Ever wish you could just hack off a limb because you “identify” as someone who is physically disabled? Well, no, of course you don’t, because you’re probably at least somewhat sane. But some people are actually doing to this to themselves.
According to an article published at Natural News, “Working arms and legs may sometimes feel unnatural, as people suffering from “transability” wish to be handicapped.”
The article goes on to say:
Some experience this peculiar desire so deeply that they attempt to physically injure themselves in a way that causes lifelong disabilities, satisfying their aspiration to be disabled.
Sounds completely insane, right? Scientists don’t think so; in fact, researchers in Canada are dedicated to understanding “how transabled people think and feel.” After interviewing 37 people worldwide who suffer from “transability,” New Brunswick-based researcher Clive Baldwin found that most “transabled” people are men.
Half of the people interviewed live in Germany and Switzerland and crave “amputation or paralysis,” according to Baldwin, a Canada Research Chair in Narrative Studies who teaches social work at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. One subject interviewed by Baldwin wants to have his penis removed, while another wishes to be blind.
Several cases have been documented where “transabled” people purposely hurt themselves in the hopes of requiring an amputation. One man, who has been referred to as “One Hand Jason,” purposely cut off his right hand with a “very sharp power tool,” allowing his close friends and family to believe it was an accident.
Another article at Canadian based National Post continues the “One Hand Jason” story, and adds”
But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.
“My goal was to get the job done with no hope of reconstruction or re-attachment, and I wanted some method that I could actually bring myself to do,”
“We define transability as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment,” says Alexandre Baril, a Quebec born academic who will present on “transability” at this week’s Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Ottawa.
Many people, like One Hand Jason, arrange “accidents” to help achieve the goal. One dropped an incredibly heavy concrete block on his legs — an attempt to injure himself so bad an amputation would be necessary. But doctors saved the leg. He limps, but it’s not the disability he wanted.
I didn’t know truly disabled people were fortunate enough “choose” the disability they want.
