Normalish

For those of you who are too young (jeez - that is the first time I have ever said that and I don’t like it at all) the title of this post is from the classic Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd movie “Trading Places.”

A recent article about Body Identity Integrity Disorder has been making the rounds on a few sites as of late. I had heard about this disorder a few times in the past, but it seems this may be the first time it is getting some major attention.

Those with BIID feel as though their “true” body is missing limbs. This is somewhat analogous with those who have been born one gender but feel as though they are truly the other gender. Much like those with Gender identity disorder, BIID sufferers often attempt to undergo surgery to get the intended effect. That’s right, they have surgery (or use some other means) to amputate perfectly good limbs.

My first thought, of course, is WTF? There are a lot of crazy mental disorders but this one is particularly hard to understand. And while this disorder is so difficult to understand it brought about a deeper question. How is it that a large number of people can all have the same strange problem? In other words, it would almost be easier to understand if one weird guy had this problem, but how do many people have this same, specific, unusual problem?