We spent the weekend with my husband’s family and had a fabulous weekend! We went to church with them on Sunday and I had to take my baby out to change her diaper. I was walking down the hall and the only other person was standing about 10 feet away with a baby in her arms. I looked right at her and said, “Hey, can you tell me where the mother’s room is?” She stared at me but didn’t say anything, then she kind of looked to the side and behind her but never responded. So I said, “I see you have a baby in your arms too, can you tell me where the mother’s room is?” She then realized I was, in fact, looking and talking to her and she gave me directions.
This seems to be happening more and more, or maybe I’m just very acutely aware of other people’s reaction to me. Every time it happens I just smile and pretend like I don’t notice and then I just feel this heavy sinking feeling inside. I can’t really put my finger on the exact emotion, maybe frustration, embarrassment, sadness…I don’t know, but I know that I do not like it.
I have really come to a new awareness about myself that has been really hard for me this last week. All my life I’ve known that I have a lazy eye, but I guess I didn’t really think about it that much. I was living in ignorant bliss. I never thought about it when I talked to someone unless they looked behind them or didn’t realize I was talking to them when I thought I was looking right at them, but I kind of just wrote it off as a fluke.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I can’t see that I have a lazy eye, my eyes look normal. The only time I see it is in photographs. And for some
Now that I have plunged myself into this rehabilitation I am
I now know that my right eye is always off to the side, never aligned. This isn’t a fluke, it’s my face, it’s how everyone else has always seen and known me. If my eye wasn’t off to the side, I wouldn’t look like Melissa to the people that I know. Is it crazy to think that I never knew this? I have only just had this realization in the last few weeks. I have had several people talk to me since my original post and express that they never did know which eye to look at, “which eye am I supposed to look at?” is the innocent question that I “cheerfully” answer.
It’s my left eye. For anyone reading this, I see from my left eye. So if you want to make eye contact with me, find the part in my hair and it’s the eye below that.
Ever since I’ve been working on maintaining eye contact I am much more aware of how confused some people are when they talk to me. I know that people who are close to me, especially family and some close friends have learned to talk to my left eye, it’s so nice to not have to worry about it when I talk to them. But when I meet someone new, I just watch their eyes jump from my left to right to left to right, then they look behind them and to the sides unsure of where to look.
They aren’t being rude, their brain is just trying to figure out something that they aren’t used to. I used to talk to anyone and everyone without a second thought. Random strangers at the store, at the school, park, or church. Now I find myself dreading talking to a new person and watching their confusion.
Can anyone tell me why this realization has been so painful for me? I am trying to figure it out, once I can understand which thoughts are creating these yucky feelings, I can figure out how to change my focus and come back to being “me.”
For now, I’m allowing myself to feel some unrest and sadness and confusion. I have to get used to a whole new image of myself and how I view myself and how others view me. I would love to go back to that blissful time last month when I had no idea that everyone I’ve ever talked to saw that I have a lazy eye, but I guess I need to just figure out this new version of myself.
How do I want to show up in the
The good news is that nobody else has changed. My eyes have always been different, everyone has always known that, except me. And people still talk to me and they still want to be friends and they still love me, and honestly, nobody seems to care that I have a lazy eye. The only thing that has changed is my thoughts and perceptions. That is good news because that means I can change those perceptions, it’s totally in my control. But it feels pretty overwhelming and
I was worshiping at my temple on Saturday I had some wandering thoughts that had to be inspired. I just started thinking about the repentance process. When you’re in “the sin” you feel pretty okay. It’s not until you face what you’ve done and decide to make it right and seek repentance that you really feel that horrible pain that Alma talks about being “in the gall of bitterness, encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.” But when you get through that part you get to have joy and “there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”
Ignoring my eyes wasn’t a sin, but I think it is going to be a similar process. I have decided to take care of my vision and strengthen my eyes and change. This is forcing me to see myself in a new way. I am going to have to struggle through and do hard things physically and emotionally and it isn’t going to be a big ball of positive emotion. And that’s okay. I’m in the hard part right now and as much as I’d like to wish it away, I’m not going to. I’m just going to keep going and celebrating the victories and recognizing the host of tender mercies that my biggest support, Heavenly Father, sends to me on a daily basis through friends, scriptures, family, random articles, stories and strangers.
And here is the latest victory to end on a positive note. I was taking updated close-up shots to document my progress. I took about 8 or 9 pictures and all of them had one eye or the other way off to the side. I usually focus on trying to get both eyes to look, take the picture and then look at it to see if I was successful. I am getting better at making it not go out quite as far, but it is always
