Woman Fulfills Lifelong Wish To Be Blind, Now Happier Than Ever
This I have to read. It turns out that Jewel Shuping has long thought she was meant to be blind and finally set about making herself so. The woman had Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), which is usually associated with people who want to amputate limbs. I say had because she seems to have 'cured' herself by actually becoming blind. How did she become blind? The story tells us.
In 2006, Shuping found a psychologist who was willing to help her become blind. The psychologist began putting numbing drops in her eyes, followed by a couple of drops of drain cleaner.
Amazingly, the story doesn't discuss criminal charges against this psychologist, the revocation of a license to practice psychology, question this person's ethics, or anything along those lines. No, nothing more is said about the psychologist.
“I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born, that I should have been blind from birth, When there’s nobody around you who feels the same way, you start to think that you’re crazy. But I don’t think I’m crazy, I just have a disorder.”
Yes, she is crazy and the psychologist assisted her in her craziness. It is a disorder, right?
If you want to be blind, poke your eyes, pour Drano on your eyes, or whatever, but the idea of a medical practitioner assisting in this endeavor really troubles me. What happened to First, do no harm? This is the same reason I am opposed to doctor-assisted suicide. You aren't all that eager to die if you need someone present to assist.
If all that wasn't bad enough, the tone of the story is positive. Look at the headline! The reporter is all-in on the goal of blindness. The only disapproval comes in the off-handed line that Shuping's mother and sister are no longer on speaking terms with her. Can you believe that she has such an unsupportive family? What does it say about American culture that the story was covered this way?
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