Moved

I have moved! I have finally moved! 

I haven’t posted in a while because after months of looking and being denied denied denied, I was suddenly approved for a home a few hours away from where I had been living. Everything happened so quickly. 

And I am still, around my disabilities and abilities, moving things around, looking for things (where is the printer?? How can I lose a printer?), sorting things out, figuring where to put things ... 

Around all of that, I am so grateful to be where I am. The internet is absolutely terrible. Truly terrible. It cuts out most of the time. I now have internet through the phone line and also internet through a satellite on my room. And both are terrible. It’s hard to decide which is worse. I need to cancel one. Probably the one through the satellite. We shall see. 

I love my Mountain View from my back yard. I love all the birds. I have bunnies, deer, so many birds, and even a woodchuck who come to my home. Oh, and now mice. Because: country. 

My landlord has approved for me to get chickens and even Guinnea fowl! A local farmer has said she would love to give me some baby chicks. Not sure I am ready for that commitment. But it would be fun, if I wasn’t disabled, to have more animals, to have baby chicks and also to have my own fresh eggs. Although, I live in a farm town and it’s super easy to go to the local general store and buy local eggs from someone I know now. 

Ok, that was all a tangent. Thank you for indulging me and reading! 

I love my new yard! See the teaspoon of Mountain View? I love it. I learned yesterday, from a neighbor, that in in the winter, we have a panoramic Mountain View when the trees are bare. I can’t wait to see that too!

 

Peripheral Vision Exercise - Outside Observations

Recently, someone in a homeschooling group I belong to, asked about vision issues she has with her child. Specifically, her child needs work to use their peripheral vision more. So I thought I would do a mini series of things I have done to help me use my peripheral vision more. 

By the way, over the course of learning about vision therapy, I learned that when I tunnel, it wears out my eyes more i.e.: makes them feel more tired more rapidly. I keep forgetting this, so this needs to be a reminder to me to focus on peripheral vision more today!

The first time I remember working on my peripheral vision, it was a beautiful day outside! I commented this to my vision therapist who was setting me up for my next task. She stopped whatever she was about to do, and we went outside to do the therapy. It's been a year or more, and I can't remember if she patched my eye, but I feel like she did. 

The way she patches my eye is she makes an eye patch for my glasses out of Scotch tape. She covers it in several directions to form one oval-shaped sticker that can be peeled off one side of my glasses and put onto the other side easily. 

Well, I feel like she patched my right eye, and we walked down the sidewalk. There were "parking" signs depicting the businesses to my left, and parked cars or empty parking spaces to my right. There were trees scattered to my left and far to my right. 

So, we walked down the sidewalk and she wanted me to tell her when I could see things to my left - when did I stop seeing them to my left? It got me to pay attention to what was next to me even if I was looking straight ahead. I enjoyed that exercise very much and wanted to do it more another day. We did other peripheral work on other days. I will talk about them in further blog posts. 

We did, by the way, come the other way down the sidewalk (walking back towards the vision therapy office), and I did the identical activity back, from my right eye. 

My vision therapist, by the way, has told me that looking outside and walking outside (like with my dog) is great for my vision - it gets me to widen my vision instead of my normal narrow, tunneling vision habits.

Creating Pathways in our Brain

Probably everyone knows about the left brain vs right brain thing. Left brain controls what - science? Math? And right brain controls creativity. 

When we are babies, we learn many things that build pathways in our brains. Like crawling. It gets our body to figure out how to move the left side of our body at the same time we move the right side of our body. 

Not all children go through all the steps to integrate our brain and bodies and build those complex brain patterns. There are things we can do to help our brain build these important pathways. Here are some of the beginner things my vision therapist did with me to build these pathways: 

Carpet angels (like snow angels, but inside on the carpet)

Crawl (make sure to use opposite arms and feet)

——-

Put blocks in a circle or whatever in front of them. (Just put them in front.) then take a block from right side with left hand and place at the beginning of what will be a line. 

Next, take block from left side using right hand and place next to block to start the line. Continue grabbing across body and putting the blocks in a line. 

——-

There is a thing called “Moro reflex” that babies supposedly learn. It’s like a startle mechanism and then they calm down fairly quickly. Babies do this when they are sleeping too. 

Go to YouTube and look up Moro reflex and “Moro Splat.” Some will show you infants doing it. And others will show you how to do it as a learning exercise. 

The way I do it is simplified because I have so much trauma in my almost 50 year life. So this the beginner way of how I do it:

Lie on back 

Raise arms and legs at same time in this manner:

Knees bent and up off the floor (on a yoga mat), raising my pelvis as I am able to.

Arms straight up above me, raising my head and neck up off the floor. 

Then breathe out and let go slowly - to let my body down. 

I have to do it slowly so I don’t hurt my head. 

My vision therapist can do this very fast and make a big SPLAT noise. But I am not there yet. 

All of these exercises will help build brain connections between the left and right side of the brain.

Dissociation Progress

I don’t think I ever specifically talked about things my Vision Therapist, A, did to help me. And I want to share that. 

When I first started vision therapy, I was overwhelmed by life. I had just initiated separation from my long term partner and was trying to figure out next steps in my life. I had no idea how to move on to the next step and I was still living in the turmoil I was desperate to get out of. 

Too often, I showed up at vision therapy thoroughly exhausted, rattled by the traffic to get there, dehydrated because that’s a constant struggle for me, severely depressed, overwhelmed, and crying. 

A has been wonderfully kind the whole time. She is a gem and a jewel. She is also a mom. She mothered me and cared for me. She believes her job is to make a safe environment for the ones getting therapy; people can only heal when they feel safe. She also knows her job is helping our brain create new pathways. In my case, my brain never figured out how to see in 3D with just my eyeballs and no gimmicks. That’s a MAJOR brain pathway I have never developed. 

I dissociated regularly at that time in my life. Dissociating, for me, means leaving my body and hovering over it. I see what it’s going through. I see if it’s “safe” or not, and I go somewhere else while sort of keeping an eye on my physical body - what it is doing, where it is, if people are around and if they are safe or not, if they need something from me. 

I go somewhere else and experience a completely different life. There are happy, safe, good people where I go to when I am dissociating. I am at a different location like a beach or a forest. Somewhere safe and “big nature.” That’s a phrase I have never articulated before. “Big nature.” As in: lots of nature around me - beach, dirt, land, rocks, trees, forest, cave, lake.... nature as far as the eye can see and body can feel and smell. 

Well, A’s job is to help me heal. One of my multiple diagnoses was for dissociation. (Depersonalization and derealization are also valid things that happen to people. You can learn about all 3 of these on Wikipedia. They have an excellent page describing all of this.) so A worked hard on helping me stay in the present and not dissociate. 

I know she often listened to me as I talked through the crying. Over time, we got comfortable with each other and she would hug me. 

I think every time I was upset, she would first get me a heavy weighted blanket and drape it over my shoulders. Then she would put lightweight ankle weights on me. These grounded me and kept me present and in my emotions. Helping me deal with the current traumas. 

About a year into therapy, one time she was having me do an exercise of batting at a ball on a string that was swinging like a pendulum from its anchor in the ceiling. At one point, she asked me “how are you doing?” And I said, “I think I am dissociating.” I was doing the activity but I wasn’t present. I wasn’t actually there. 

She immediately responded that she needed to make it harder — forcing me to pay attention. I asked her, “can you make this harder?” I felt surprised and possibly bewildered. She chuckled nicely and said, “can I make it harder.” It was funny. And then she made the activity harder. 😂

I think that was a breakthrough for my dissociation. I learned that in order to stay present, I need things to pay attention to. I started paying attention when I was cooking. There are smells and colors and things associated with that! It was a pleasure to “tune in” to things like cooking. I turned on music more and tried to sing alone. (I seriously struggle to memorize anything and it takes me a long time to work out what lyrics are and to memorize them, even when it’s a song I love that I want to learn the lyrics to.)

It’s been a while since I dissociated. Tuning into my current life has had its ups and downs. Some things are wonderful about the life I am heading towards, and some things have been so stuck and immobile. I am dealing with it the best I can - through continued long-term exhaustion and overwhelming fatigue. 

As I have learned more about my own dissociation, I have found so many others struggle with it too, and maybe my blog posts on this topic will help other people. 

 I got a letter from my optometrist, Dr. Tod Davis. It talked about what I did in 2020 to help my vision. 

Before I started going to therapy, I had no 3D vision. 

According to what he wrote (and as I have thought about it, he is right) - I now have 3D vision up to maybe 4 feet away. And after that, things "flatten out" again. (Like looking at a post card or a wall mural, 4 feet away from you. This is a HUGE improvement for me!

I largely judge how far something is from me by how big it is. 

Also, on this update, it talked about how my eyes fatigue when things are closer than 12 inches to my face, and fatigue even more when things are 6 inches to my face. 

All I know is that I have to nap almost every day to recover from fatigue. I also know my eyes hurt by the end of the day. 

Since leaving Vision Therapy, I am noticing that my eyes hurt a lot more than they did. Or perhaps I am noticing it more than I did before I started therapy, because it was my normal to have pain in my eyes. It's like the muscles around my eyes hurt. My left one is hurting right now as I type this. 

It is helpful and fascinating to me to have his diagnosis, because it helps me understand what I am going through, to see it in words. And it's helpful because people want to know what I am struggling with and why I can't see things, or what I am experiencing. 

Thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate you who read my blog. Thank you for being here!

Moving

I am spending this week boxing my possessions - I am moving during the next few weeks. I am looking forward to starting a new chapter in my life.

It is definitely interesting to handle every single possession you own and think about: give? donate? keep? trash? call a friend? 

This is definitely making me examine (for the umpteenth time) what my priorities in life are. 

I think I have found my biggest priorities are: my boys, my violin, my dog, my medicines, a pen & paper,  and my phone. Well, okay, my clothing too. 😅😆😇

It will be interesting to live my new life without most of my possessions. I will be flitting between hotels and "couch surfing" until I can find a place to rent.

I think with the Corona Virus moratorium, landlords can't kick out renters for non-payment, and it's affecting how many places come online to rent or buy. Every place I apply has 8 people apply within the first hour that it's listed, and probably at least 30 before they figure out which applicant to approve!

But I need to move. I have been wanting to move for 2 very long years. So now is the time and I am looking forward to this next chapter.

Once I move, it may take me a while to get back online and blogging. 

Healing Anxiety

Every time I turn around, I hear the word "anxiety." I was diagnosed with anxiety (along with myriad other things) around age 44 I think it was. 

There are many remedies for anxiety. One of them is medicines. I have been on several. One of them is probably taking baths, who knows.

I keep hearing about breathing. My most recent therapist has told me to breathe down to my belly, really fill my lungs. And that talks to something at the base of my spine and tells my body, "I am safe." She told me on several occasions to do this with her and to picture the action of "zooming in." Where you have 4 corners on a device (or 4 points of impact at your butt or hips or whatever) and you pinch and zoom. She says: "Widen and soften." 

So I breathe and think of this pinch and zoom and say to myself: "widen and soften." This is how to tell our bodies to relax.

My vision therapist, A., has also had me concentrate on breathing. When it was time for me to pause my vision therapy, she gave me a book. I am moving and it appears I have already packed the book! But there is a chapter in the book on breathing. She marked it with a sticky note. Maybe she really wants me to get this hint. 😆😅😂

Well, just now, a few folks recommended this video, and I watched it. And it goes right along with the other things I have said. The YouTuber is a pleasure to watch and listen to. 

I hope this video is enjoyable to you too. It's about 4 minutes long. 

Anxiety Remedy | Correct Shallow Breathing

I am enjoying the arrival of the Spring weather where I am. Perhaps you are too, unless you're in the Denver area and you're piled under new snow! 😂