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Woman who had bleach poured in eyes 'dreamed of being blind since childhood'

Jewel Shuping, from North Carolina, was left permanently blind after a psychologist poured drain cleaner into her eyes - but she now says she was manipulated into the act

[Jewel says she had yearned to be blind when she was a child]

Jewel says she had yearned to be blind when she was a child(Image: Barcroft Media/ YouTube)

A woman who spent her childhood yearning to be blind has explained how a psychologist manipulated her into pouring drain cleaner into her eyes.

Jewel Shuping, from North Carolina, asserted she was afflicted with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), a condition where individuals believe they are destined to have a disability.

As a child, she would gaze at the sun for hours after being told it would harm her vision, and as a teenager, she began donning dark sunglasses and started learning braille.

She referred to these actions as "blind-swimming", essentially feigning life without sight.

She described the urges she experienced as overpowering. "The idea kept coming up in my head and by the time I was 21 it was a non-stop alarm that was going off," she stated.

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[Jewel says she stared at the sun as a child to damage her eyesight]

Jewel says she stared at the sun as a child to damage her eyesight(Image: Barcroft Media/ YouTube)

In 2006, she went to Chicago to meet a man who, she says, professed to be a psychologist. According to Shuping, he secluded her in his home for a fortnight and instructed her not to communicate with family or friends, reports the Mirror.

He then laid her down and used a syringe to drip a potent drain cleaner into her eyes.

"He had me stay in his home for two weeks, telling me not to contact family or friends," she later wrote in an online post.

"Then one day, he laid me down and used a rubber syringe to put drain cleaner in my eyes."

She further noted that he made her wait half an hour before taking her to hospital.

Ultimately, the damage took months to completely obliterate her sight.

[An individual is seated on a chair within an indoor setting, holding an open book in their lap and attentively focusing on its contents. The chair is upholstered in a dark fabric, and the room features a plain, light-colored wall in the background.]

Jewel now believes she was manipulated by the man who claimed to be a psychologist(Image: Barcroft Media/ YouTube)

Despite informing journalists at the time that the disturbing behaviour of the psychologist, who has never been identified, was consensual, in a recent post on internet blog site Reddit she confessed she now believes this may not have been the situation.

"The memories of wanting to be blind as a child were false ones, reality twisted to suit the narrative," she wrote.

"I do not believe I would have ever considered blindness under any circumstances."

She also claimed the man manipulated her by reframing traumatic childhood experiences as evidence she "wanted" blindness.

"He would point to that and tell me this was me wanting to be blinded," she said.

Shuping says she has since undergone extensive trauma therapy and now lives with complex PTSD and social anxiety.

"What this man did to me haunts me to this day," she wrote.

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