I found this site yesterday. I found the name for what I have felt since I was a little kid-- BIID! Having a place to read about others' experience and to share my own is so validating. 

My main experience of BIID, as I understand it, is the decades-long desire to be in a wheelchair. I rented a wheelchair when I was in my mid 20s, and I loved it. I had been wanting to do that for a long time before I finally didn't care who saw me bring that wheelchair into my apartment. I just had to experience what it would feel like to pretend I couldn't walk. 

It was another 20 years before I bought a wheelchair. I had to get a bariatric one because I weighed almost 300 pounds. I loved being in that wheelchair, and it was so hard to move back into "normal" mobility on Mondays when I had to go to work. 

I lost some weight and I got a TiLite chair.  I gave that chair away several years later when I moved in with my girlfriend. She knew about my wheelchair use and she tolerated it, but I thought I should try to live like a normal person, so I gave up my chair. I loved that wheelchair, and I felt so complete when I was seated in it. When I had the TiLite chair, I had also bought leg braces online. That was a dream come true. Sometimes I even wore my leg braces in public in a nearby town. That was so exciting to be in public wearing braces on my legs. It's exciting to write about it here.

Now, another 20-ish years later, I am planning to purchase a wheelchair again. I want to live into this need instead of ignoring it, and I feel lucky that I can do that. I will be able to be in a wheelchair in my house all the time. 

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by braces and wheelchairs and obese people. A girl I went to elementary school with wore a Milwaukee brace for scoliosis. I wanted to have to wear a brace like that, but it never happened. I knew it had to be hard for her, and I felt bad (and wrong) to wish I had to wear a brace like hers, but I did wish that.  Of course I kept this kind of stuff secret. 

In late elementary school, I would pretend I needed to use crutches, and the best I could do was to use a rake that was in the shed in the back yard and hobble around, trying to feel dependent on its support. Around that time, I read a book about a girl who had polio and needed to be in a wheelchair. I tried to figure out how I could need a wheelchair without having polio, but of course that never happened. 

The most exciting thing I did (next to actually purchasing my own wheelchair) was that I decided to fly to another city while wearing my leg braces. Back then I was on a forum that was focused on abasiophilia, and I got a lot of help planning that trip. I learned what to expect at the airport, for example. In that other city, I also went to a museum where I knew I could use one of their wheelchairs for several hours. That was thrilling being in public in a wheelchair and leg braces. I wandered around the museum in the wheelchair and treasured every moment. I went to the museum cafe for lunch and met the challenge of managing my tray of food, paying for it, and finding a table that would accommodate my chair. I loved that experience. I was just a person in a wheelchair, and it felt so good. 

I am very glad there is a site where I can discuss what is such a huge part of my life. I'm glad to be here.