30 year old lady from North Carolina had her dream of being blind come true after her psychologist assisted her by pouring drain cleaner into her eyes.
Jewel Shuping was said to have this peculiar desire since she was just a toddler.
She would often wander around in her dark house during the night and stare at the Sun for hours because her mom told her that doing so will harm her eyes.
When she was a teenager, she wore thick black sunglasses outdoors while walking with a cane. By 20 years old, she was already fluent in Braille.
Shuping said,
I was ‘blind-simming’, which is pretending to be blind… But [the idea] kept coming up in my head, and by the time I was 21, it was a non-stop alarm that was going off.
Shockingly, ‘blind-simming’ was not enough for the girl and she eventually found a psychologist who would help her become blind.
In 2006, the unnamed mental health professional reportedly put numbing eyedrops into Shuping’s eyes and then drain cleaner, causing excruciating pain.
Shuping said,
“My eyes were screaming. I had some drain cleaner going down my cheek, burning my skin. In the moment, all I could think of was ‘I am going blind, it is going to be OK.’”
When she woke up the next morning, she realised her vision was still there and got very furious. However, it took another 6 months before her sight was lost from the effects of the drain cleaner. One eye was so damaged it had to be removed. The other remains, despite suffering from glaucoma and cataracts.
Her dream of becoming blind was very solid. Shuping says that she never regretted using the drain cleaner, even though her parents disowned her when they found out she willingly had it poured in her eyes.
Shuping was diagnosed with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), a psychological condition causing one to believe he or she should be disabled in some way, having the feeling that one or more limbs of one’s body do not belong to one’s self.
Others with this condition has even took to submerging themselves in a tub of ice then cutting their own leg off. Yikes!
Shuping said,
“If someone were to say that its fundamentally selfish to blind myself, I would say that it’s selfish to refuse treatment to somebody with a disorder. This is not a choice, it’s a need based on a disorder of the brain.”
