The self-image trap

Fourteen years ago, The Atlantic published an article titled “A New Way to Be Mad” by Carl Elliott, which explored the world of “apotemnophilia.” My spell-checker doesn’t recognize that word, and I can’t blame it. The thing it describes is due for a name change anyway—only last week it showed up as “transabled.”

Have you heard of this? Just when we thought it was safe to go to the supermarket without being assaulted by images of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, we hear of a man in Canada who cut off his arm because it never “felt” like it belonged to him. He’s part of a phenomenon: able-bodied individuals who feel in their souls that they are actually lame or blind and their outward self is not reflecting their inner reality.

Research has yet to catch up with this condition, but the internet has provided anecdotal evidence for years. On websites and in chat rooms, would-be amputees (also known as “wannabes”) post photographs of truncated bodies, review books and movies on the subject, and share stories and deep longings for the kind of “completeness” to be found only by severing. A few have gone all the way, via black-market providers, renegade surgeons, or homemade guillotines.

Why would anyone, sick or whole, desire to do without a workable appendage? Though apotemnophilia is classified as a psychosexual disorder, Carl Elliott discovered while researching his Atlantic article that the driving force is not overtly sexual. Over and over, in personal testimony and conversation, one theme emerged: an image of the self that clashed with objective fact. The typical wannabe just didn’t “feel right” with a full complement of limbs and functions.

Does that sound familiar? Some men see themselves as women. Some women see themselves as fat. Their bodies say otherwise, but the image in their heads shouts down the image in the mirror. The eyes lie; the heart tells the truth … doesn’t it?

“Transableism” will never be more than a sideshow in the media carnival—we can hope—but it’s really a very extreme version of the oldest madness of all: humans deciding to be like God and make their own reality (Genesis 3:5). Since then, the world has been a vast lunatic asylum with inmates operating according to distorted views of their souls and bodies. The obsessive bodybuilder who bulks up with steroids is no healthier than the wannabe who pictures his true self without an arm. Both are locked in a cage of self-image, wherein they pace and fidget and turn ceaselessly, trying to get comfortable.

Here’s a guess: Transabled people will be no happier once they actually sever the offending body part. Neither will transgendered males or females who butcher themselves into some appearance of the opposite sex. Like all of us, they are trapped in their own self-image like flies in amber, when they were made for broader fields and wider skies. The only remedy from the prison of self-image is escape into God’s image. “The real me” is a mystery I can’t solve; only He can. When we find ourselves in Him, we truly find ourselves.