Incredibly bizarre psych condition

[Deepdale]

Did anyone watch yesterday's "Primetime" that opened with a segment by correspondent Jay Schaedler that dealt with a psychological disorder with the acronym BIID -- Body Integrity Identity Disorder? Those affected struggle with intense desires to have one or more of their limbs amputated, and then voluntarily engage in self-destructive practices designed to cause enough physical damage so that their wish becomes reality.

Case in point: Placing one's feet into a bucket or pail deep enough to reach up to the knees and then filling it with dry ice, remaining there for hours as temperatures plunge to 50 or 75 degrees below zero. After doing that, one man then drove himself to the hospital. Doctors were unable to do anything and had to remove both legs. When Jay's story ended, I shook my head in disbelief.

http://www.overground.be/article.php?code=66&lan=en

[pdpfilms]

That's unbelievably disturbing. I cannot even fathom what this disorder would feel like.

[Takumi]

Err:confused:

What's Wrong with you People???

Takumi

[jadekitty24]

That's so sad. I can't imagine what it must be like to feel that way. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to attempt to seek help for such a condition. This article made me a little more thankful for my health, both physical and mental.

[Blue Velvet]

I can identify with that to some degree...

[jadekitty24]

I can identify with that to some degree...
Exactly what I was thinking.

[Lyle]

I saw the show. I guess the most frustrating part was that one of the patients -- the guy who actually succeeded in getting his legs amputated -- has finally, through a combination of Prozac and therapy, come to understand that it was a crazy thing to do.

I have to admit that I got cracked up at the segment about people with "Foreign Accent Syndrome" because it reminded of the song "She Thinks She's Edith Head" (http://tmbw.net/wiki/index.php/She_Thinks_She's_Edith_Head):
Back in high school, I knew a girl
Not too simple and not too kind
We both grew up but I heard she changed
From a New Wave fan to another kind

She thinks she's Edith Head
But you might know she's not
The accent in her speech
She didn't have growing up
She thinks she's Edith Head
Or Helen Gurley Brown
Or some other cultural figure
We don't know a lot about

[floriflee]

I think I have the opposite disorder where I want additional appendages attached to my body so I could get more things done....

[eva01]

i had heard about this a while ago, and thought it was extremely interesting.

good old lithium should help

[floriflee]

I have to admit that I got cracked up at the segment about people with "Foreign Accent Syndrome" because it reminded of the song "She Thinks She's Edith Head" (http://tmbw.net/wiki/index.php/She_Thinks_She's_Edith_Head):

Um... so do Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mariah Carey fall into this category, too??

[Deepdale]

I guess the most frustrating part was that one of the patients -- the guy who actually succeeded in getting his legs amputated -- has finally, through a combination of Prozac and therapy, come to understand that it was a crazy thing to do.

That was interesting to hear him acknowledge that. It is so hard to imagine how stunned the husband of that woman in France must have been when she told him she wanted her legs removed.

[MongoTheGeek]

And yet there are some amputations that doctors do for patients who think that the parts don't belong.

:rolleyes:

[baby duck monge]

From what I understand, it's actually similar to some gender disorders. In the way that some men feel they should be women (and vice-versa), there are some people who feel that they should not have all their limbs (either because they think the appendages should have never been there, or because they feel they should be an amputee). It's highly related the the idea of "nullification" which can often involve male genetalia.

[Sdashiki]

This was a recent ER episode I believe.

Guy calls 911 to say he had an accident and his arm has been cut off (or something like that)

he's really weird in his demeanor the whole time they deal with him and eventually its found out that

"If you put it back on me, I'll cut it right back off"

he has an amputation fetish, he cut of his own arm, or did somethinig so that it would come off.

[Baron58]

We had one of those 'devotee' freaks at work for a while - good riddance when we finally fired him. He was only attracted too/would only date amputees. Kept updating his personal fetish website from work, and spent all day doing no work but surfing/posting to these amputee sites and some religious discussion message board (shipoffools). For weeks before we fired him, I had to remotely monitor his desktop and any non-work website he visited I immediately blocked in DNS :D When he STILL didn't get ANY work done (and the client for his project was freaking the F out over errors & deadlines), he was finally booted.

Lesson: keep your dumbass fetishes out of the workplace, and STFU & GBTW.

[vniow]

I can identify with that to some degree...


Me too, thankfully its never gone quite that far... :o

[Thomas Veil]

This is unbelievable:

April 5, 2006 — Karl is a double amputee, but not by accident, birth or disease. He is an amputee by choice.

Six years ago, Karl (who asked that his real name not be used) sat alone in a parked car with 100 pounds of dry ice and an obsession to destroy his legs.

"The first thing I did was I used a wooden flour scoop to scoop some granulated dry ice into the bucket. … It filled the wastebasket with carbon dioxide gas, which was 79 degrees below zero," he said.

Over the next 45 minutes, Karl put his legs in the wastebasket and then kept adding dry ice until it got to the top. "I spent the next six hours well-packed in the dry ice, and then I'd add more dry ice to keep it topped off," he said. A chemistry major in college, Karl had done his research well.

"I'd done all the thermodynamic calculations, the mass of tissue, how much heat you had to subtract from that tissue to achieve freezing temperatures," he said. "And I knew that after six hours I had certainly achieved more than enough to freeze the full thickness."

After those six hours, Karl calmly drove himself to an emergency room, using the automatic hand controls he had installed in the car.

Within days, his legs began to blacken as the frozen tissue died away, and within a month surgeons had no choice but to amputate both of Karl's legs.

Karl is not a one-of-a-kind medical mystery, however. There are others like him, who believe their bodies don't match the picture of themselves they have in their minds.

"I wasn't born in the correct body," said Lilly, who has twice tried to amputate her legs. "The mind doesn't connect up to the body at all."

Obsession Beginning in Childhood

Dr. Michael First, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York, is one of the few researchers to study patients with this strange obsession to lose one or more of their limbs. The rare condition is called body integrity identity disorder, or BIID.

"When these people see an amputee, they see … a person of strength being able to overcome hardship, someone to be admired," First said.

Aside from this obsession, First said his BIID patients can appear to be mentally healthy.

"The most striking thing about these people, is that if you were to meet one, you wouldn't have a clue that there was anything unusual about them," he said....There's much more here (http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=1806125&page=1), including the story of one guy who wants to be an amputee so badly that he went to the trouble of finding a surgeon in the Phillipines who would do the operation...for $10,000 a leg.

Man, you think you've seen the weirdest things possible, and then something new comes along. :eek:

[iGav]

I've heard of this 'condition' before, castration is another biggie apparently. :eek:

[calculus]

This is only an extreme form of cosmetic surgery. What's the difference between this and, for example, breast enhancement/reduction? It's just about where you draw the line.

[CanadaRAM]

This is only an extreme form of cosmetic surgery. What's the difference between this and, for example, breast enhancement/reduction? It's just about where you draw the line.
Just below the knee, evidentally...

[weg]

I've heard of this 'condition' before, castration is another biggie apparently. :eek:

This should be worth a honorable mentioning at Darwin Awards (http://www.darwinawards.com/) :D

I for one think that everyone should be allowed to get castrated, as long as he doesn't reproduce afterwards to spread his stupidity :D :eek:

[jimN]

There was a thing about this in the uk sometime ago although i believe that it was referred to then as body dysmorphic disorder. In the program some patients were able to convince a surgeon to remove a leg/arm, the arguement beign that if it was done properly it might be done by a more unsafe method - for example one person talked of putting a leg under a train. Sounds like a psych disorder to me but then the medical world treated homosexuality the same way until relatively recently!

Parallels can be drawn with people like michael jackson who repeatedly have plastic surgery and are never happy with the results.

[Nuc]

Yea I saw something about this on dateline this week. I think it was dateline or something similar. It was pretty sick. Thinking of using dry ice to freeze off an appendage doesn't sound pleasant.

Nuc

[raggedjimmi]

Madness. I'm pretty careful with my body. I don't like things to go and never come back, like if I somehow lost a tooth or a bit of a finger.

I know there is some kind of Symmetrical disorder too. At least Casualty told me so. Where if somebody has broken an arm and it has to be put into a cast and sling, they will try and break the other arm so they're balanced.
God help them if they lose an eye or lung! Or a testicle :eek:

[zap2]

This is only an extreme form of cosmetic surgery. What's the difference between this and, for example, breast enhancement/reduction? It's just about where you draw the line.


To a degree yes, but i guess the general public draws the line before its ok for you to get rid of your limbs

[2nyRiggz]

The mind is a powerful thing guys....be greatful that all of us here(most of us:) ) have a good head on our shoulder.


Bless

[MarkCollette]

Just below the knee, evidentally...

Comedy freaking gold! :D

[Abstract]

I for one think that everyone should be allowed to get castrated, as long as he doesn't reproduce afterwards to spread his stupidity

How would someone who's castrated reproduce? Would he use his own d*** as a dildo? :confused:

Not trying to be disgusting, but I can't imagine it.

[PlaceofDis]

How would someone who's castrated reproduce? Would he use his own d*** as a dildo? :confused:

Not trying to be disgusting, but I can't imagine it.

unless he's donated to a sperm bank previously i would imagine its impossible too

[CanadaRAM]

How would someone who's castrated reproduce? Would he use his own d*** as a dildo? :confused:

Not trying to be disgusting, but I can't imagine it.
Um... slight definition of terms:

Castration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration

Penectomy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penectomy

In castration, Willie and the Twins aren't cut loose, only the Twins...

Unless he went for the trifecta...

[Electro Funk]

i watched it as well.. pretty disturbing stuff...

what on earth would make you want to pack your legs in dry ice until they die:confused:

[Leareth]

See the documentary "larger than life"
its about people who eat themselves to death by gaining massive amounts of weight... its a legit psych disorder, the question is how to treat it ?
The human mind is an intersting thing , there are many bizzare conditions and disorders that may see, weird to the majority but to the sufferers are the norm...

[mbryant52]

I saw a Nip/Tuck (a ridiculously well-written show, might I add) episode briefly addressing this particular topic. Fascinating.

[Mechcozmo]

i had heard about this a while ago, and thought it was extremely interesting.

good old lithium should help

Lithium wouldn't help. It may make things worse. Lithium helps with Bipolar Disorder... this is separate.

There are a number of explanations for this... they all vary. Mostly deal with chemical imbalances in the brain or 'bad' thinking. I guess taboo thinking is best to say, although a bit on the Freudian side.

[weg]

How would someone who's castrated reproduce? Would he use his own d*** as a dildo? :confused:

Not trying to be disgusting, but I can't imagine it.

I was trying to be sarcastic, but with English not being my first language it obviously didn't work ;-)

[Mechcozmo]

Err:confused:

What's Wrong with you People???

Takumi

Both nothing... and everything.

:eek: :rolleyes: :)

[xsedrinam]

Um... slight definition of terms:

Castration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration

Penectomy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penectomy

In castration, Willie and the Twins aren't cut loose, only the Twins...

Unless he went for the trifecta...
They can also grow and harvest them at a Penal Farm.


:rolleyes:

[iBlue]

i had long hair once. i got sick of it and had it cut off. <shrugs>


i'm trying to understand, really i am, but the only thing that comes to mind is: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/AthenaBlue/smilies/smilie-LOCO.gif

i can understand a transgender or a transexual not feeling "attached" to their genitalia and wanting a change, and things of this nature. but to want a completely healthy limb removed? this is where my imagination smashes into a wall. i feel terrible for these people, that's just plain awful.

[Deepdale]

but to want a completely healthy limb removed? this is where my imagination smashes into a wall.

That was the feeling I had when watching the program. It can be terribly unsettling to think about the potentially devastating consequences people face at their own hands when a mind is not normal and self-destructive impulses take over the controls.

[cwedl]

Its almost as bad as people trying to get HIV +, I watched it last night on BBC three. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/ilove_hiv.shtml

[MongoTheGeek]

i can understand a transgender or a transexual not feeling "attached" to their genitalia and wanting a change, and things of this nature. but to want a completely healthy limb removed? this is where my imagination smashes into a wall. i feel terrible for these people, that's just plain awful.

See thats that same thing in my book. Anything that won't grow back/isn't reversible should not be changed. Tattoos can be removed. Scars can be erased mostly. Fatty tissue regenerates. Skin can be added and removed. Bone can, within limits, be reshaped.

Everything else should be left alone with exceptions for where it will kill the person. ie cancer and gangrene.

[Blue Velvet]

See thats that same thing in my book. Anything that won't grow back/isn't reversible should not be changed. Tattoos can be removed. Scars can be erased mostly. Fatty tissue regenerates. Skin can be added and removed. Bone can, within limits, be reshaped.

Everything else should be left alone with exceptions for where it will kill the person. ie cancer and gangrene.


Well, it's a good thing you're not one of the authors of DSM IV, then.

[vniow]

Everything else should be left alone with exceptions for where it will kill the person. ie cancer and gangrene.

You've obviously never met someone who is trans then.

Well, it's a good thing you're not one of the authors of DSM IV, then.

He's not much worse, I for one find it insulting that its classified as a mental illness in the DSM but where else is it going to go if trans people are going to get medical treatment?

[MongoTheGeek]

You've obviously never met someone who is trans then.

He's not much worse, I for one find it insulting that its classified as a mental illness in the DSM but where else is it going to go if trans people are going to get medical treatment?

But if they don't admit they have a problem how will they get help...

A blonde goes to the doctor and says "I hurt all over. I think I broke every bone in my body, Watch." She touches her arm and cries in pain. She touches he legs and cries in pain.

The doctor says "You broke your finger."

[MarkCollette]

You've obviously never met someone who is trans then.

He's not much worse, I for one find it insulting that its classified as a mental illness in the DSM but where else is it going to go if trans people are going to get medical treatment?

When surgeons can modify your genitalia without loss of sensation or function, then I will think it's a good idea for those people. Until then... not so much.

Of course, my opinion in that area doesn't/shouldn't matter anyway :)

[Blue Velvet]

When surgeons can modify your genitalia without loss of sensation or function, then I will think it's a good idea for those people. Until then... not so much.

Are you an expert in GRS?

[MarkCollette]

Are you an expert in GRS?

Why yes I am. I merely moonlight in my current career. Hahaha... :)

[vniow]

But if they don't admit they have a problem how will they get help...

I don't think many trans people say that they don't have a problem, the issue is the body, not the mind.

When surgeons can modify your genitalia without loss of sensation or function, then I will think it's a good idea for those people. Until then... not so much.

That would have applied like 20 years ago but not today. A good surgeon will modify the flesh but keep the nerves in tact.

[floriflee]

That reminds me of a friend of mine who was dating a guy that ended up proposing to her. She turned him down, but didn't really know why she couldn't bring herself to say yes at the time. They broke up, he married someone else and had a couple of kids, and then one day revealed to his wife that he wanted a divorce and a sex change. He's now a woman living in Vegas somewhere. Needless to say the friend is glad she listened to the little voice in her head, and relieved she wasn't the one who had to endure that kind of shock. I still wonder how the ex-wife and kids handled the change. Even if it makes the person making the change happy, it still affects those involved with him/her.

[floriflee]

That would have applied like 20 years ago but not today. A good surgeon will modify the flesh but keep the nerves in tact.

I think that still depends on the surgery. I just had surgery a few years back where the surgeon had to cut through a nerve as part of the procedure (he warned me beforehand). To this day the area is still a little numb and if it touch one part of the area I feel it in a place completely different. Very weird.

[Josh]

Wonder if medical insurance covers that? *shrug* :p

I saw the Nip/Tuck episode that brought this up. Pretty interesting/disturbing.

I think anything that drives someone to wish for something which, knowingly and undeniably, will cause a physical burden to themselves and those arround them should be seen as a disorder.

[Mechcozmo]

I think anything that drives someone to wish for something which, knowingly and undeniably, will cause a physical burden to themselves and those arround them should be seen as a disorder.

Some definitions, as per my Psych book/class. If you are causing a physical burden to me, right now, as I am having to type this out, does that mean that you suffer from a disorder? Maybe you do, but probably not one that would influence our conversation. :)

According to Freud: disorders caused by conflict between Id and Superego, where the Ego cannot find a good compromise between them.

According to Biologists: chemical imbalance

According to Cognitive-Behavioral therapists: Incorrect ways of thinking, caused by bad learning earlier in life

Diathesis-Stress therapists: Stress causes it, and eventually will cause the person to 'snap'

[iBlue]

Some definitions, as per my Psych book/class. If you are causing a physical burden to me, right now, as I am having to type this out, does that mean that you suffer from a disorder? Maybe you do, but probably not one that would influence our conversation. :)

According to Freud: disorders caused by conflict between Id and Superego, where the Ego cannot find a good compromise between them.

According to Biologists: chemical imbalance

According to Cognitive-Behavioral therapists: Incorrect ways of thinking, caused by bad learning earlier in life

Diathesis-Stress therapists: Stress causes it, and eventually will cause the person to 'snap'

and these are the options we have for the sake of our "mental health"? no wonder there are so many mental 'disorders' popping up these days.

[Josh]

Some definitions, as per my Psych book/class. If you are causing a physical burden to me, right now, as I am having to type this out, does that mean that you suffer from a disorder? Maybe you do, but probably not one that would influence our conversation. :)

According to Freud: disorders caused by conflict between Id and Superego, where the Ego cannot find a good compromise between them.

According to Biologists: chemical imbalance

According to Cognitive-Behavioral therapists: Incorrect ways of thinking, caused by bad learning earlier in life

Diathesis-Stress therapists: Stress causes it, and eventually will cause the person to 'snap'

I've taken psych 101 as well :)

The act of typing is far from the type of burdens I speak of. Having to press a few keys with the fingers you've got is much different than going to the store and buying groceries with the legs you don't.

[fitinferno]

i had long hair once. i got sick of it and had it cut off. <shrugs>


I totally feel like cutting my hair off really short. My best friend won't let me do it. But at least it would grow back if I realised that it was a bad choice!

I found this topic interesting so I googled to find more info. This was probably the most interesting result of that search:

http://www.geocities.com/legcaliper/4potter.htm

[Mechcozmo]

The act of typing is far from the type of burdens I speak of. Having to press a few keys with the fingers you've got is much different than going to the store and buying groceries with the legs you don't.
A disorder has to interfere with your daily life. That's how the DSM-IV classifies things. If typing is a part of your life, and you cannot type, (say a journalist or a programmer) then the desire to loose the fingers would be a disorder. The act of loosing them would be really really bad.
So, the act of typing could be very important to someone's livelihood.

and these are the options we have for the sake of our "mental health"? no wonder there are so many mental 'disorders' popping up these days.

The disorders have always been there, as have these theories on how to diagnose them. However, there is a recent increase in the amount of Americans who believe they have these disorders, and threaten their doctors until they are diagnosed. People will tell their doctor what they have and threaten to sue under the guise of malpractice if they aren't 'classified' under that disorder. Parents will demand their pediatricians place their children on Ritalin (a 'safe' version of speed) because they claim their children have ADHD.

Most of those theories have been around for years, and we're just going through a time when it's 'cool' to be disordered. :mad: