Hi,
I decided to provide a progress report on my one year anniversary. But I didnât do it, I kept âprocrastinatingâ . The truth is I tried to learn from othersâ mistakes and live by an advice Bates has given to his patients, which is: your time is better spent practicing than chatting about his methods. Now I have been practicing the Bates Method for about a year and a half with much success. I applied to a job a few months ago. (Which is a huge deal for me â I used to suck at job interviews, behave irradically and forget everything that I have practiced because of my nervousness.) This time it was different, I went there with much confidence and - most importantly - without my glasses. Picture that; a high myope used to be totally hysterical without her correction: I walked into a totally new place, met totally new people, held a presentation and even wrote a test without my glasses! Then I promised myself, if I got this too-good-to-be-true job, I must finally write my progress on Iblindness, so here it is! :-)
So I am far from being cured, but I am functioning quite well now without my contacts and glasses and try to avoid wearing them as much as possible. I practice the long swing, short swing and a bit of palming and sun treatment for altogether an hour a day. It is helping me a great deal with my anxiety, too. The glasses that I do wear when I absolutely must are less than 60% of what I needed a year ago. I have even been able to do night driving in a snow storm or fog with them. I feel terrific about this! I have no question in my mind that if I can go on like this, in 3 years time I must have normal eyesight (and that is probably a conservative estimate, but I donât want to put too much pressure on myself.)
It is the most amazing thing I have ever found in my life and it is in great part thanks to Dave and this website! I realize this is about so much more than my eyesight. I used to be in terrible pain and tension every day after coming home from work and my anxiety was so bad that I would lose my mind and was off work for long periods of time. I had lost the ability to relax and enjoy anything. A vacation was nothing more for me than a time to worry about every aspect of my life.... and I believe that I have turned it around and slowly but surely learning to feel betterand relax in most situations.
I am still under a lot of strain though. I still have some sleeping difficulties from time to time and getting a new job does make me worry about things, too. But I believe that for the most part, I have done my best given the circumstances.
I am very excited about the Bates Method. On the other hand, I believe that finally beginning to understand what Bates is writing about can be a frustrating and isolating experience. I feel that there must be very few people who understand him, even though he is probably the greatest mind who ever lived in history. I wish I could somehow convince people to read his book and articles but I cannot. In the meantime, I am starting to be more forgiving with people because they are all acting like zombies and their minds are under a terrible strain most of the time. :-)
TTYL in an other year or so... ;-)
Your post is a "Sucess Story"!! congratulations, you made my day ;D
You've shared helpful tips along the way, and now I'm pretty sure that your confidence is skyrocketing!
There is an important thing to mention; it's normal to feel a bit of anxiety, it might be a good reminder that we're humans, but it's more safe and strategic to try to lean towards a state of high self-esteem! Positive all they way!
You know you're on the right track, when you behave like a "human" and not like an angry robot, like most others do
Andrea, congratulations -- this is huge! I agree with so much of what you said, and also notice other people going around like zombies, then realize I used to be one! I agree you are a success story right now. Pat yourself on the back!
Thanks guys for your encouragements! Oh it is not a success story yet, but I hope I will have the courage to go on like this and make it to 20/20 or better one day. I can now see that it must be possible in my case...
Hello Rewired and all who will have the patience to read this,
Change in diopters should not be considered a way of measuring progress in the Bates Method. Some people's diopters do move down during the course of the practice, but others' go up and again others find no change. Why is this so? No one knows. Unfortunately the latter 2 groups often give up thinking that they must be doing something wrong or that the Bates Method isn't really working (for them or at all).... Nothing could be further from the truth! One may wake up one day after having 8 diopters of myopia and never need glasses again. Another may reduce them to -2 but still be unable to drive without corrections.... again nobody knows why that is.
But one thing to consider is what diopters really mean. I have written about this before: http://iblindness.org/community/viewtopi...=1&t=1817] and still believe there is a good reason why visual acuity and diopters don't have any correlations and no self-respecting opthalmologist would dare to state otherwise and make a fool of himself. (I have verified the most recent text books on this to be sure...) But why not? If it was really an issue with the optics of the eye as they say... there should be a simple formula... just like in cameras, when something is out of focus the resolution should be compromised to a consistent and measurable degree.
Diopters should not be thought of as a measure of how bad the vision is. Instead it is a measure of the range (or length) of the good vision, which functions more or less perfectly.
Let me give you my silly analogy:
Imagine one of your arms was completely paralyzed and the other was perfectly healthy and functioning. Your "arm specialist" would say it is incurable and would tightly fasten your paralyzed arm to your body in order to make sure it doesn't hang in the way of the good arm, which now has to do all the work for the bad arm. For argument's sake, let's say he would describe your condition as having 2 "diopters" or units of paralysis. (If both arms were paralyzed, that would be 4 "diopters" or units of paraysis and with no paralysis he would say 0 "diopters" or units... you get my point, I hope. :-) Now imagine that you found the Bates Method or something specific for paralysis improvement, removed the bandages and started to practice. After much practice, you were beginning to be able to lift and bend your arm slowly, even holding light objects with your formerly paralyzed hand for short periods of time. That would be a cause for much celebration, wouldn't it?
You would go back to your "arm specialist" with much excitement and show what you could do. The arm specialist would have no training or tools to measure how much you improved, the only thing he could do is test for full functionality of each section of the arm: He would ask you to bench-press 100 pounds and/or type 60 GWPM with your arm (and hand), which you say has improved. You would fail the tests. The arm specialist would replace the bandages and say you still only have one fully functioning arm and should never remove the bandages...
So basically if you could type as a normal person, but not lift as much weight as a normal person, that would reduce the "diopters" or units of paralysis to 1. Similarly, if you could lift as much weights as Dave but not type, that would also be recognized as a reduction of the paralysis by 1 "diopter" or unit... whatever...
It is pretty clear that the doctor's expectiations would be unrealistic and that is exactly how diopters are being measured in the real world! If you can turn any section of your vision perfect, which previously wasn't, then the diopters will be reduced. But you can see it is more likely that you would first just improve all or some sections before any of it would be perfect...
That being said, I was one of the fools who ran to the optometrist after just 6 months of practice and was lucky because at the time the diopters were reduced by 1 diopters (from around -6 to -5 (incl. astigmatism)). But that was 1 year ago and I no longer go there. I am determined to go all the way with the Bates Method, which is probably the only way it makes sense. Dr Bates recommends no glasses at all and says very rarely can someone succeed if they are not prepared to discard their glasses entirely. I have made my decision and decided to take my chances and keep the damn things around for now. (The damn things are -3.5 even for both eyes with no astigmatism correction - I guess I would qualify to be a behavioural optometrist, eh? Nancy? ) I did make a whole bunch of adjustments in my life to try to minimize the amount of time I even put on the reduced prescription, but I do put them on in certain situations and that is too bad for me!
but not type, that would also be recognized as a reduction of the paralysis by 1 "diopter" or unit... whatever...
) I did make a whole bunch of adjustments in my life to try to minimize the amount of time I even put on the reduced prescription, but I do put them on in certain situations and that is too bad for me! 
