"If a therapist can pull back and see the desire for surgery not so much as a pathology, but as a means of trying to correct something that doesn’t feel right, I think that’s a useful approach."
Says Dr. Ellen Katz Westrich, a clinical psychologist who works with a stature-lengthening surgeon, quoted in "He Was 5'7". After Surgery, He’ll Be 5'10". Originally designed to correct mismatched length in legs, limb-lengthening surgery has become increasingly popular for men looking to permanently increase their height" (BuzzFeedNews).
The surgeon, Dr. Shahab Mahboubian says: "You can do as much therapy as you want... but you can’t change people’s perception of you.... It’s not going to stop the jokes.... This is the one type of surgery that can actually get rid of the psychological impacts that come with being short."
The patient profiled in the article said: "No amount of anti-anxiety medication or verbal talk therapy could get the world to stop treating me like this. I could have a great session for five hours, and I would still go on the internet and see 'Men below this height shouldn’t have rights.'... A lot of therapists I saw said, 'I never thought about it like that.' I’m paying for them to help me, and a lot of times, I would be opening their eyes to the whole situation."
The surgery involves breaking both femurs and installing a metal device that gradually expands, as much as 3 inches. The patient in the article was 5'7", which is 2" shorter than the average American man.
Posts
81 comments:
but as a means of trying to correct something that doesn’t feel right, I think that’s a useful approach.
Yeah.....what's next?? Pretty soon you will have folks mutilating their genitals because they don't feel right!!
oh.....wait!!!
"and I would still go on the internet and see 'Men below this height shouldn’t have rights.'... "
If you're bothered by nonsense like that, surgery is not going to fix what's wrong with you.
There are rules that you need to learn as a male that is below 6’ tall.
Women make a yes or no decision immediately on seeing a man and it has to do with eye angles. They all pretend they don’t but they do.
All the people generally use height of a male to assess leadership ability. The army is hilariously predictable in this way.
The best extension for your height is a fat wallet.
It all boils down to the perception of your ability to provide and protect.
TOPPER HARLEY: "Those are some long legs"
RAMADA THOMPSON: "Thanks. I just had them lengthened. Now they go all the way up."
Ringo Starr is 5'7, and is a towering giant.
Is there a Shortness Positive or Shortness Affirmation Movement out there that we can report this to, or does everyone one just consider Peter Dinklage their go-to guy for all things short?
Short people got no reason for living!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfyS-S-IJs
you KNOW what this 'therapy' is all about; The Exact Same thing trans 'therapy' is all about.
It's All about the Benjamins $$$
"Doctors" are the Really sickos
"The patient in the article was 5'7", which is 2" shorter than the average American man."
I guess we lie about average height, too! lol
I think the patients argument is a stretch...very short-sighted.
Many of us have genetically prescribed features somewhat outside the norms of height, weight, neural or muscular function, or physiognomy. As such people proceed through life, the not-normal feature becomes the "first fact" of every social encounter and they come to believe that this first fact is a condition of all of their new relationships, barring them from the normal social intercourse that they long for. Who can blame them for the feeling that they want to be "normal"? But a healthy response to that feeling requires a reality principle in norm deviation assessment, and a thoughtful cost/benefit determination.
There is an awful lot of cosmetic and bariatric surgery going on in this country, aimed at erasing or minimizing the "first fact". And quite a bit of it is based on irrational norm deviation analysis, and poorly considered cost/benefit analysis.
Average or shorter than average guys have more energy. They try harder. Tall men are smug about it.
Or so I've heard.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet and have yet to come across the statement that short men have no rights. Does he go looking for that kind of stuff? If he does, that’s why he keeps seeing it.
"see 'Men below this height shouldn’t have rights.'"
Has anyone ever seen this?
Does therapy now consist in abetting insanity?
That's right Achilles. We among the Six-Four club call it the tall man's burden. What they don't mention is that when you are a kid, the tallest is branded the ring leader responsible for all shenanigans. You are also bombarded with comments about the weather up there and your basketball skills. Also when you are in elementary school and look like a middle schooler, strangers think you are retardant.
It's not just the height, it the experience that groomed you to be a leader from the first days of preschool. Everyone places higher expectations on you in sports, social dominance, gender relations, etc. Even with dyslexia and ADHD learning problems, the academic expectations are high forcing you to do well. When I was in second grade, I was placed in a fifth grade PE class because it wasn't fair for those poor second graders. You learn quickly that fifth graders will only quit picking on you when you fight back.
As an adult you learn that the short fucks will outlive you. More pressure to get more out of life while you can. Don't get me started about the lack of legroom in cars, airplanes, busses and carnival rides. You'd think we'd qualify for the ADA forcing manufacturing to accommodate us, but no. We are the silent oppressed minority whom has to learn to live with the bigotry because everyone else is jealous of what they don't have.
I feel sorry for this guy, not for being unremarkably short, but for being pathologically insecure. He takes meds, he does five hours of therapy, but someone he'll never meet writes something absurd on the internet and I guess all his progress is gone? I think after he's 5'10" the world will still treat him "like this" because how he feels about his height is a symptom, not a cause.
I'm reminded of a line by Christopher Hitchens on rumors about John McCain's temper. Apparently McCain once went off on some Young Republican who set up a podium in a way that left him looking a little comical behind it. Hitch:
"It can be tough being 5 foot 9 (as I am here on tiptoe to tell you), but most of us got over it before we were out of our teens, let alone before donning the uniform of the U.S. armed forces."
I’m guessing that two inches is less than one standard deviation.
so, this stuff costs about $75,000 to $100,000
https://blog.heightlengthening.com/how-much-does-limb-lengthening-surgery-cost
you can SEE WHY doctors Want you to do it.. It will make you (their wallet) fell better
But don't they look odd if the new height is all in their upper legs? Don't their arms look too short?
Now I've got the Zacchaeus song in my head.
Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
And a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see.
And as the Savior passed that way
He looked up in the tree,
And he said, "Zacchaeus you come down, For I'm going to your house today!"
For I'm going to your house today!
If you have no problem with breast implants you should have no problem with this. They are the same thing. Enhancing what little sex appeal you were born with. Most men like bigger breasts. Most women like taller men. Women with flat chests are at a disadvantage in the dating pool, short men ditto. This is nothing at all like trannies.
This isn’t coming from a mental illness stand point where the person thinks they are the opposite of what they are. They just want to be a bit “better” in other people’s eyes as what they already are. I don’t personally agree with surgery but I didn’t have to live life as a flat chested women or a short man.
Assume that leg lengthening surgery results in an advantage in certain sports. A quarterback who is three inches taller can see over his offensive line better. Basketball, of course. Running and cycling: possibly. Should a recipient of this surgery be eligible to play at a scholarship or professional level?
I'm 5"4" but I identify as 5'11". Doesn't that count for something?
This is a Babylon Bee article, right?
Men below this height shouldn't have rights...
Let's see...most of the fighter pilots I've known were between 5'6" and 5'10" .
The retired Seal I dove with was 5'6" . Possibly he shrunk a bit from all salt water.
A Marine Colonel I knew was 5'8" .
Ok, sure, Neil Armstrong was 5'11" . Outlier. ( Though I think Wikipedia is wrong here. Pic I have makes him look more like 5'9" .)
These quacks need to have their licenses revoked and be thrown in prison.
Instead, no doubt laws are soon coming prohibiting "conversion" therapy that tells them that these trans-tall people really are 5'4" rather than the 6-foot they identify as.
“ But don't they look odd if the new height is all in their upper legs? Don't their arms look too short?”
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
Will he admit he’s had this procedure when a woman comments on his out-of-proportion thighs?
Knowing he’s done this is much worse than being 5’7”!!
As usual, South Park was already there years ago when Kyle had affirming surgery to be the tall Black man he felt he is. While his father famously became a Jewfin.
What about trans men?
Are they counseled on the down side of being short?
Or will they be getting their thighs elongated?
But don't they look odd if the new height is all in their upper legs? Don't their arms look too short?
Look at a taller person and shorter person sitting next to each other. Often they appear to be the same height. Their trunk is the same length.
+1 to Vermonter this is the first I heard of such a statement. I’ve heard women say they won’t date a man shorter than them, but then I know men that won’t date women without at least a C cup. Now men have a way to fake it.
"If you have no problem with breast implants you should have no problem with this."
I think breast implants are stupid, too.
No way I'd take the risk of complications over the several decades of my life to be 2" taller.
How weak and screwed up must this leave your legs? Christ, what a goofy world we are living in. Same as it always was I suspect.
My nephew is around 5'7". His dad (my brother) is 6'1". His mom, probably a little over 5'. Nephew was complaining to me one day about his height. I just looked at him and said, "It could have been worse." He married someone maybe an inch shorter than he is.
My son (6'3") said he dated the taller girls because they have problems finding guys tall enough so they don't have to slouch. His wife is 6'. I think it's the women who are getting taller. I used to be average and now I'm considered "petite." I'm 5'5".
I think the shorter men should date shorter flat chested women.
the grass is always greener over there.
Dude - don't do it . That unnecessary surgery sounds painful.
I need "height therapy". My stepfather was 6'5 and I was 5'11 at age 14. I was destined to be a star, a good FB and BKB player in Jr HS and my first two years of HS. I coulda been a contender for today's NFL Draft.
However, 55 years later I am 5'10. My dreams were shattered by my genetics. Science could have turned my life around.
BG: "I think the shorter men should date shorter flat chested women."
You basically described my relationship. At 5' tall I HATE dating men over 5' 8" or so. Parter of 26 years is 5' 7". I HATE having to look up to a 6' and over person to talk to them and can't stand getting all tangled up in long arms/legs during sex. Short men rule and you never know which short men are very well endowed below the belt.
Ow!
Dude, there's nothing wrong with being short. Maybe this is more of an issue in the world of online dating where people imagine they have preferences that they don't actually have.
I'm 6-2, and I gave up on dating women under 5-4 or so, because I got tired of leaning down. Meanwhile, my guy friends who are shorter (but are athletic, interesting, and have game) do just fine in the dating world.
“ I guess we lie about average height, too! lol”
You’re accusing me of lying?!!!
Better look it up. I did.
Ampersand @ 2:28: Excellent comment. Is this surge in surgery driven by demand? Or by supply? On the demand side (I almost typed, the "damned side") we can all dream up "solutions" for all the inchoate and semi-organized unhappinesses that we can construct and carry around with us. But those remain merely dreamt solutions until we go on late night TV and find the 1-800-GET-FIXD actual product and service. About which we can never know nearly enough.
This heightening thing seems to me to be another version of bariatric surgery or a nose job. Not healthy. By the way: who's paying for all this?
I'm only 5' 7", and when I was young I used to say: "It's all the same lying down."
Except that one time, with a 6 ft. Amazon, when it wasn't.
It was then I discovered motorboating.
I imagine Tom Cruise sits around thinking about how he could have been a bigger star if only he’d been taller. Humphrey Bogart too…he had such trouble getting the girl…
Maybe I missed it, but did they ever say where this guy lives? I'd like to make sure I avoid that town because I sense a mass shooting in it's very near future.
My ex-husband is 6’7”.
Never faithful &left me w/2little ones under the age of 2. 14mos apart.
Height doesn’t mean a good man. Or good protector or provider.
Having said that, psychologically it’s as Achilles says.
LMB in Vorkosiverse >>>>
Miles Vorkosigan [final height at 4' 11"] is lucky enough to have enough calcium put in his bone-cells to develop a skeleton
Of course his bones were replaced with synthetics eventually
“He Was 5'7". After Surgery, He’ll Be 5'10"
He shoulda come to me for therapy: Wear an Afro. Now you’re 5’11”
Cost: Afro…$100
Therapy session… sliding scale
Surgery avoidance… priceless
I think there are racial differences in relative length of upper vs lower legs, e.g. blacks have more length of leg below the knee. Black women reportedly didn't do classical ballet because they looked odd en pointe relative to the Caucasian standard.
OTOH, native American toddlers age 1 to 4 have shorter limbs relative to length of trunk than Caucasians. It evens out in a few years but this means that the WIC program wrongly classed them as overweight based simply on weight for height.
The patient profiled in the article said: "No amount of anti-anxiety medication or verbal talk therapy could get the world to stop treating me like this. I could have a great session for five hours, and I would still go on the internet and see 'Men below this height shouldn’t have rights.'
And if you had worthwhile therapy, then your response to that would be "what a loser", and then you'd move on
"It’s not going to stop the jokes...."
I can't even think of a short joke, though I must have heard one at some point. Maybe he should try to meet that girl in "Little Red Corvette"; she was into jockeys, and Prince. Oh there it is, a short joke. I knew I could do it.
I'm merely average height, and I'd love to be 6 feet tall, so the surgery sounds cool.
But if you go into hissy fits because some random moron posts something really stupid on the internet, you have a serious problem that has nothing to do with your height
"Therapists" soon to replace lawyers as the largest group of useless grifters!
This heightening thing seems to me to be another version of bariatric surgery or a nose job. Not healthy. By the way: who's paying for all this?
Bariatric surgery is rarely done for aesthetic reasons. The youngest patient I had was age 15 and about 250 pounds. She was referred by a pediatric endocrinology clinic. Nose jobs on young girls are pretty much harmless. I knew quite a few who had them done at age 16. Jennifer Gray shows another risk.
A surgeon friend of mine did bariatric surgery on a man who weight 700 pounds. The man lost 500 pounds and was unhappy because no one recognized him. That is a psychiatic issue.
Chick Hearn : [During Fletch's dream] He is actually six-five, with the afro, six-nine.
MICKEY: (slamming the door) That little Bastard! He saw the lifts in my shoes. He knows I'm heightening. (to Kramer) This never would have happened if you hadn't pushed me to get those things. I told you.
Therapist: You know what? Google says Tom Cruise is 5’ 7”.
Patient: Yeah. That may be so. But, that’s Tom Cruise. I’m not Tom Cruise.
Soon, courts in Massachusetts will rule that prisoners in Commonwealth facilities must be given talling procedures to enhance their self image. If they were 7 foot tall then fellow prisoners could not "rake their shit."
Hmm, that's nuts.
I'll bet the patients walk funny after.
5'7" isn't even short.
I’ve dated men from 6’9” to 4’9”. It’s the motion in the ocean, not the size of the mast.
Hang on. A person can feel "overly pathologized" by being told "we have to get rid of your desire for surgery"? "You're physically normal, get over it" (however gently said, i.e. in a therapeutic setting) is a way of making people feel that they have a disease?
Why is everything Newspeak now?
If you are taller than a fair number of women, you are fine on the dating front, and 5-7 is getting kind of tallish for women. This goes way deeper than height for this guy.
I remember reading about a guy who was maybe 5-6, and he wore lifts when he went out trying to meet women, because he said his height filtered him out and the women didn't really see him, but after meeting them, he never wore the lifts again, and the women didn't seem to notice; I always admired that guy.
While I agree with the overall sentiment—some mental issues justify physical treatments—this patient is a bad example.
5’7” is a little short, but not enough to cause problems. I’m not much taller then this guy (I was 5’8” in my prime and am a little shorter now), so my height experience is probably about the same as his. And, like him, I’d love to have a few extra inches of stature, but the impact on my life from not being tall is pretty negligible.
That’s nothing. The worse unfairness in life is alphabetizing groups of people so the As go first and the Ws go last. But for an occasional Z, the Ws are always put last in line. Not that an Althouse would care.
If a man notices that height is a barrier to what he wants to accomplish, and takes action to overcome that barrier, that's OK.
If a man is blaming other people for his problems, no matter how unfair... dude, the world isn't fair. Get over it. You'll always be miserable.
There's a weird "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO TO MYSELF" vibe here. Sure, it sucks, but it requires less sustained effort than an exercise program.
If he said, "Yeah, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and do something about it," I'd feel differently.
I've come to be grateful for my ugly features. They worked as filters to exclude shallow women. Yeah, it's my responsibility not to be repulsive, but anyone who expects me to look perfect has the wrong priorities. On the other hand, people who don't make any effort to look good are unattractive because of the character traits they are displaying: contempt, self-loathing, and lack of self-discipline. It's not a simple issue.
It seems like maybe he could try wearing lifts for a while first.
I leased a Tundra double cab pickup for several years. When I drove it I was 6'2 190 lbs.
(I was once 5'10 and 1/2". Not so much anymore).
Ultimately, if your happiness depends on the actions of strangers, you will never be happy.
There's this weird need for control in the current generation that was absent before. I got on TELNET in 1989 and posted on BBS and forums for decades. Generally, if people think you are wrong, they either try to convince you, or they try to convince the audience you are a bad person.
I listened and engaged with anyone who talked to me. If they were performing for the audience, I ignored them and kept typing. People who can't hang try to shut you up. I never got butt hurt about people daring to insult me. I never asked for anyone to be banned. It actually didn't occur to me, and I would have been laughed at for asking. In tens of thousands of posts, I never felt like my life or happiness was at risk. Come on. I wrote for me, mostly, to learn stuff and try things out. It wasn't a search for validation. I said a lot of outrageous things, and thoughtful refutations were welcome. On good boards there was a community and talking was fun just because.
As social media took over and communities got too big, I lost interest. Paradoxically, my audience shrank as platforms got bigger, and I cared less because I didn't actually know anyone. Why the hell should I care what strangers think about me? I'd much rather have a measurable influence on (and be influenced by) a few people than have no influence on many people. Today, I have no influence on anyone, yet I'm influenced by everyone.
Twitter is full of randos who all act the same and are effectively the laugh track for canned snark. Never have so many said so much with so little variation. Bots would never work on a BBS or forum, because they are obviously not human, and the membership is too small not to notice the fake. Twitter is full of them. I can't stand retweets because it's soulless conformity. Likes and upvotes are bad. Write your own response! Be a friggin' person. Otherwise just read it. I don't need to know if you did or not, and I don't care if you liked it or not. What I cared about wasn't approval, but useful responses I could learn from. Oh, a like. Uh, why? So what?
There are very few real people on Twitter. 99% might as well not be there. They add nothing of value, but their presence enables the worst qualities of the internet.
I'd like some uber-twitter where only people who mattered could post. Randos could follow but not post, like, or retweet. Seriously, why do I care what all these idiots think?
Who matters? Good question, but I'd be fine with an arbitrary selection of interesting people. Not necessarily celebrities, but at least capable of intelligent thought. It would be cool to watch the interaction without all the bullshit from the mob. Right now, because of the laugh track mob, people tweet cliches and slogans that will be repeated. And it's dumb, and "winning" is measured by how many idiots like and retweet. The stupids control the discourse. Ugh. Twitter is enslaved to the idea that everyone has something to say. No, that's not true. Most people don't, and they actually reduce the quality and diversity of the content by being there. It's the opposite of what we think. Reward originality and quality, not what promotes the biggest response from nobodies.
Finally: If your happiness depends on controlling everyone else... that's the definition of narcissism, isn't it? How is it not? How is it not abusive behavior?
Dorf approves of this message.
Achilles: Women make a yes or no decision immediately on seeing a man and it has to do with eye angles. They all pretend they don’t but they do.
I used to doubt this, since I was a 6'4" geek who couldn't get a date to save his life.
But then I was a software engineer at a startup, and one day the director of outside sales asked me to lunch. She was 6' tall, blonde, absurdly beautiful, as you might expect for the director of outside sales for a luxury leisure SaaS outfit. There was no business reason for her to ask me to lunch—if she wanted to understand our technology better, she'd have been as well off calling a meeting with our VP of engineering, in the office. It took me a few such outings (I'm dense...) to realize she almost certainly asked me out because I was literally the only person in the company taller than she was.
Trans/vertical
Breast implants are at least reversible (though with some deformity) and don't affect your hormones. Bariatric surgery is very risky and is for a condition that is self-created. I have known people who had their intestines die after the surgery and now must eat only a simple nutrient paste that costs thousands a month. You can die from it. Some people even regain the weight.
If there is no purpose to therapy except to make you feel better about your existing condition, then that is pretty useless therapy. Support them in their paranoia! Yes, the anorexic really needs to lose weight! idiots.
Blogger vermonter said...
"I spend a lot of time on the Internet and have yet to come across the statement that short men have no rights. Does he go looking for that kind of stuff? If he does, that’s why he keeps seeing it."
My guess is that he experiences this stuff in his personal life. People probably pick up on his height insecurity and use that to pick on him.
MadTownGuy said...
I'm 5"4" but I identify as 5'11". Doesn't that count for something?
I identify as 6'2", 220. 240 would be Captain America, but I'm not greedy. . . . .
For years my doctor has told me that my BMI is "too high". "you should lose weight," my doctor concludes. I had no idea that this option existed -- reduce my BMI by increasing my height. (Why was my doctor keeping this from me?)
vertiphobia or vertiphilia
Men below this height shouldn’t have rights
With the average American woman being 5'4" he has roughly half the women as potential mates.
Maybe he's confusing this with those carnival signs that read "You must be this tall to get on the ride."
If I were younger, had money, and the time to waste recovering, I'd do it. There is a downside to being short. It's a lot to do for a few more inches.
It feels like more and more medical professionals are doing things just because they/we can, not because they/we should. Medicine is increasingly adopting the medical morality of Chinese tiger penis sellers.
Gattaca is becoming closer.
Post a Comment