Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

It’s brain damage!  Wait, NO!  Is it mind damage?  I stand behold a properly placed mirror, starring with a blank spot in mind.  This image has two legs, two arms, a trunk, a neck and a head.  I am no the only one in the world with this condition, and though it does not bother me, my frustration may be apparent when people stare, double take, or glace over as I pass them.  I know they’re just curious and perhaps don’t know any better, but my mood surceases when this disease is pointed out to my face!  According to my doctors, there’s a condition that is connected in the nervous system and mind, but for me, the knowledge of my own body and its parts, I add knowledge of other bodies and their parts in every hour of every day.  My mother tells me, I’m just like everyone else, but if that were the case, I could recognize this vessel in which my soul confides.  I read of another case, such as mine, it were of a man, much older then me, I would say but he would only wash the right side of his body, and when he was told of what he was doing, laughed miserably and then proceeded to wash the right side of his body.  This right side just did not exist to him.  A story my doctor actually speaks about is of yet another man, laying in a hospital bed with his arm hanging off the side, he was asked if it were his, he responded negatively, but when held up in front of him, he reluctantly agreed it was indeed his own arm.  Now don’t let me gender fool you, many other females battle with this problem as well.  I met a woman recently, who had just completed a test on her left side by placing her right hand on her left shoulder and slowly gracing down her arm, and even though she saw clearly what she had done, she adhered to the opinion that a person must believe her intuitions and not her eyes.  My illness began when I was very young; I slowly lost everlasting feeling, or the idea of my body.  I tried to be brave, but when you logically loose your legs and the numbness moves to other areas, my heart could not keep up.  Tomorrow I’m to see another doctor, who’s going to observe me while I take the Rorschach test, which I’m sure you’ve all heard of, perhaps known as the “ink blotch” test.  The last time, I only saw animals or just faces.  Some say my mind has just wiped off the “body” as a way for protecting myself.  They could be right, but for all I know, this entire situation gives a new respect for such a simple after dinner performance.  Like taking ones body out for a walk.  If I’m doomed for a life without my own body or the sight of others bodies, I might as well enjoy the satire in those who don’t understand me, or for those who treat me!