It’s a traumatic experience for parents when their baby is diagnosed with an unknown condition. Mine didn’t know what to do when the doctor told them that their little girl had nystagmus; but then what could they actually do?
It’s just one of those things. Yet it didn’t seem like that at the time. Even though my condition was congenital, the initial reaction wasn’t to consider that I wouldn’t know any different. Consequently they had no idea what to expect. Would it prevent me from leading a normal life and making friends?
I was brought up not to consider my visual impairment a disability, nor a negative characteristic that limited my activities. At a younger age I couldn’t care less that I was different. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t ride a bike without stabilisers. My friends and I preferred playing Polly Pockets and going on the swings anyway. But that all changed when I hit the teenage years.
Makeup is something I was never fond of, apart from when I was seven. I attempted to crayon mine and my friends face for a party, but our parents wiped it off again. Then for my 13th birthday mum wrapped up eyeliner, mascara and numerous other makeup tools I never knew existed in a box, kind of like a ‘maturity package’.
The first time I ever applied mascara was in the school toilets. Every girl was wearing makeup apart from me so I decided to join in. Long story short, the mascara ended up everywhere except on my eyelashes. Unlike the other girls, I couldn’t judge where my eyelashes were in relation to the mascara brush. I’m sure you can imagine the response when I came out of the bathroom.
I remember lying on my trampoline next to my best friend the weekend after the mascara incident, commenting on how pretty she was. She returned the compliment, which I automatically brushed away; how could I be pretty when my eyes wobbled and I wore glasses? Plus all the girls at my school said that makeup made you more ‘beautifuller’ (yes I am aware that is not a word). So using their logic, I would never be their definition of beautiful.
Looking back on this now I realise it was complete and utter rubbish! But when you’re a teenage girl who is slightly different from her friends, it’s hard, especially at sleepovers when you’re the one falling asleep at 9pm when you vowed to stay awake all night; but true friends see past that.
Half way through my third year at school I moved classes due to the nasty digs some people I once called friends made on a regularbasis. Nothing was aimed directly at my eyesight, but the little things they did were, such as deliberately sitting in the middle row of the science lab knowing that I wouldn’t be able to see from there. To be honest, you don’t need people like that in your life.
The new set of friends I made were great. They taught me how to put mascara on for starters. They’d sit with me in the front row without me having to beg and plead with them. I was introduced to a larger group of their friends as well; a mixture of boys and girls. I was extremely wary of the boys at first, but once they started talking to me I got along with them just fine. In fact I now have more guy mates than girls!
There was one I particularly took a liking to and it turns out that we were ‘extra time buddies’ during our exams. He’s dyslexic; I have nystagmus. He can’t read; my eyes get tired reading. I’m still a book worm though! We were a match made in heaven/hell/ whichever way you want to look at it.
By the time we were in the fifth year of school we were officially a couple. Okay it took a lot of focusing and straining to try and stare into his eyes, but, on a brighter note, we won ‘The Cutest Couple’ award at prom!
Skip forward seven years (I feel so old) and my eyes have not had a negative effect on my life so far, just as my parents originally thought. Believe it or not, I can’t imagine life without wobbly eyes! They’ve made me see people’s true colours. If I didn’t have nystagmus I would probably still be friends with the first group of people I hung around with, but, let’s face it, you don’t need to be with people who exclude others because they’re different. I wouldn’t have met my boyfriend (yes, I’m still with him!) if it wasn’t for my eyes.
If I didn’t have nystagmus I wouldn’t have something interesting enough in my life to blog about and if it wasn’t for my blog, I wouldn’t have the job I’m currently in. Bottom line is that every cloud has a silver lining.
