Jewel Shuping has a disorder called (BIID) Body Integrity Identity Disorder which is quite similar to the Gender Dysphoria which transgender individuals tend to have.

In Jewel's case she believed her entire life that she was meant to be blind. In fact it was her lifelong dream to become blind.

She would even spend 8 hours per day staring at the sun in hopes that it would damage her eyesight. At first she would pretend to be blind by closing her eyes and going outdoors with sunglasses on and a walking cane. She also became fluent in braille and that still wasn't enough Shuping says.

Determined to make her dream a reality she began seeing a psychologist that would help her carry out her plan. The psychologist put numbing drops in her eyes first and then put a couple drops of drain cleaner in each eye.

Jewel said: “It hurt, let me tell you. My eyes were screaming and I had some drain cleaner going down my cheek burning my skin.

“But all I could think was ‘I am going blind, it is going to be okay.”

“When I woke up the following day I was joyful, until I turned on to my back and opened my eyes. I was so enraged when I saw the TV screen.”

Over the next six months Shuping says that her eyesight eventually started to fade away. Her left eye suffered a 'corneal meltdown' and ended up collapsing on itself and had to be removed. Her right eye ended up having glaucoma and cataracts as well as a webbing of scars.

She states, “I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born, that I should have been blind from birth.

“When there’s nobody around you who feels the same way, you start to think that you’re crazy. But I don’t think I’m crazy, I just have a disorder.”