Jewel Shuping was three years old when she started walking through the darkness of her home in North Carolina, pretending she couldn’t see. At six, she tried to damage her eyes by looking directly at the sun. By 20, she had already mastered braille. For most of the world, those behaviors were symptoms of an illness. For her, they were the only language in which she understood herself.
The diagnosis has a name: Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID for its initials in English. It is a rare condition in which the brain rejects a functional part of the person’s own body, generating in the patient an intense and uncontrollable desire to have a physical disability. In 2006, at 21, Shuping sought professional help. The psychologist who treated her made a decision that goes against every ethical code: instead of treating the disorder, she collaborated in satisfying it. She applied anesthetic drops and then poured drain cleaner directly into her eyes. They waited 30 minutes before going to the hospital. The damage was already irreversible.
Six months later, Jewel Shuping was completely blind. One of her eyes was removed; the other developed glaucoma, cataracts, and permanent scarring. Her family cut off all contact with her. However, when she is asked whether she regrets it, her answer does not change: no. “I was so happy, I felt that this was what was supposed to be”, she said in an interview with Barcroft TV. Today she warns that no one should replicate her method, but insists that her body, for the first time, matches who she always knew she was.
