Coming out of the woodwork?
It has been suggested (A New Way to Be Mad or Transableism, disability and paternalism..., or Amputee by choice) that as Body Integrity Identity Disorder becomes better known, there will be a flurry of people adopting the condition as their own, for no other apparent reason that it’s a bit “in” to have BIID, like it might be “in” to be gay or transsexual. Or that perhaps people “searching themselves” will find BIID in the books and embrace it, just because it’s there.
We don’t particularly agree with this ‘’coming out of the woodwork’’ theory. It seems obvious that when a condition gets official recognition, there will be an increase in people who have the condition. Not because they are imagining it, but because they now have a name, a label, to describe how they’ve always felt.
How could an individual say “I have Body Integrity Identity Disorder” if they don’t know BIID exist, if their doctors and therapists don’t know it exist? It is logical that when something gains official recognition, people become better aware of it.
I have had BIID for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of BIID also happens to be my earliest vivid memory. I was 3 or 4 at the time. I was in my mid-20’s when I realised that there were others like me and that what I have was actually a bona fide “thing”. It is only in my early 30’s that I became aware of the label Body Integrity Identity Disorder. My relatively recent awareness of BIID does not mean I did not have the condition before-hand. And so it is easy to conceive of many other individuals who have BIID, but don’t know that such a condition has a name. And when the term Body Integrity Identity Disorder becomes better known, or official, there appears to be a sudden increase in cases, a “contagion” of them, when in fact, the increase in numbers is merely a result of better awareness and understanding.
By Webmaster
