Jesse Ellison defined BIID as "an exceedingly rare condition characterized by an overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or become paraplegic" in her article "Cutting Desire." Individuals that suffer from this feel that their lives would be much better if they did not have a certain limb that was bothering them. Take "Josh" for example who said, "Its a tremendous relief. I feel like my body is right" after he amputated his own left hand. Another example was the 60 year old, named "Alex." "Alex" had wanted to amputate his leg for thirty years before he finally found a surgeon that would do it for him, who was located in Asia. Alex jumped at the opportunity and spent over $10,000 in total for the amputation.
The fact that someone would go through this much, and be willing to spend as much money as Alex did just to have their limb removed, leads me to believe that the only form of treatment for people that suffer from BIID is an actual amputation. Sean O'Connor who runs the websites transabled.org -and biid-info.org even says that, "Nothing touches it, other than surgery." He also pointed out that he suffers from BIID and has tried to seek help from medical professionals as well as going through years of therapy that did not help him. Also from the article, Dr. Michael First performed a study with fifty-two wannabe-amputees in which he found that, "They are completely in touch with reality." This shows how it is not cannot be defined as a true mental illness, making therapy not suitable for a treatment method.
According to the article, there have been instances when people have gone to extremes in order to remove their limbs. One man in particular blew off his leg with a shotgun, another man freezing off his leg with dry ice. If this is the case for some people, it shows that more attention needs to be brought to BIID. Coming again from Alex, "There isn't a single one of us that enjoys having this, we're all trying to figure out how we got it and how to get rid of it. It's a mental torture." The article also mentions how BIID is most often found in white middle-aged males. I'm really not sure as to why it is found to be more common among this population.
Although I don't completely understand this illness, it is clear to me that people who suffer from BIID really do need help. I don't believe they are truly choosing to become disabled but they feel like they can't be happy without having an amputation. The last quote of the article from a user of transabled.org says it all: "Living a lie is the worst human punishment." I can see however how people, especially those who are disabled, may find this to be insensitive because there are many people who have lost a limb or even more that would do anything to get it back.
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