Wheelchair pretender?
Pfft...If you're going to identify as something, don't pretend. If you want to be blind, go for it.
Ever since she was a little girl, Jewel Shuping dreamed of being blind. The North Carolina resident was born perfectly healthy, but she became so obsessed with losing her sight that at age 21, she took matters into her own hands.
Shuping claims that she had a psychologist pour drain cleaner in her eyes, then waited to seek medical attention. Afterwards, she gradually lost her eyesight and is now almost completely blind, she says.
“I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born, that I should have been blind from birth,” the 30-year-old says.
Shuping has Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) – a rare condition causing able-bodied people to believe they are supposed to be disabled. She has long fantasized about being blind.
“When I was young, my mother would find me walking in the halls at night. When I was 3 or 4 years old,” Shuping recalls. “By the time I was 6 I remember that thinking about being blind made me feel comfortable.”
Shuping acquired a white cane in her teens and could read Braille fluently by the time she was 20. As the years progressed, so did her desire to be blind.
So, she decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2006, Shuping claims she found a sympathetic psychologist who agreed to pour drain cleaner into her eyes (the two first met for a few weeks to make sure Shuping was ready).
