Whole - A Melody Gilbert Documentary (2003) (documentary about able bodied people who think they should be amputees)

[u/TheSlayBrother]

Please don't be too harsh if this doesn't really fit, I'm not super familiar with this world of lost/rare media.

I found this DVD at a Goodwill Bins the other day and it basically doesn't exist anywhere on the internet except EXTREMELY depricated websites. You can't find a hard copy to buy on either Amazon or on Ebay. I thought it was really interesting and incredibly unusual subject matter.

Pretty stinkin unusual piece of media that is crazy rare.

I have pictures of it anybody are interested in seeing (since I can't attached them to the post). Has anybody seen anything like this before?

[u/MelodyBlues]

Available to view here via the Internet Archive.

[u/AbleChamp]

Boy do I miss special interest sections at video stores. This looks a lot like something that you would find there.

[u/TVfish → u/AbleChamp]

The video store i worked at had a section of documentaries that had one called "act of god" about people struck by lightning.

[u/AbleChamp → u/TVfish]

I'd check that out for a few days. I remember seeing Charles Manson Superstar (self explanatory) and Goodbye Uncle Tom (a movie made either in the 80s or 90s about if a documentary crew were to visit a plantation) amongst other things such as Fugazi's Instrument documentary and random foreign art films

[u/Dark_Green_MkII]

There are extreme body modification practices that include removing digits, ears, nose, etc., even all the way up to genital nullification ("nullo"). There seems to be a fair amount of various media about it out there.

[u/Merryprankstress → u/Dark_Green_MkII]

There's a film called American Mary where a character wants to be a living doll and gets the main character to sew her up genitals up like that

[u/ms-gender → u/Merryprankstress]

The twins in American Mary made the movie! So it’s by body modders too. Such a great movie, god Katherine Isabelle is hot

[u/Merryprankstress → u/ms-gender]

Oh shit I had no idea they made it! That's awesome.

[u/storyofohno → u/Dark_Green_MkII]

Louis Theroux's brother did a 2 part documentary called The Eunuch Maker about nullos (etc). It is on YouTube and it's fascinating.

[u/gutlessflab]

I haven't seen this documentary, but I have seen segments of 20/20 and maybe a BBC documentary on people with body integrity identity disorder. Harrowing to watch.

[u/tumes]

Heyo I’ve seen this. A Life Without Pain is legit one of the harder movies I have ever watched. And that was pre kid, I dunno if I could really sit through it now.

[u/died_as_in_dead]

This reminded me of Alien hand syndrome. But then I found this body integrity dysphoria

Body integrity dysphoria is characterised by an intense and persistent desire to become physically disabled in a significant way (e.g. major limb amputee, paraplegic, blind), with onset by early adolescence accompanied by persistent discomfort, or intense feelings of inappropriateness concerning current non-disabled body configuration

[u/shunkplunk]

We watched this in 12th grade biology, it really stuck with me

[u/deadmallsanita]

I remember there was a lady on dr Phil who made herself blind with drain cleaner. https://youtu.be/7SHF69W7tVU?is=sNWcXlfpDLGEhcXr

[u/-BlueFalls- → u/deadmallsanita]

Petal Palmer did a good video on her

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QCJ_ReUkOd8

[u/Prof_Tickles]

I think of the scene in Clerks 2 where Randall argues with a crippled guy online. He trolls him by saying how much he hates walking and would drive to the end of his driveway if he could.

[u/southlandardman]

I'm a physician but not a psychiatrist, and this is interesting to me: the idea of patients suffering from dysphoria relating to their limbs. We often think of dysphoria in terms of gender dysphoria, a psychiatric condition causing a sense of discomfort and disconnection between physical sex and self-perceived gender. We have come to the current conclusion that gender dysphoria should be treated by accepting the self-perceived identity and often offering medications or surgery to create a physical change more congruent with the perceived identity. Is this so different? Obviously it is in that the surgery is creating a permanent disability, but otherwise it feels analogous. It is really accomplishing the same goal in a condition which to me appears somewhat similar. Fascinating.

[u/Helianthus_exilis]

Saw this in San Francisco at the documentary film festival in 2003. It was pretty interesting. Saw Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story. It, and the soundtrack, were both great. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/offthecharts/

[u/curiouscuriousmtl]

I watched this and it's really wild. I feel like there are a lot of documentaries out there like this which end up pretty hard to find. I feel like it belongs here. I thought I had a rip of it but it looks like no longer. Wish I did!

[u/LeRoiCasoar]

I remember seeing an episode of this on that old TV show Taboo. A dude wanted his leg just under the knee removed but doctors wouldn't do it for him, so he gave himself frostbite until there was enough reason to amputate it

[u/bobbyllama]

there's also a pretty decent fictionalized movie about this called 'quid pro quo' with nick stahl and vera farmiga

[u/bok4600]

there was a lady on dr phil that DELIBERATELY blinded herself with either bleach or some other hosehold chemical. that was nuts on its own

[u/curiocabinet]

I remember this doc! It was one of the first dvds I requested from Netflix in 2006.

[u/DesertPeachyKeen]

There's a film based on the phenomena with Vera Farmiga titled "Quid Pro Quo" 

[u/born_digital]

Anyone ever read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn? This (idea) is part of the plot

[u/TonyWonderslostnut]

No thanks