Tag: anxiety

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.

Why Don’t Some Children Want to Wear Clothes or Eat Food?

When children say that they don’t want to wear something or eat something, it is not a disorder. It is a gift. They are basically saying that the piece of clothing that we are asking them to wear, or the food we are asking them to eat are not a match for their deeper selves in that moment.

Your child is likely picking up information about their environment that you as the parent may just not perceive. They may know that the light is slightly more blue today and so they shouldn’t wear a deep blue dress. They may know that the light is slightly more red today so the pink top they wore yesterday will overpower them. They may know that the light feels a little more blue today and that means they can only eat crunchy food and they won’t like scratchy textures or harsh sounds. They may know that the light feels a little more red today and they need something soft on their plate and would like something soft to cuddle.

What your child has is a gift to detect the subtle changes in energy inside them and all around them because they detect subtle changes in the light spectrum. If they are given the support to hone their gift, they will be able to use it to nourish themselves and make themselves and others feel good. Without the right kind of support and by medicating the problem, their gift could be lost to the world for ever.

Why My Son Likes Cities

How I see the spectrum often makes me feel that I am watching TV in HD and then someone has turned the setting up one notch further. I feel that the branches on the sky are a little more pronounced than is comfortable and all of my 3D perception is very subtly altered.

My perception of sound is also altered meaning that sounds stand out more than is comfortable. I am constantly aware of every sound around me. This means the world can feel a bit harsh or stark. I tend to prefer to be in places where there is less clutter and less intrusive sound. Struggling to process movement also adds to my difficulty with being in busy places. And I struggle to engage with practical activities such as cooking.

Now my fourteen year old son is different to me. It seems that he may have the experience of waching TV in low definition. Things aren’t unclear or fuzzy but they seem to be more blended. He doesn’t like clothes with tags on because he says they look tatty. He worried that he had wrecked our plastic kitchen chair when he dropped some raspberry on it from his apple and raspberry crumble. He can’t seem to see stains as separate from the object that they are staining. He is distressed by a spot of blood on anything. He checks all our cutlery for marks before eating his lunch. He struggles to engage with practical tasks such as spreading pate on his crackers.

My son’s perception of sound is also altered. He is fine with mechanical sounds like a spinning washing machine but really struggles with speech and can’t tolerate one note of singing. I wonder if sounds are too blended for him. He is happy listening to a YouTuber who has removed all the gaps in his speech so sounds like he hardly takes breath! He doesn’t struggle to process movement. He likes it. He thrives on having buzz around him as long as he doesn’t need to engage with it practically.

I am much more likely to be over-stimulated. My son is much more likely to be under-stimulated.

And this is why my son loves cities! Well, for a short burst of time anyway!

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