For the love of God! Just when we’ve seen it all some new unbelievable weirdness pops up like a demonic “whack a mole”.
From the Atlantic Magazine
The New Way To Be Mad
The phenomenon is not as rare as one might think: healthy people deliberately setting out to rid themselves of one or more of their limbs, with or without a surgeon’s help. Why do pathologies sometimes arise as if from nowhere? Can the mere description of a condition make it contagious?
:Tryingf to typoe w/ 1 hasnd:
It’s a seerious diseasde.
In all seriousness, I once saw an interview on the Tellie with a lady who suffered from this disease. It takes psychosis to a new level. As she was denied “care” (as she put it) from doctors and surgeons (help in removing her limbs) she actually worried about the limb being attached so much that it made her ill, thus reinforcing her fear.
One doctor suggested that it may be in the patient’s best interest to remove the limb in the short term while they undergo psychological treatment, however, the fear is usually progressive i.e., first it’s a thumb, then a toe and progressing to a forearm and eventually a leg or something. Removing the “bad” finger NEVER solves the problem; the sufferer will convince his/her self that “it” has spread, etc.
It is a very sad condition indeed.
Gees, and I thought my schizophrenia was a little odd…
…that’s wacky!
ugh… scary…
kinda takes cutting to new levels, don’t it?
Wow. A friend of mine told me about this, but I didn’t believe him. Of course, I probably also should have noticed that he was missing a leg he had yesterday…
[Twilight Zone music] I gave a lecture on the psychosocial aspects of amputation this morning in which I talked about this very topic. [/Twilight Zone music]
Thanks for the link; I will print it out for my students.
There is a fitting comparison between this and transsexuality. In both cases, the patient feels very certain that the body they’re in now is not the right one. In both cases, the feeling has been present from a very early age.
Do you consider it sick that a man wants to have his body changes through amputation and surgery? Why then for an apotemnophiliac?
jb
Well, not really. That thread quickly left the subject of physically healthy people who desire amputations, and turned into a debate over whether there is such a thing as schizophrenia.
I read the Atlantic article when it came out, and I have to say I have no idea what to make of the phenomenon.
That’s probably as good a comparison as any, jb.
One difference is that women and men can legitimately be termed ‘differently abled’, while an amputee is less abled.
Of course, I’ve got no knowledge about the success of transsexual surgery. I’m sure someone must’ve done a long-term followup study of transsexuals by now to see if they still felt they’d done the right thing, a decade or two later. But since that’s not my field, I have no idea what any such studies might have turned up. Any Dopers have any clues?
I did see a guy on Springer who was so desparate for a sex change that he amputated HIS OWN PENIS. By himself. With a knife and a rubber band, I believe.
His wife thought he was crazy for wanting to be a woman.
I thought-he’s nuts for attempting to amputate a part of his own body. Jesus, Mary and Joseph-what the HELL was this guy THINKING?
IIRC, he almost bled to death!
One of the reasons I love this board; I’ve never ever thought about this before. Ask and ye shall receive, **RTFirefly **:
Gender Role Reversal among Postoperative Transsexuals
I read most of it before I remembered I was on a ferret mission for the SDMB - enough to know I can’t begin to summarize right now.
Actually, I tried to get a second thread going to discuss this article and the point at which the search for identity became a pathology in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=48818
but I guess not enough people were interested. Maybe it will have better luck getting responses other than “ewww, icky” in this forum.
Personally I think the issues raised in the article really blur the lines, as well as raising all kinds of interesting questions. I mean, where does it stop? 20 years ago, multiple piercings elicited a similar response. 50 years ago, sex reassignment surgery was unthinkable, and a man who wanted to become a woman would have probably been locked up for observation and probably given drugs and analysis. Now, piercings are no big deal and sex reassignment surgery is just another therapy to help people become the person they feel they really are. Who’s to say in another 20 years that amputation of finger joints and earlobes won’t be a standard teenage thing and limb amputation will be regarded as a valuable psychiatric therapy? My instinctive reaction is, “yuck, how could that ever be regarded as a good thing”, but society’s definitions of mental illness are constantly changing. I’m not in the mental health field, but it is such a young field and so subject to changing fashions, it is often hard to take seriously.
I’ll bet that after limb regeneration becomes an established science, this kind of thing (usually just fingers) will be all the rage among the kids.
jb
My first thought when reading the article:
Ew! If you think this disorder is becoming more common because it is being talked about more, then why are you writing an article about it?
Ok, I know that’s completely faulty logic, but it was my first reaction.
After reading the article, I was intrigued by the idea of disorders becoming popular, so to speak, as if they were some sort of fad. I’d like to learn more about the young men going into fugues and wandering about Europe.
I was surprised that the article mentioned that several people, when questioned about why they would want to have a limb amputated, expressed a desire to be viewed as couragious, or that their accomplishments would be more impressive because they were missing a limb. If I was the writer, I would have presesd this issue a lot. This was the key thing that made me very hesitant to believe that they are “suffering” in the same way that transsexuals suffer. This struck me as a issue of entitlement … that the interviewees felt they were denied the sympathy and special accomodations that are often granted to amputees.
I have read other articles about people who have missing limbs, either by birth or accident, and it is often mentioned that they do not want sympathy or special treatment. This seems very at odds with what the “wannabes” in this article were saying.
On the other hand (or lack of a hand, ha ha), the article also made me think about the writing of Oliver Sacks. In his books (he writes about patients suffering from injuries to the brain and the sometimes unexpected results), he has described several patients who disassociate their limbs from themselves. After the injury to the brain, these patients have recoiled because they believe that somehow a leg or an arm has been left in their bed. They cannot be convinced that it is actually their own limb, even though it is still attached to their body, and otherwise functional. This makes me wonder if a desire for amputation might be linked to this sort of physical malfunction of the brain – especially since the article mentions that many of interviewees had very specific ideas about the limb that “does not belong on their body.”
Again, my overwhelming impression is still “ew.” But it brings up a lot of ideas that are very interesting to ponder. Thanks for sharing this link.
This totally creeps me out for the only reason being that I can imagine someone feeling the need to amputate a limb.
I ain’t going to bed for a while tonight…
hey, l;et’s give a hand to Montfort for being honest, and for his insomnia. No really, I think he deserves it.
He’s a good guy. I’d give an arm and a leg to be like him. But seriously, folks, who am I to be talking? I’d lose my head if it weren’t screwed on tight.
Well, sorry monty. The crowd didn’t buy it. But I’ll still stump for ya whenever you need be to.
jb
he’ll be here all week
No, there isn’t.
Maybe these people shouldn’t watch the "Evil Dead " pics. IIRC didn’t a demon get into the hero’s hand and he had to amputate it to keep it from spreading to his heart?
At least he was able to outfit the arm with some nifty new “exremities” like a chain saw and a gun.
Now that I’m thinking about it, does anyone know what the hero’s name was and if he ever fitted anything else onto his stump?
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