On getting glasses 45 years too late
A couple of months ago, I had to renew my driver's license and take an eye test and although I passed it I could barely see anything. That's not unusual, I'm 53 and been feeling that my eyes aren't great for a while now. I've been struggling especially with night driving so I decided to go for a proper eye test at the optometrist.
The results were mind-blowing to me: I was born with astigmatism: not a serious case, apparently I am -1 in both eyes and short-sighted but I have compensated for this all my life and I am struggling now that I'm older. It was suggested that I get glasses to to reduce eyestrain and especially for night driving and I can take them off when reading - I can still read normal print without any problems. Glasses were ordered and paid for and now I'm waiting for the call to collect.
Image by Ander Unibaso Villaverde from Pixabay
I went home and started thinking about this...
As a child I was constantly told I had 2 left feet, nicknamed Allez Oop by my father, completely unable to play ball sports at school and always frustrated by my ability to hit or catch moving objects. This was put down to carelessness on my part and I was told to pay attention. At the dinner table at night, I often knocked things over when reaching for them and so I got seated next to my father, who was determined to beat better table manners into me. Needless to say, many family dinners ended in me staring at my dinner plate in tears. I dislocated my shoulder falling down stairs and permanently damaged some hip muscles in yet another fall on stairs in my teens.
I used to go home with "lacks co-ordination" written on my school reports and my mother told me that I should really pay more attention. When I was about 10 years old one of the kinder sports teachers suggested to me that I should try to get my eyes tested because she believed that a person as athletic as I am probably had eye problems to be so bad at ball sports. I must have had some sort of rudimentary eye testing when I was enrolled at school that I passed, leading my family to consider that my clumsiness was some kind of behavioural shortcoming, not a physical problem and, not feeling likely to be listened to, I didn't even bother telling them what the teacher had said. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up as a bespectacled child in an ableist world although I think the taunting of my family was somehow worse than anything I might have experienced from my peers.
I often think that children today are being brought up to be rather snowflakey but it's easy to see how the pendulum swung in reaction to the Darwinism of the 1970s and 80s. Friends I've spoken to have said that they would feel so angry at their parents over it. My parents were definitely more unkind than most of the adults around me and I spent enough years being just that but at this stage I tend to evaluate the past in terms of what I think is worth carrying around with me. My father is long dead and he certainly had his own demons and Darwinist upbringing so his behaviour was very much a product of his own circumstances. I've spent my life trying not to be like that and I hope I have succeeded.
My mother is nearly 80 and pretty senile and when I told her I'm getting glasses and actually should have gotten them in childhood she replied "but why didn't you say something?" I reminded her that my clumsiness was well-known and commented on at the time. To which she replied "Oh but your aunt (her sister) was the same so we thought you were just like her" and "I wonder if that's why you have had so many accidents". No shit, Sherlock.
I'm at the point in my life where I see her as a person needing care and I do contribute to taking care of her physical needs, like getting her to the doctor and keeping a focus on where her treatment is going, because her memory is failing her. I had to learn to be patient with her and not slip into the impatience with other's frailties that I learned from her.
So now I'm curious to see what life will be like with corrected vision. I'm thinking of tackling ball games or darts, just to see whether I can. Maybe I'll become a pool-table hustler. I love playing pool, even though I suck at it
Thank you @ackhoo!
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Oh wow...babe! It sounds like you are carrying round some understandable trauma about it. I feel so sad for little @nikv! Who knew that a little eye test (one you were super early for, but in some ways 40 odd years late) would unearth such revelations!! Can't wait to read about what a difference they make.
It's been a weird week...
Yeah it must of brought up a lot. Best to forgive your Mum I guess, otherwise it just makes you feel worse. xxx Honestly, not that I condone that style of parenting, but sounds like she had no idea at all....
Sadly, my mother has never been big on critical thinking
Thank you so much for sharing this. It is a bit heartbreaking on some level. You seem to be handling it well though, especially with how you are relating to your mother who is now in the twilight of her life. Sheesh. To think that a pair of glasses could have saved so much heartbreak. Again, good one.
Thanks, it really is a massive parenting fail
🤠
😁
Been looking at having to get glasses as well and thinking of getting my driver's license... which yeah I think the exam would be quite blurry on the smaller letters and/or numbers!
Cheers!
Good luck with all of that!
Thanks! I will probably need it! 🤠
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Thats some deep thoughts. Lots to think about. I tend to minimize self reflection. We all got where we are and now we are here. Best to stay in the present. But it is important to understand who you are and how you got there. Hope you can make this a positive thing in your life today 🙂 btw my son played hockey and struggled a bit with puck skills. One time we were walking through the airport and we were looking for a place to eat and I realized he couldn't read the signs! if its any consolation, he still struggled with puck skills after getting contacts 🤣
Yes, vision is but one component of skill. I got the call today to collect the glasses and I'm amazed at the sudden clarity of the world from afar and how much closer the floor seems. I think it's going to be fun navigating this new reality
Life is beautiful 😎 I'm happy for you.
it is exactly what / how I feel it myself. need to renew mine too...
Dear @nikv, I know well how you feel. The neglect and taunting by my parents as a child, and even today, left lasting physical damage on my body and my health. And this considering that most of the people in my family are doctors! Over time, I learned to simply take care alone of myself, relying on the medical instinct I have inherited from them. And the last thing I learned is to just not share anything with them so as not to give them reasons for further ridicule.
I truly hope the glasses will solve the 'coordination' problem and I wish you a wonderful enjoyment of life from now on!
Thank you! I got the call to collect them this afternoon and the world is so much clearer and detailed than before. I also realised now that my depth perception has never been accurate at all - the floor is so much nearer than I used to see it.
So strange: My parents were also in medical fields! Yes, I also became as you describe and it's been difficult for me to learn to trust others
The thing with the proximity of the floor is because of the glasses. I also have astigmatism and never learned to wear glasses while walking. I always felt like I was going to trip because I couldn't judge distances and how close the step of the stairs or the curb of the sidewalk was to me.
My astigmatism rather means that without glasses I can't judge how straight or crooked a horizontal line is,for example, but it definitely doesn't cause me to lose coordination (while without glasses). So, I really hope your case will be resolved just with glasses and you will feel comfortable with them.
It's interesting how different people's eyes are. I'm walking fine with the glasses and it feels like my better awareness of the floor remains even with them off. It's no wonder I used to fall so much
meow!
What a story! So difficult for a child to face what you describe... but I guess you have managed well through all this. Unbelievable! Especially when the solution could have been so easy. Well, as they say better late than never, I hope they will be a relief for your eyes and soul.
Thank you! I got the glasses and the world does look different. I think I will have less eyestrain for sure
Oh yes, for sure! Really glad, enjoy the new feeling!
Your story touched me, my dear @nikv !
But as it was already written here: what did not kill us makes us stronger.
Parents, and not only yours, make mistakes in raising their children.
Some do not have experience, others commit them in their youth, as they are not yet able to realize the mistakes in their actions.
Or maybe this is something given in life to every child and it makes some sense.
I wish you to have in your life devoted to you and people who love you!
❤️
Thank you ❤️
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These things are hard to manage. From a parents perspective we want to think that our kids don’t have things wrong with them. At the same time we also need to make sure we get things taken care of before it goes on for 40 years before it gets addressed hahaha.
Glad that you’re getting glasses!
That's very true and finances are a problem too.
Sadly, both of my parents were attached to the idea of having "perfect" children which left 2 with undiagnosed high-functioning autism and 1 with undiagnosed myopia. I was lucky enough to score both of those little gifts and I guess some of my greatest frustrations in life come from needing help and not getting it and then perversely being berated for "poor performance"
I have the glasses and they are awesome. I realise now that my depth perception has always been inaccurate
Hello @nikv,
I hope everything works out nicely for you with the new vision and things go smoothly with the adjustment.
I often wonder if this evolutionary theory is diminished by the fact that it was named after Charles Darwin.
It perhaps might get more credence under a "natural selection" scientific category.
I cannot claim that we live in a survival of the fittest society, I can only claim that based on my perception; that's exactly what we live in.
Those spare the rod spoil the child demons were very active in my childhood as well. Weekly progress reports, I'll never forget what happened because of the "constructive criticism(s)." "He's doing really good in everything, I would like to see him improve on..." = bad report.
Now when I look at the past, present, and future, I can find a great deal of value in some of the "older ideologies" that supported the family unit. I just think some parents don't know what limits are because of their own personal deficiencies/problems/traumas, so they perpetuate some nasty cycles..
You did, or you would not have the perceptual comprehension of the big picture.
So far, the new glasses are great and the adjustment was minimal: the world looks detailed and interesting and I realised that I have no depth perception. It was Darwin who coined the term "natural selection" but yes, your observations are spot on.
Sometimes there is a gap between comprehension and knee-jerk responses... These can be harder to control
I'm glad to hear the minimal adjustment is making a big difference for the better.
Yes that is the truth.
I also had mild astigmatism but only recently started wearing glasses - I had to give up and give in. Now I wonder why I did not think about it before.
I just thought that many wonderful things will come with your corrected vision - maybe it will correct some wrongs as well. It might be like a whole new lease on life itself - not only becoming a pool table hustler but whatever makes you happy.
Thank you, you're right. I'm really enjoying the glasses and the correction to my depth perception has been incredible. I'll even be happy with not bumping my head all the time because now I can see where everything actually is. My previous vision of the world was somehow elongated
Aww that is good news and great to hear!!
Dang I'm sorry to have missed this when you wrote it. Can't imagine what I could possibly have been doing... lol.
Parents. Sometimes they fail in the most major way. I'm sorry you had to put up with that kind of, well, let's be blunt: abuse and neglect. I'm at a point in life too where I'm realizing that most of the shortcomings and shame I've believed about myself were generally untrue. It really sucks that as a kid you were shamed and ridiculed on top of constantly injuring yourself. IMO a caring parent would be concerned as to what was making the kid so clumbsy, and look into that, not label and beat them.
Even though we're from different cultures, I think there was a good stretch of dark ages in parenting and only now is there a renaissance where parents realize, oh shit, the way I raise my kid affects how they turn out as an adult. Not to mention the oh shit, kids are not adults and need positive guidance factor. I've got a bit of hope for future generations. No hope, really, for the older ones who don't want to grow. But I'm glad to hear your mom acknowledged and sort of validated your experience in her own distant way.
Also, you make me wonder if I should go to the optometrist. I bump and drop and trip way more than I used to. I thought it was just a hormonal thing. Maybe it's both.
Thank you! Go and get it checked, you could be surprised. I'm quite enjoying the novelty of seeing granular detail in the distance
That must be amazing! I remember when my cousin first got her glasses, she couldn't believe she could see the leaves on the trees. I have good long-distance vision, but shorter is fading, and my eyes do a wonky thing sometimes when I'm tired and I get slight double vision for long distances. I suspect one of them isn't pulling her weight.
I was getting double vision too and the optometrist told me that is caused by eyestrain. Definitely get yourself tested!
Saturday at the end of a long hike it was so bad I was tripping over rocks. It was manageable if I covered my left eye for thirty seconds to retrain the wobbly right one, even better if I tilted my head to the right. I asked myself if this was a sustainable way to manage the problem and my answer was no.
I put in for my optometry referral today.
Thanks for the inspiration! LOL
I'm glad you were inspired 😉 You don't have to be like me and spend most of your life falling down stairs
Gaaawwwwwd, I'm sorry! But yeah, also glad. This has only been in the past year or so. I think... Unless this explains the random dizzy spells that I thought were hormonal and stress-related.