14 DAY TRIAL // 30-year-old Jewel Shuping of North Carolina has been blind since 2006, but not because of any medical complications. She did this to herself. Or, rather, she had her psychologist do this to her.
The woman suffers from body integrity identity disorder, a condition that makes perfectly healthy individuals wish that they were disabled instead. For Jewel Shuping, it was blindness that she desperately desired.
So, with the help of her psychologist, who agreed to drip drain cleaner into her eyes, she made herself blind. The 30-year-old admits it might sound weird to others, but insists this makes her feel complete.
It all started when she was a child
Jewel Shuping remembers that, when she was about 3 or maybe 4, she loved nothing more than walk around the house in complete darkness. Then, when she was 6, it dawned on her that what she really wanted was to be blind.
Convinced that being blind was the only thing that would make her happy, she would stare at the sun for hours in a row, hoping to damage her eyesight beyond repair, DM reports.
As she grew older, she learned how to read in Braille. She even got herself a white cane and a pair of black sunglasses. However, since she could still see, none of this made her feel any better.
“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,” Jewel Shupping explains.
So, she decided to make herself blind
Since pretending that she couldn't see wasn't doing it for her, Jewel Shupping decided to take matters into her own hands and make herself blind with the help of her psychologist.
First, she went to Canada and bought numbing drops. Then, she had her psychologist drip drain cleaner into her eyes. Even with the drops that were supposed to help ease the pain, the experience was agonizing. It was the thought that this would make her go blind that got her through it.
“My eyes were screaming and I had some drain cleaner going down my cheek burning my skin, but all I could think was 'I am going blind, it is going to be okay,'” Jewel Shupping says.
It was about 6 months after she had the drain cleaner poured in her eyes that the woman lost her eyesight. Doctors had to remove her left eye because of the severity of the damage. As for her right eye, it's now covered in scars and so Jewel Shuping can't see anything with it.
It was torture, but it was all well worth it
When her family learned that she had gone blind by choice and not because of some freak accident, they disowned her. All the same, Jewel Shuping says it was all worth it.
The woman is now studying to get a degree in education and hopes that, one day, she will get the chance to work with blind people and teach them how to be independent despite their disability.
Jewel Shuping insists that, contrary to what some might say or think about her, she really didn't have a choice in the matter. Because of her body integrity identity disorder, she just had to be blind to be happy and feel complete.
“People with body integrity identity disorder get trains to run over their legs, freeze dry their legs, or fall off cliffs to try to paralyze themselves. This is not a choice, it's a need based on a disorder of the brain,” she explains.
