Tag: anxiety

You Can’t Feel Homeliness if you Feel Separation

This is the first autumn that I ever really felt the feeling of homeliness. This is the first autumn that I have had glasses to treat my phorias.

October is usually a very tricky month for me. I usually feels ad odds with myself and with the world. But this year I found my phoria. My eyes are going Up and IN. I have have this on one eye or both. And the UP and IN phoria I find is one of the hardest to bear. You feel shut in and confused and cross with the world.

Wearing glasses with prism that bend the light so that what I am looking at meets my gaze, feels like nothing short of a miracle. I feel cosy and very centred.

Autumn used to mean struggling with the change of colours of leaves and the drop in the light. I didn’t like the pumpkins of halloween, the fireworks of bonfire night or even the decorations of Christmas. I just couldn’t process all the colour and pattern.

This year I am loving the leaves, I am enjoying craft, I am singing little songs to myself, playing games with my family and cycling. I am loving life. And looking ahead, I am full of hope that I will find the right glasses as autumn turns to winter. And I will experience more new things – things I have never done before, feelings I have never had before, like the true feeling of homeliness.

Lightwatcher Diary – The Red Light of September

Hi, sorry I haven’t posted a diary for a while. I have had a blocked ear. If you have been following my previous diary entries, you will notice that I often spoke about my phorias. However today I didn’t. They have been a lot less significant to me since July. As you will hear, I am much more interested in my interpretation through my ears, than what is coming in through my eyes right now!

Phoria Sensitivity and Not Feeling Part of Anything

Phoria sensitivity occurs when you are sensitive to your eye-gaze. Your gaze may not be comfortable at the point where you are choosing to look, so it moves somewhere else!

I have lived with undetected phorias for most of my life and only just discovered them. I felt there was something wrong but couldn’t work out what it was. I have been seen as a hands off, nervous person who stands on the outside of situations and doesn’t get involved. In fact at some point during my journey, I realised that I had a big issue with involvement. As a result I did everything I could to be more involved with my life and other people. But this way of living had huge limitations for me. The more involved I got with my life, the more exhausted I became. And I ended up choosing the health of my nervous system over more involvement.

I have missed so many opportunities to be part of community and at the moment I am feeling sad about this. I wouldn’t say I am from a super close family but most members have stayed in touch and met up for special occasions. Most of the time I wasn’t there. I haven’t stayed in touch with friends or family friends.

I didn’t know why I was like this. I see myself as a friendly person and an open book. But I just didn’t have the energy needed to be part of something. My phorias made me feel that I was always being divided from myself. My vision, sound, temperature, food textures, touch, smell, taste, all felt like they had parts missing. How could I be part of something, feeling like a divided person?

Now I get it! GOOD VISUAL FOCUS is the answer. GOOD BINOCULAR VISION is the key. Now I have these things, for the first time, I feel that I could be part of something!

About Phorias

Help with Your Vision FAQ’s

Can Anyone Work with their Eye Phorias?

Yes, as much as anyone can ride a bicycle, knit a jumper or bake a cake, anyone can work with their phorias. It is not like going to the see the optician or optometrist, though, where things are done for you and results are presented to you. It is a skill that takes a level of self awareness and needs to be learnt over time. The skill of working with your phorias requires you to be curious about your relationship with your eyes.

The only people who start this adventure are those who feel there is something not right about their eyes, having tried everything the health professionals have to offer. You might suffer with unresolved light sensitivity, dizziness, headaches, fatigue, depression or anxiety . . . just to name a few symptoms that could be bothering you. You might feel a deep sensitivity that is all consuming and severely hampers you from living a full life.

I have written this blog for people like you – not for those who are happy with their eyes – but for those whose eyes are saying “Surely something could be better.”

Please take a look at these tests and see if that person is you:

Light Gaze Test

Spot Test

Reading Test

Prism Test

Help with Your Vision FAQ’s

Are Undetected Phorias Making Your Child Anxious?

The biggest thing I have gained by treating my phorias is a sense of stability that I never had. it is a feeling that I know where I am in time and space. The over-riding feeling is that I belong.

About Phorias

Help with Your Vision FAQ’s

It’s Impossible to Enjoy Music with 4 Ears (Phorias!)

Since we discovered our sensitivity to our phorias, my son and I are getting our lives back, one pair of glasses at a time! I am playing the electric violin and my son is playing the guiro.

Prism Lenses – Just Bits of Plastic that Might Help You!

Working with my phorias (eye gaze and muscle imbalance) I require lot of pairs of glasses. This is because my phorias move around a lot. I can test myself with the maddox rod test to find out where my phorias are and then choose the glasses to treat that phoria. Sometimes the glasses are on point and sometimes they are not quite on point but they will do. Sometimes I am surprised by which glasses help me. They don’t seem to quite match the test results. Sometimes one eye partially suppresses to allow my other eye to take up the reigns for a while. This could be better than the experience of both eyes fighting.

What I learnt is that my lenses are just bits of plastic with prism in that can help me. I play around with them like someone trying on shoes or hats. I enjoy them – my trial prism lenses are very precious to me! Some I have from a set of trial lenses and some I just popped out of a pair of cheap glasses that I bought with just prism in. So far it has been impossible to buy 0.25 diopter prism trial lenses so I had to do the popping out thing for these. I also sometimes combine glasses – wear one pair and fold the arm back on another to use the lens as an extra one. I work with any resources I can find to learn about my eyes and establish a relationship with them and my experience of the changing light.

Working with prisms is not an exact science. My husband who is no-where near me on the scale of sensitivity was trying out some prisms to find the up and down rotation. He found that for prism diopter 3 – 5 he was actually experiencing the prism upside down. The image was moving in the direction he didn’t expect. We didn’t have any answers for that. That was a mystery. In the same way prisms are doing mysterious things for me every day. I don’t fully understand how my brain relates to prism but it definitely likes it!

Prisms lenses – just bits of plastic that might help you!

How do I Know if I am Sensitive to My Eye Phorias?

Simply ask yourself these questions:

Do I sometimes:

Feel as if my eye is being pulled or stretched (this being even more extreme outside sometimes?)

Have extreme light sensitivity

Lack co-ordination for no apparent reason?

Struggle to walk in a straight line?

Feel as if my eyes are fighting with each other?

Struggle to focus on something because I am distracted by the background (subject and background both demanding the same attention?)

Have cognitive processing difficulties and feel easily overloaded by information?

Feel as if mentally I am going round and round in circles?

Feel that my eyes can never rest, even at night?

If you answer yes to some or all of these questions, then you could be sensitive to your phorias (direction of gaze). You may be aware of small muscle imbalances that occur when you change direction of your gaze. This could occur as a result of being stressed or tired but with more sensitive people, it can be triggered simply by changes in the ambient light. These imbalances, though subtle can have a massive impact on your quality of life.

If you would like to know more please go to Help with Your Vision or just get in touch and have a chat.

Help, I Have Four Phorias!

What is a phoria?

A phoria is a latent (hidden) eye deviation. The eyes appear to be straight, but when covering an eye and breaking fusion, the eyes assume a position away from normal alignment. Most people have a very small phoria if tested, but a large phoria makes it hard to keep the eyes aligned. This could occur as a result of being stressed, tired and it can be triggered by changes in the light.

If a large amount of phoria exists, your eyes are will not rest on the subject you are focusing on. Your gaze will move elsewhere. Keeping both eyes fixated on your chosen subject requires an effort by you. 

However, a sensitive person can be affected by a small phoria. People not sensitive may be able to ignore any small amounts of distortion but sensitive people can’t. Any lack of congruency, any deviation from the whole is a problem for the sensitive person.

I Have Four of Them!

UP OUT (uncorrected) – makes me feel like the right side of my head is fuzzy and it affects the nerves in my shoulders and arms. I feel pulled away from what I am trying to think about.

OUT (uncorrected) – makes me feel that I can’t think clearly at all. I don’t want to think about anything outside of my immediate experience. Everything feels too much.

IN (uncorrected) – makes me feel trapped like I can’t see out. I feel like I can’t move. I am inflexible.

IN OUT (uncorrected) makes me feel low hearted and negative. My body aches especially the muscles in my legs, and my knees feel suddenly weak.

All I Need is Prisms

How simple can that be? Fixing these problems with just a pair of glasses? But it works. All you need is a prism sending your gaze back in the direction you intended it to be in. Phorias could play a part in depression, anxiety, fatigue, dyspraxia, ADHD and more . . .

If you would like help looking to see if you or your child have a hidden phoria, please get in touch below. One simple appointment, one pair of glasses and you could feel like you have your life back, or you could know what life is for the first time!

The Emotional Psychological Connections of Optics

We need direction to use power. We need power to use direction

Our experience of power in life can be affected by astigmatism

Our experience of direction in life can be affected by Strabismus (squint)

Neither always show themselves in the darkness of the optician’s room. If you are sensitive or suspect processing issues, ask to get checked in the daylight.

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