08-08-2011, 09:29 AM
When I was in third grade for some reason I decided that it was best for me to get glasses, not because I thought my eyes were bad and needed fixing, but more because I felt like glasses "fit my personality" and that people would like me better or think I was "cooler" if I got them, or whatever was running through my young, confused mind. So I did everything that I was told would damage my eyesight so that I could go receive my wonderful glasses blessing, which I didn't realize was actually a curse! I would stare at light bulbs until the image was so burned in my eye it would last for a ridiculously long time, and I would re-apply when it started to fade... or I would just blankly stare at something until the same effect happens to your whole field of vision in a different way... Up until I finally got fitted with my crippling eye crutches.
My eyes followed suit with exactly how every other persons eyes adapt to glasses: within a couple years my eyes were so bad that I could no longer function without wearing them all the time. I was young and didn't pay attention to my prescription then, but I know by the time I got contacts for the first time in sixth grade, I had a -3 diopter in both eyes.
Over the next eight years they slowly got worse until they reached where they are today at -3.5. Five years after I got contacts my eyes became so dry I couldn't handle wearing them anymore, and stuck to only wearing my glasses. I was also growing very tired of NEEDING these crutches in order to see anything.
It was then in my third year of college that I stumbled upon the Bates Method from a book I found in a friends garage: "Healthy Eyes Without Glasses and Health Without Drugs" by Dr. R.A. Richardson. I started reading more books on it and even found out that Aldous Huxley wrote his own book "The Art of Seeing" which I bought immediately.
I tried discarding my glasses at once but I wasn't doing the exercises with any sort of consistency and I was always allowing stresses to rule my life. I work at a pizza place and there is one person I work with who would always rip on me when I wasn't wearing my glasses because he knew I couldn't read the food tickets unless I was a foot away from them. Every time I ever talked to my dad about it he would always just tell me that eyes always get bad with age, and they can never be fixed (he was just trying to justify his addiction to his glasses) There was so much discouragement that I just couldn't handle it, and wore my glasses again for another two years.
Now here I am today, taking a year break from college, with my only obligation being my same pizza job, but I have been delivering a lot this summer. After I went on a three week trip to Europe I cleared my head a little and realized again that I don't want to be stuck with these stupid frames on my face for the rest of my life, so I again have stopped wearing them. And now I am doing the Bates exercises more consistently, for longer durations, and I'm learning how to be dynamically relaxed in everyday situations.
The thing that blows my mind is that I have astoundingly clear vision while I am driving. It seems to get better every time too. I can deliver about half of the deliveries I do without having to put my glasses on at all during the day, the only times I do need to put them on is for deliveries that are in town where the house numbers are always located on some arbitrary spot on the house and they always look different. The deliveries outside of town have blue signs by the mailbox that I can read while driving without glasses.
One thing I do find is that while I am on the way to drop off a delivery and I am consciously looking for a specific house number it seems that my clear vision range drops about 20 or 30 feet. But when I am on my way back after finding the house I can see the signs 20 or 30 feet further away than i did before.
I set up a snellen eye chart in my room now and I can pretty consistently read the 13 foot line at 5 feet, it is just amazing to see how variable the eyes can be depending on how much you are stressing them though. It seems like my eyes have three distinct modes of functioning now: the first being my bad glasses habit way of seeing, which is very blurry. The second being where I can feel myself consciously trying to relax my face, but I still feel a certain few tensions and I have to focus on blinking too much. The second mode is half clear, where it almost feels like it is fighting to go towards my third mode: the clear flashes where I can read road signs as if I had my glasses on!
I'm sorry this is very long-winded, but I have to say that after 13 years of suffering with my ill-fated decision to get those "cool" glasses that I am finally on my way to recovering. I don't care if it takes just as long as it did to get them wrecked to this point, I am going to keep working at it and I know I will restore my eye-sight that I purposely lost long ago.
My eyes followed suit with exactly how every other persons eyes adapt to glasses: within a couple years my eyes were so bad that I could no longer function without wearing them all the time. I was young and didn't pay attention to my prescription then, but I know by the time I got contacts for the first time in sixth grade, I had a -3 diopter in both eyes.
Over the next eight years they slowly got worse until they reached where they are today at -3.5. Five years after I got contacts my eyes became so dry I couldn't handle wearing them anymore, and stuck to only wearing my glasses. I was also growing very tired of NEEDING these crutches in order to see anything.
It was then in my third year of college that I stumbled upon the Bates Method from a book I found in a friends garage: "Healthy Eyes Without Glasses and Health Without Drugs" by Dr. R.A. Richardson. I started reading more books on it and even found out that Aldous Huxley wrote his own book "The Art of Seeing" which I bought immediately.
I tried discarding my glasses at once but I wasn't doing the exercises with any sort of consistency and I was always allowing stresses to rule my life. I work at a pizza place and there is one person I work with who would always rip on me when I wasn't wearing my glasses because he knew I couldn't read the food tickets unless I was a foot away from them. Every time I ever talked to my dad about it he would always just tell me that eyes always get bad with age, and they can never be fixed (he was just trying to justify his addiction to his glasses) There was so much discouragement that I just couldn't handle it, and wore my glasses again for another two years.
Now here I am today, taking a year break from college, with my only obligation being my same pizza job, but I have been delivering a lot this summer. After I went on a three week trip to Europe I cleared my head a little and realized again that I don't want to be stuck with these stupid frames on my face for the rest of my life, so I again have stopped wearing them. And now I am doing the Bates exercises more consistently, for longer durations, and I'm learning how to be dynamically relaxed in everyday situations.
The thing that blows my mind is that I have astoundingly clear vision while I am driving. It seems to get better every time too. I can deliver about half of the deliveries I do without having to put my glasses on at all during the day, the only times I do need to put them on is for deliveries that are in town where the house numbers are always located on some arbitrary spot on the house and they always look different. The deliveries outside of town have blue signs by the mailbox that I can read while driving without glasses.
One thing I do find is that while I am on the way to drop off a delivery and I am consciously looking for a specific house number it seems that my clear vision range drops about 20 or 30 feet. But when I am on my way back after finding the house I can see the signs 20 or 30 feet further away than i did before.
I set up a snellen eye chart in my room now and I can pretty consistently read the 13 foot line at 5 feet, it is just amazing to see how variable the eyes can be depending on how much you are stressing them though. It seems like my eyes have three distinct modes of functioning now: the first being my bad glasses habit way of seeing, which is very blurry. The second being where I can feel myself consciously trying to relax my face, but I still feel a certain few tensions and I have to focus on blinking too much. The second mode is half clear, where it almost feels like it is fighting to go towards my third mode: the clear flashes where I can read road signs as if I had my glasses on!
I'm sorry this is very long-winded, but I have to say that after 13 years of suffering with my ill-fated decision to get those "cool" glasses that I am finally on my way to recovering. I don't care if it takes just as long as it did to get them wrecked to this point, I am going to keep working at it and I know I will restore my eye-sight that I purposely lost long ago.