A North Carolina woman poured drain cleaner in her eyes to blind herself on purpose. Jewel Shuping, 30, told the NY Post she believed she was born to be blind.
By age 21, Shuping was so desperate to ease her mental suffering, that she found a sympathetic psychologist to perform the procedure.
The psychologist gave her eye drops to numb the pain before administering drops of Draino into both of her eyes.
Shuping said she is happier now than she’s ever been in her life.
“I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born, that I should have been blind from birth,” Shuping told Barcroft Media.
“I went blind on purpose, but I feel it was a choice,” she added.
The disorder, called body integrity identity disorder (BIID), was coined by Dr. Michael First, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University. The disorder causes able-bodied people to desire a disability.
“Our job is to reduce suffering however it’s possible,” said Dr. First. “People have tried therapy, they’ve tried medications. None of those have been really successful,” Dr. First told Barcroft Media.
He added: “The ethics of whether it is okay to take a normal person and make them disabled is… I think you can make it an ethical case. If you conceptualize this as treating a condition, then it’s okay to do it.”
The fact that Shuping is seeking attention for taking her own sight is a symptom of the mental disorder. It wouldn’t be worthwhile for her blind herself unless she can convince others to accept what she did as normal.
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