Dissociation

My Optometrist gave a talk on Memorial Day. He interviewed me and I was 1 of 2 current patients of his that he featured in the talk. In order to see the talk, you need to have a membership to an optometry website: I heart VT. Like - I love Vision Therapy. I think this is the link: https://www.iheartvt.org 

[Photo: the iheart VT logo. There is a black heart to the left of the words, and the photo has a magenta offset heart above it and to the left, and a turquoise offset heart below it and to the right.]

I wonder how many of you relate to some of the things he said?

The topic was Dissociation. He was explaining how Optometrists can recognize that many of their patients probably do it. And how to help them with Vision Therapy.

There are some of the symptoms -

1. Tunneling. Meaning, focused so intently on what you are looking at, so that the background disappears. This can show up as a person walking and staring at the ground, unable to look up as they walk. This can also show up with horse back riders - they stare at the horses head to the frustration of horse riding trainers.
2. Sensitivity to light. Keeping lights off in the house. Walking around in the dark.
3. Issues with driving and parking. Not able to gage what speed you are going. Not able to park straight.
4. Being startled easily when things come in to your visual range.
5. Unable to focus on reading. Unable to focus on studying.
6. Things (like furniture, the floor, fixed objects) “move.” (Jareth has this. It was my normal; I didn’t realize I have this until vision therapy made things stop moving and then it was AMAZINGly calm.)
7. Perhaps existing in a “fictional world” in your head. That can feel very real. 
8. Isolation. This one struck me big - because I see me having been doing this over the years, more and more: Isolation, over time, means "not wanting to leave the house." Closing curtains and closing yourself in. It doesn’t start when someone is younger but increases over the years. I just blocked off my windows with contac paper maybe 2 months ago. My decluttering expert unblocked windows of mine. And I have basically re-blocked them off. Remember, I am approaching 50. So if you’re in your 20s or 30s, you may not relate to this one. No worries.

The exercises they have given me - wear ankle weights during vision therapy and at home now and then (light weight: 1 pound weights) and use a weighted blanket have helped me. There was a time during Vision Therapy with my therapist, A, when she asked me "how are you doing?" And I replied: "I think I am dissociating." She got into gear and made the exercise much harder so I was forced to pay attention!

That moment was a pivotal moment for me - I need to pay attention to the HERE and NOW. Smells, sensations, my 5 senses ... these are the things I pay attention to much more now after months of vision therapy with their focus to help me not dissociate anymore! I don't think I dissociate anymore, but I will get back to you on that. This is HUGE!

By the way, people who dissociate in their childhood (as I did), have large chunks of their memory missing. I have large chunks of my memory missing. I do remember, as a child, thinking, "I need to remember my memories, or I will forget them." And I would sit there and intentionally review my memories. I wonder if other people ever did that too? Please let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comments, below. Thank you!

Migration Complete

I have moved the posts from the very expensive blog host to this much less expensive platform (and much easier for me to use) to Blogger from Google!

I hope you will subscribe to my blog posts, so you will be notified when I post new blog posts!

The mail chimp newsletter service no longer works from the old blog, I am not sure why. But Blogger has their own "Subscribe to my posts!" Link - it's in the right side bar on every page - just under the "About Me" photo. 

I have typed up a few posts and they will run soon. I will keep the posts coming on Mondays. My vision therapy days have been changed to Thursdays now that we are doing Vision Therapy back in the office in Manassas. 

For the Vision Impaired

[This is my friend, Phoenix's logo for his business, Midnight Hobbit. It is a cog wheel with an artistically drawn letter M. The cog wheel and letter M are lit in subtle transcolers - fading from light blue to pink to white, and back to pink and light blue.]

A friend of mine, Phoenix from Midnight Hobbit, recently started updating his social media posts with words to describe what images or memes say. 

A lot of memes are too hard for me to read. Phoenix's descriptions help me understand what it is I am looking at. I have started to do this sort of thing, too, when I post things. 

I just want to give a shout-out to Phoenix for introducing me to this concept and also to my friend, Stacey of Stacey's Solutions, for recently talk-dictating a meme that she had posted that I just couldn't read. I am grateful for my friends who help people like me, with invisible disabilities, so that we can engage in the things they want to share. 

[Photo, a bright fuscia zinnia on a blurred green background. A bee collects pollen from the bright  yellow stamen in the center of the flower.]

My Artwork on Masks

I have previously mentioned that I am an artist. I love to paint with acrylics and watercolors. I also illustrated a few yoyo books for my dad, "Professor Yo-Yo." 

You can order masks with my artwork on them from Zazzle at: 

https://www.zazzle.com/s/jodiarts+masks

This is a photo of my favorite mask. I wear it a lot - it has my favorite water painting on it!

The masks are lightweight and let you breathe in cool air instead of your own hot air. Also, they have a pocket for you to add an optional filter if you would like one. 

Migrating

[A photo I took of some wild purple and lavender flowers that sort of resemble daisies -- a yellow center, surrounded by shades of purple petals.

 They look like poofs on a tall stem. The background of the photo is blurred green foliage.]

Hello! 

I type this on September 2, 2020. (What a year!) 

I am migrating my blog from BlueHost to Google Blogger. 

I will be putting up all of my old posts & hopefully I can put in their date to the date they were published the first time. Unfortunately, comments from the first blog, I can't seem to find them and post them. I hope folks will please comment on my blog posts. I like having comments so that I know I am not talking to a black hole. 

I have a lot of things to share soon with the Vision Therapy I am doing, and some insights and other Vision related things that I had no idea were Vision related. .... 

Speaking of migrating, in the last week, I have seen 4 Monarch Butterflies fly past me! Have you seen any? A friend of mine the next state North of me has also seen some Hummingbirds & declared that it's now Hummingbird migration season too! Have you seen any migrating animals? I know Canada geese always make an appearance around here twice a year, too. 

I hope everyone is doing well. 

Sincerely,

Jodi 

Taking a break

There is so much going on in my head, in my area of the country, in my country, in the world. 

I cannot organize thoughts right now to write on this blog.

I hope everyone is safe and staying healthy.

When I find I have more to say about my vision issues and can organize my thoughts, I will resume writing. 

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.