Body Integrity Identity Disorder

Body integrity identity disorder (BIID) is a psychological disorder in which

an otherwise healthy individual feels that they are meant to be disabled.
BIID is typically accompanied by the desire to amputate one or more
healthy limbs. The cause of BIID is unknown. One hypothesis states that
it results from a neurological failing of the brain's inner body mapping
function (located in the right parietal lobe) to incorporate the affected
limb in its understanding of the body's physical form.
Description
Sufferers of BIID are uncomfortable with a part of their body, such as a
limb, and feel confident that removing or disabling this part of their body
will relieve their discomfort.
Sufferers may have intense feelings of envy toward amputees. They may
pretend that they are an amputee, both in public and in private.
Sufferers experience the above symptoms as being strange and
unnatural. They may try to injure themselves to require the amputation
of that limb. They are generally ashamed of their thoughts and may try
to hide them from others, including therapists and health care
professionals.
Ethical considerations
The idea of medically amputating a BIID sufferer's undesired limb is
highly controversial. Some support amputation for patients with BIID
that cannot be treated through psychotherapy or medication. Others
emphasize the irreversibility of amputation and promote the study of
phantom limbs to treat the patient from a psychological perspective
instead.
Some act out their desires, pretending they are amputees using
prostheses and other tools to ease their desire to be one. Some sufferers
have reported to the media or by interview over the telephone with
researchers that they have resorted to self-amputation of a
superfluous limb, for example by allowing a train to run over it, or by
damaging the limb so badly that surgeons will have to amputate it.
However, the medical literature records few, if any, cases of actual selfamputation.
Often the obsession is with one specific limb. A patient might say, for
example, that they do not feel complete while they still have a left leg.

However, BIID does not simply involve amputation; it involves any wish
to significantly alter body integrity. Some people suffer from the desire
to become paralyzed, blind, deaf, use orthopedic appliances such as legbraces, etc. Some people spend time pretending they are an amputee by
using crutches and wheelchairs at home or in public; in the BIID
community, this is called a pretender. The condition is usually treated
as a psychiatric disorder.