This woman from America deliberately blinded herself with drain cleaner because she wanted to be disabled.
Jewel Shuping, a 30-year-old from North Carolina, had always wanted to be blind.
The feeling was so strong that she actively sought out ways she could blind herself, after wearing dark glasses and walking with a cane since her teenage years.
Jewel sought out a ‘sympathetic’ psychologist, who agreed to put an end to her misery of sighted life.
Picking up some numbing eye drops and drain killer, the psychologist helped Jewel to blind herself in 2006, an experience she said made her eyes ‘scream.’
“But all I could think was ‘I am going blind, it is going to be OK.’”
However, Jewel’s path to blindness wasn’t that straightforward, with her waking the next day to realise she could still see the world around her.
Over time however, both eyes succumbed to their injuries, with one having to be removed entirely.
Shuping has been diagnosed with Body Integrity Identity Disorder, which is a condition where a person’s idea of how they should look does not match their physical form.
The condition only affects a small percentage of people, and usually results in a desire to have a specific body part removed even when it is perfectly healthy.
In Jewel’s case, being blind has finally made her content, though she does understand how people who are that way involuntarily might be upset by her decision.
Her explanation however, is that “this is not a choice, it’s a need based on a disorder of the brain.”
