more researches are required to discern its true causes, how the disorder is triggered; and if possible, how to treat it without following their desire.

If you are interested to read more true stories from the BIID sufferes, maybe you can check this forum.