Johnny Depp

Who is watching the trial? I have watched a huge chunk of it. I don’t have great Internet at home and I don’t have cable TV. So I am watching what I can, when I can. 

I saw a portion this week that was Johnny Depp talking about his left eye. He said most people’s eyes are spherical in shape. Depp said his left eye was not spherical but rather oblong. Because of this, he said his brain never learned to use his left eye. He said he is legally blind in his left eye. 

[Photo, courtesy of Vanity Fair. Shows Johnny Fox on the witness stand in the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Virginia. Johnny is wearing pink rimmed glasses with blue lenses that match the knot of his blue tie.]

I see him put on his light blue glasses. I know I have always closed my right eye so I don’t see double when I am reading. But when I type, I tend to shut my left eye. 

I guess I was expecting to see Depp shut his left eye when reading the computer monitor, but he doesn’t. I guess he just doesn’t see out of it. It’s fascinating to me how many different eye issues people have. We all do our own quirks with these vision and eye issues. I have trouble seeing out of my left eye, and I do the flickering eyesight, which overwhelms me with information and forces my brain to block out large portions of what I am taking in both visually and auditory.

He is an extraordinary actor. I have been a fan of his Mad Hatter character and his character in 21 Jump Street, and of course his Captain Jack Sparrow character for years. I wasn’t aware of all the other movies he was in, though. I have seen him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He did a great job, but I wasn’t a fan of that version of the movie. I also wasn’t a fan of the Sweeney Todd, Demon of Seville movie. 

It’s an interesting thing, when your eyes don’t work like “everyone else’s.” It makes you look at the world differently, laugh at different kinds of humor, find creativity everywhere you look. 

Regarding the trial, and I am treading carefully here, I have learned that too many people are abusers, and too many people have been victims of abuse. I believe any gender can be abused, and I believe any gender can be the abuser. 

It breaks my heart to see a victim tell the truth, even if it means bringing out their own skeletons from their own closet, and to see the abuser sit there on the stand, lying and believing they are getting away with something. 

May true justice prevail. 

Improvement on my Light Sensitivity

I may have mentioned that I have a sensitivity to light. When I first went to Dr. Tod Davis of Virginia Vision Therapy, he diagnosed me (for over an hour) with all kinds of things including suppression, diplopia (this means "double vision"), dissociation, and light sensitivity. He asked me if I keep the house kind of dark. I laughed, because it has long bothered the room mate I have been living with for quite a while. 

Yes. I keep the house dark. I may have mentioned in a previous blog post that I had a declutter expert come, and she uncovered the windows. I believe I talked about the fact that I had windows covered thanks to something that folks who are older (as I am - I am rapidly approaching 50) who dissociate. 

Well, she took down various things from all of my windows. Her whole message for decluttering is to Lighten Up! She likes to let the light in. I thought I did too, but between her decluttering with me, and Dr. Davis teaching me that folks who dissociate cover their windows & like the dark ... it's true. I had covered my windows. One window was covered completely with a 5 rack shelf holding spindly plants. I didn't think about it blocking the light - but it truly was. 

After my declutter expert left, I covered the windows back up with some rather opaque contact paper. Then I got to thinking about it. (I learn things a bit slowly, over time.) 

I bought myself a light therapy lamp for helping with Seasonal Affect Disorder (I am just coming to terms with the fact that I may have this too). My friend Katie of the Fellowship of Former Christian Scientists recommended a lamp to heal with Seasonal Affect Disorder. I mentioned this in a post about Light Therapy. 

Well, I bought a similar one to hers by the same brand - "Happy Light." I haven't been using it every day, but I use it regularly. Maybe 3-5 days per week for 15+ minutes. I just put the lamp on and do my paperwork or look at the clothes in my closet or play with my dog or something. I would like to think it's helping. 

Well, between that lamp and the Syntonics work I did, I believe I am getting less light sensitive! 

I used to drive down the road at night and be so angry at the headlights blaring at me. They hurt my eyes and I couldn't see a thing. Or I wasn't able to sleep at night if the room wasn't completely dark. I had black blinds up and those were covered by heavy brown curtains. The room still wasn't dark enough. 

I have covered all those infernal lights that electronics all seem to sport these days - those hideous blue lights that burn my pupils. I covered all of them (at the suggestion of a smart friend who knows about such things) with red electrical tape. Every tiny little effort I did, made the room more and more dark. And I still wore a black, silk sleep mask and still suffered from the room that had too much light. Maybe it was a bright moon that night, or maybe the hall light was on, peeping in under the door, who knows. Drove me crazy - FOR YEARS. 

Well, I think all of the efforts I have been making now have had really good results! 

I am now able to sleep with the black blinds on the window, partially open. And I have pretty sheer curtains over instead of the heavy brown curtains. 

I haven't been angry in awhile at cars with their headlights blaring at me at night. Come to think of it, I don't drive at night because I actually have lousy night vision. (I know it's lousy, because my kids can see just fine and I feel completely blind.) I am driving less and less at night, when I can help it. Thankfully, my older son is starting to drive now. So if we need to go somewhere at night, it's likely he can drive us. He drove us to the grocery store last week and to my friend's house to deliver a present, last night!

I don't know how to explain or quantify this, but I can tell I am no longer sensitive to the light the way I once was. I don't know if it's the syntonics that I did or the Happy Light that I am using these days. But it's nice to wake up in the morning and have some light i
n my room so I don't have to figure out how to get a lamp on when I can't see anything. 

My windows aren't nearly as covered up as they have been for so long, either. That's nice too. I like looking out the windows and seeing Mother Nature. I have beautiful trees in my yard and I love looking at them. 

I guess that's it for this week's blog post. 

I have a lot lot lot LOT going on in my life right now and I apologize that I have missed a blog post or two. My focus hasn't quite been on my vision therapy as it once was. 

I only have 3 more sessions to go! Then my son will start. While he has similar challenges to mine (diplopia, lack of 3D), his issues manifest with different symptoms to mine. He walks into furniture a few times a week. I feel sorry for him. I still walk into furniture too, but not nearly as much as I used to. I hope vision therapy will help him with that. I am confident it will, in fact.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! Happy 2021!

Light Sensitivity

Did I mention that I am completely sensitive to light? It is another thing that is connected with Dissociation. 

I walk around my home with as few lamps turned on as possible. I just don't like artificial light. I love the light that comes in through the windows, though! I don't like it when I am sitting on the couch and the sun is setting and the sun glares into my eyes as it moves / as it sets. But the rest of the day, I love the natural light through the windows. 

When Dr. Davis tested me, he said at one point, as if it was obvious to him, "are you sensitive to light?" 

He pointed out something I hadn't realized - I am sensitive to light above my head. I mean, most light comes from above my head. But it turns out that in other ways they have tested me, I see things more easily when they come from below me, and I miss out of a lot of things above me. 

Come to think of it, every time I have had a concussion (and also including the head bumps I get too often when I am getting into my own car!), it is because I didn't see something above me; above my forehead. 

I wonder if them helping me with dissociation and also with the syntonics, light therapy, I wonder if this will help me not be so sensitive to light? I wonder if this will help me not keep my house at darker levels than others keep their house at. (I always figured I was saving energy anyway, so I didn't think much of it, the fact that I kept the house lights off as much as possible. But it has been known to bother room mates of mine over the years.) 

Staring into a lightbulb every night for 10 minutes, then 10 minutes again .... even with the dark sunglasses on controlling the color and intensity that hits my eyes, well, it IS bright. In fact, I rather enjoy the indigo glasses and color. Indigo is one of my favorite colors! The green ones are noticeably brighter to me and I don't enjoy staring at that one nearly as much as the indigo. 

Interestingly enough, even though I am staring at a light bulb, it doesn't hurt my eyes the way I kept thinking it would. I would cringe at the beginning, but it hasn't ever hurt my eyes. Doing this day after day after day, I realized I started to look forward to doing it. 

I am supposed to do 20 sessions in a row of this. So far, I am having trouble getting up to more than 8 or 9 days in a row. Then my eyes are just tired and feeling strain. So I have to start my count of days all over again. 

I may have mentioned that in a few months, my son will be starting vision therapy with Dr. Davis' team too. I wonder if he will be given Syntonics / light therapy to do too? I wonder if he will be given different colored sunglasses to look through? 

I look forward to the time that I hope will happen - when I realize I am no longer sensitive to light the way I have been, my whole life. 

Self-Care

For a while there, I saw a lot of people talking about "self care." There were items sold in stores labeled, "self care," that included things like candles, nail polish, soft socks, who knows what. It felt to me like luxury items.

I don't feel like I ever was specifically taught,  "this is what self-care is." In fact, in the Christian Science upbringing, I was actively taught to deny my bodily existence. If my body was hurting, I was to turn to god and pray. I was taught to be grateful for pain, because it was telling me I needed to pray more. 

The strictest Christian Scientists say that their version of prayer (called "Christian Science treatments") is the very BEST care. Doctors are 2nd in line. Praying to god is supposed to be able to heal absolutely everything. 

I am now out of the Christian Science belief system, and I definitely have a human body. I'm learning how to take care of it, too. It's a work in progress. But I am definitely working on making progress. 

I am starting to realize what self care ACTUALLY is. I don't believe it has anything to do with candles or nail polish or hand lotion or soft socks or whatever other things you can spend money on for things that look pretty in a store. 

I have come to the conclusion that self-care includes things like: 

• drinking water
• making good choices about what foods to eat and what foods to eat less of
• taking care of your body by bathing it and tending to its needs
• taking prescribed medicines when needed, and at the appropriate times
• giving your body ample rest time, for me this often includes a nap in the middle of the day
• exercising (this is something that I am still working on getting up to doing, but that is a whole other journey for me to work out. I am just not there yet.) 

Well, I have seriously struggled with ALL of those for YEARS. I think all of those, I haven't done for the bulk of my 48 years. Seriously. I had a friend one time (Stacey, who I mentioned in a previous blog post about vision impairment & accommodating our friends with low vision) comment that she had no idea how I could be up and walking around and presenting as basically a healthy, normal person, when I had so many issues. But when you're taught to deny your body's existence from a very young age (let's say: birth), you can walk around as present as normal no matter what you're feeling. People who live with chronic pain know exactly what I am talking about here. 

Anyway, so I have, FOR DECADES, tried to come up with "a schedule."  I know that having a schedule - a routine - would help me thrive. I just couldn't come up with such a thing! It was so frustrating and I am learning now that I have been very cruel to myself inside my own head about not being able to do something that so many people find to be easy. 

Oh, by the way, my vision issues can make me present as if I have ADHD. Folks who have ADHD also struggle to come up with a schedule or a routine. I don't know if I have ADHD. Maybe when my vision issues are resolved, we can see if things start coming more easily. (A psychologist did diagnose me with ADHD several years ago, though.)

I wanted to do the syntonics / light therapy, but didn't have a spot set up for me to do this, I had no consistency. I would do it at the dining room table, by shoving aside my watercoloring or homeschooling papers.  I tried it standing up in my kitchen with the lamp coming out of a cabinet (this was before I was given the spotlight I now have; I had a clip on lamp and needed a place to clip it on!)... I tried doing the syntonics in bed but then I needed a place to put this lamp when I was done.... A few times I forgot it was on my bed and I knocked it off in the middle of the night. Thank goodness the bulb didn't break!!!!

Well, I got to thinking about our living room and furniture. I had a sweet little writing desk that I love, and it was holding a lot of our dog items like dog bags and medicines and the paperwork for our dog. Meanwhile, other dog things were spread everywhere - toys, grooming, clothes for her ... 

I have a piece of furniture called a "bachelor's chest" that I love. I refinished it with black paint. It has 4 drawers and a pullout thing that can be used to write at. I had my sons move our furniture around. We replaced the little writing desk with the bachelor's chest, and now all of our dog's things are in the drawers of that. (Very tidy!) and we put the little writing desk in my room and got rid of one of my side-tables. 

I put the syntoics spotlight lamp on the little writing desk. it has a little ledge at the back for me to put my indigo and dark forest green glasses on. And I set my little Alexa / Echo timer on it, too. I also put my Thai Chi (vision exercises) paperwork on there too, so it is my little vision therapy area now!

Once I set that up and had a dedicated space for it, suddenly I found a new rhythm to my life! I am so excited to announce that for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I am starting to build a routine!

I also started going to physical therapy (3 times a week) for my shoulders. I have something called "armoring" due to my Complex PTSD. This means my muscles are ALWAYS tensed in my shoulders and neck. I never relax them. I have to consciously work very hard to relax them. Doctors, massage therapists, physical therapists have all commented on it - my muscles that don't relax. Believe me, I want to be able to relax them. The constant tension in them causes constant pain. Over time, it creeps up to my neck and I can't move my head, like for driving and checking the lane to my left when I need to merge. Combine that with my vision issues, and honestly, I am not sure I want to drive anymore. Sigh. 

Well, in typical Jodi-fashion, I have digressed from the topic - AGAIN. 

So I started this nightly routine of taking my medicine, going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, flossing, rinsing with mouthwash, washing my face, putting on my night medicine on my face, then going to my room, changing into my pajamas, then sitting down with the spotlight to do my syntonics. It takes about half an hour to do all of this. After doing it for a while, I realized: "I have a routine! THIS is what "self-care looks like!" 

When I started the recent therapy on my shoulders, they gave me exercises to do at home too. I added in lying down on a yoga mat and manipulating my arms and shoulders in a way they told me to do. I also added in what my vision therapist has wanted me to do for a year now - Moro Splat movements. So my nightly routine now has vision therapy and shoulder therapy combined. I am so proud of myself for having come so far to do this basic self-care routine now. This is HUGE for me!

I also have a morning routine now - self-care. I have a shake I make for breakfast. I have a vitamin supplement in liquid form that I take. I take my heart medicine and other vitamins in the morning. And then I make some herbal tea. Because of my heart medicine, I am no longer drinking coffee (which I am finally admitting to myself that I never enjoyed anyway; it has never been my "thing" but I felt socially pressured to drink the stuff), and I also no longer drink any kind of wine or spirits. They are also not really my "thing." Although I also felt socially pressured to drink. I feel so much better now, drinking lots of herbal tea and also water. My favorite teas are either Dandelion Root tea or Lemon Ginger tea. Oh, also Peppermint tea. I should do a whole blog post just on tea. I really should. I have so much to say about it! Hahaha.

It feels so good to have the morning and evening self-care routines now. 

I hope that this post will help others learn what self-care means, and what a routine might look like. 

Syntonics

 I have mentioned that I am doing light therapy. I was given a spotlight to basically stare at. 

Throughout the days, my eyes get tired. I believe my vision therapist said that our eye muscles work harder than any other muscle in your body. If you think about it, you're probably sitting somewhere, reading this blog. Your eyes are moving but the rest of your body is probably fairly stationary, unless you need to scroll once in a while. It makes sense. 

Speaking of which, as I am learning new skills with my eyes (conversion is a lot of my therapy - that means bringing my eyes towards each other / approaching cross eyed in appearance, and HOLDING it there), the muscles in my eyes start to hurt. They hurt a lot at night lately. My vision therapist said that it is likely eye strain. She said she hears this a lot from most of her patients. I have experienced eye strain my entire life. 

Decades ago - back in like 1995, I started taking an eye pill made by Vaxa, called "Ocutane." Just for kicks. They sent me a free product every month, and one monty is was Ocutane. It was vitamins for your eyes. After taking this for a few weeks, I woke up one morning and realized, "I don't feel my eyes in my face!" I had NEVER had the experience of not "feeling" my eyes. Like, we all know we have knees or elbows or whatever. Forearms, forehead .... but we don't actively FEEL it all day long. It's there when we need it. We feel it when it is hurting or when we bump it. But it isn't a constant, "yes, I am aware I have all these parts to my body, they are there because I feel them."

I remember looking around my room that morning, having this weird logic going on in my head. "I can't feel my eyes! They must have fallen out of my head! Oh no!" .... "Wait, I see my window," tap tap tap on my eyes, I think they are there.... "That is my dresser. Yes, I can see my dresser, so my eyes must still be attached.... they didn't fall out, I better look at something else just to make sure, yes, that's my door, there is my cat ...." I finally concluded that my eyes were still attached and working; they just didn't have that feeling. I finally concluded that the feeling was actually long term, permanent pain. I had experienced that my entire life! It was so bizarre to have something so familiar suddenly be GONE. 

Well, in the last few months, the eye pain has returned. It started up gradually as I was going through vision therapy. I didn't really think much of it. 

In the last month or two, it has gotten to the point where I am telling friends when I am on the phone with them, "my eyes are hurting me right now." A lot of friends want to show me something online "go to this YouTube video, it is so funny...." "did you see this meme, I will send it to you..." And I just want to have my eyes shut. I am tired of using them and want a break. So I have to tell my friends I need them to describe it to me. 

So, I told my vision therapist about the whole experience when I woke up that morning about not feeling my eyes, and she said it was probably eye strain. And I started taking a vitamin made by Bausch and Lomb. My optometrist, Dr. Davis, approved it, too. It is just vitamins. It has made my eyes feel a bit better. Maybe quite a bit better. I am still experiencing eye strain (like right now, as I type this blog post). 

Well, so I have this light therapy I do. I put on cardboard glasses. The eye piece in them has a very dark indigo filter for me to look through. I stare at the light bulb for 10 minutes. I love my Echo device. I say, "Echo, count down 10 minutes," then I turn on the lightbulb. She goes off 10 minutes later. I tell her to turn off, and then I turn off the bulb. It is super handy not to have to put on the glasses and try to see a timer to set it ... the voice activation of a timer is excellent for me!

So, then I palm my eyes in between. The goal is to get the lightbulb circle out of my eyes before I start the next one. The next set of cardboard eyeglasses has a dark forest green lens for me to look through. (In theater lighting, they would call the material this lens is made from a "gel." It is a screen made of a thin, filmy plastic that they can place over spotlights to change the lighting on a person on stage.) I stare at the lightbulb through this dark green forest filter for another 10 minutes. 

I asked over the last few months, "what is this trying to accomplish?" And I finally got the answer that it is trying to help my eyes relax from all the input they got all day. It is like a reset button. I think that's interesting. 

I have so many more things I want to say about the syntonics / light therapy! But this blog post feels long enough and veered around in a few directions that I didn't intend to go in, so I am going to sign off this post. 

I hope you're doing well, wearing your mask when you have to go out, and drinking water & staying healthy. 

Light Therapy

I have been doing light therapy as part of my vision therapy. We started at once a week at the vision therapy practice, I think 3 minutes per round.

So, you may have heard of light therapy for folks who have Seasonal Affect Disorder. Some folks get sad or depressed during the winter months because there is less sunlight. My friend Katie of the Fellowship of Former Christian Scientists uses this lamp:

Some folks use lamps like that one, to combat the long winter months and feel more happy because they have more light in their life during the winter.

Light therapy, it turns out, can do more than just help a person feel more happy during the winter months!

It turns out that light therapy can treat skin issues too, and a variety of other things. I had light therapy on my exzema and some other things on my skin that I can't remember now specifically what they were. It basically bleached some red patches on my skin and worked in conjunction with a topical cream solution I use twice a day.

Light therapy, according to WebMd, can also treat migraines, acne, neck pain, dementia, strokes... all kinds of things! Wow!

My vision therapy team has loaned me a lamp with a lightbulb in it. When I first did this, I used a bright pen light to shine light through specific glasses I wear. Then, they told me to use a non-LED bulb at 25 watts at home. I set one up.

And now they have loaned me the correct lamp. It's a nice portable little lamp. I am supposed to work my way slowly up to 20 minutes per session, per pair of glasses.

The first pair of glasses is a deep indigo color. I love looking at the bulb through the relaxing indigo color. It's quite beautiful. The glasses say on them: "Upsilon-Omega." Then, I rest my eyes by palming them. Then I put on the second pair of glasses, they are a deep forest green color, and stare at the lightbulb. The green glasses say on them: "Mu-Upsilon." I am not as much a fan of the green glasses.

I have to do these specific glasses. I think the case where they store the glasses at the vision therapist office has 20-30 pairs of different types of glasses. So this two pairs are my specific "prescription." I am not entirely sure what they are doing.

The green may be making me less sensitive to bright light outside and thus have fewer migraines. I am not sure. The blue may be helping me see better out of my right eye, especially. I don't think I have written the blog post yet about how I cannot see in the dark at all. I really can't, and especially can't see out of my right eye in the dark.

I figured this out when my son was trying to show me something and it was evening. He had to hold my hand and guide me around bushes, trees and a neighbor's house to go see something. Oh wait, he actually wanted me to Smell something; not see it. I think someone had been vaping and he thought it smelled good but he didn't know what it was. When he got me back to that place, the scent was gone. I am guessing it was a vape pen that smelled like vanilla or something.

But that was the night I realized I seriously can't see in the dark as well as probably normal people can.

It's funny, because I keep the lights dim in the house all the time. I walk around in the dark or have minimal nightlights in the outlets that are movement-sensitive, so they turn on just so I can see where I'm going at night.

I think this blog post has wandered all over the place. I think I will need to do another blog post about this topic. Maybe on a day when my ADHD brain is a bit more organized!!

This Covid-19 quarantine is doing quite the number on my thinking / my thoughts. Everything is in a jumble.

I type this blog post at the end of April; I think I have been self-quarantining for almost 2 months now. I wish I had written down the date that I started. It's been a while.

I wonder if by the time this is read, if I will still be in quarantine. Probably. The date for Virginia to stop the quarantine, as far as I know, is June 10. At least it was the last time I checked.

Best wishes to all. Please leave me a comment so I know you're reading.