Clare 12 Aug 2010, 13:12
Phil - funnily enough I don't much wear glasses in company ;) But if I did, I'm sure I would!
Phil 12 Aug 2010, 02:05
Clare, OK I'll see you at the shrink's. I bet the first bit of therapy would be an instruction to wear glasses to the sessions!
Do you find that, even when you wear glasses, you end up taking them off when you can? I had lunch with a friend yesterday and, as soon as we sat down, I took my glasses off. She has about the same rx as me but, being better adjusted, kept them on throughout the meal.
If only I had another dioptre of minus I'd just have to keep them on. But it won't happen. I went down from -4 to -3.25 at the last test and at a recent medical the doctor said my corrected vision was better than normal. Who knows, I may even end up needing readers!
Sandy 11 Aug 2010, 13:57
Going back to the sport theme. A problem that I had was seeing the lines in the swimming pool. I just couldn't see them, and had to give up joining the rest of the class for swimming. I was about nine at the time, and this was an important moment in my isolation from the rest of the kids. If you can't mangage at all without glasses, a lot of sport becomes a real problem. Fortunately, after a while, I was joined by a girl who was also very myopic, and we played chess instead.
Clare 11 Aug 2010, 11:35
Phil - for a couple of reasons, I think you're right. People who get glasses early usually end up with prescriptions that are non-negotiable for FT wear, and they probably get over them at a younger age. Perhaps vanity increases with age, I don't know ;)
And therapy could be a good solution, I don't think we'd be the only ones there!
Phil 11 Aug 2010, 07:14
Clare, I suspect that, if you'd been forced to wear them at school, they would hold no capacity to embarrass you now. And you'd be out there, looking gorgeous, as a perfectly comfortable gwg! Both of us got our first glasses rather late. That may hold a clue to our sensitivity about being seen in them. I am getting bolder but am not entirely a fulltimer. Yet when I am away from places where I might be seen by those who know me, like on holiday, I never take them off. Do you think we need therapy?
Soundmanpt 10 Aug 2010, 12:06
Clare
I laughed when I read Phil's comment. I was pretty sure you were just the opposite. I bet you are glad you made it through school before you got glasses. I'm sure to you that would have been even worse than getting them later in life?
Clare 10 Aug 2010, 11:57
Phil - yes I can remember, I felt embarrassed for her! Absolutely no question of envying her. Perhaps that was also a conditioning influence for me in my early years?
Phil 10 Aug 2010, 07:23
Can you remember how you felt Clare? Whenever someone got glasses in my class I was consumed with envy. But I would have been mortified if I'd had to appear in specs myself. It is this crazy ambivalence that has bedevilled me ever since!
Clare 31 Jul 2010, 11:32
I didn't have any personal memories because I didn't wear glasses till after I left school, but one thing I remember is a girl in our class when we were about 12 - the teacher announced she had to wear glasses (tipped off by parents I now suspect) and that she must always wear them. She was a shy girl and I felt sorry for her then, and emphathise more now! Of course, she wore them 100% of the time from that day on and I have no clue what her prescription would have been. I remember they were minus, square-ish, semi-rimless.
Andrew 30 Jul 2010, 13:16
You have reminded me of an occasion at school when we had to try out new sports to us to see how eyesight affected performance. There were a couple of athletics-type events where it made little difference that I was not allowed to wear glasses (probably about -4.25, based on the fact that, by the age of 17/18, I was in -4.50s). The fencing was harder as I could not really see my opponent very clearly, but when we tried out the shooting I had to give up and put my glasses back on as I could not see which target(s) were mine!
Melyssa 30 Jul 2010, 12:52
Marc,
You brought to mind my time in gym class in school. Through 11th grade I did not wear glasses fulltime (although by that year, I was wearing them in school for everything except gym and lunch). In 12th grade, the combination of health class, chem lab, and driver's education (Yes, Eyesceners, I did wear glasses for that -- LOL) cut gym down to 2 days a week, and 11 weeks' worth of teachers' strikes also sliced even more time off phys. ed. At least I was able to see the volleyball used for most games, plus the equipment inside. I was even able to find the horse to jump on/over. :) My RX at the time was around -3.00.
30 Jul 2010, 11:45
marc,what is your prescription
Marc 30 Jul 2010, 10:00
I remember as a boy cursing my bad eyesight when it put me at a disadvantage in sports lessons (we weren't allowed to wear glasses) or when things got rougher when for a while opponents used to got straight for my glasses taking them away or they got knocked off, leaving me not only with the blurry picture, but also withe the humiliation of havong to search for my glasses squinting my head off. I even used to wear heavy black frames at the time in order to find them better.
How did you go through the rough and tumble years? I just hated it and soon learned to keep out of the action :-(
Marc
Yasmin 26 Jul 2010, 14:41
Today my prescription is R-7 L-6. But this was two years ago. I plan to get my eyes tested soon. I expect a little change.
Yes -2.5/-2 sounds really strong to me, too. Maby it was rather -1.75. I dont know it exactly. But what I remember is that a girl in my class got her weak plus lenses in a thin metal frame. Her lenses fitted nicely into the frame. My metal frame was slightly thicker and even there at least the right lese sticked out, what mady me upset.
Well, my first glasses did not solve but defered my ever worsening vision problem. After that I chose a seat in the front row and developed a powerful squintig technique. I also asked the classmate next to me to take notes from his notebook.
I was the one who always asked the teacher to switch on the light above the board because that helped me. OMG - how embarrassing. One teacher noticed my squintig, but I dont remember what I answerded. I gues I had a good excuse cause she never asked me again.
My mother more and more realised that my eye got worse. On vacation we went for whale watching - what a funny activity for an uncorrectd myope *lol*. Unfortunately the whales were quite far away. From our holiday-video you can tell that I asked several times things like "oh, did he came out?".
Like lenses 26 Jul 2010, 00:02
Yasmin
Wow -2.00 to 2.50 for a first pair. What is your prescription now?
Astra 25 Jul 2010, 20:22
Yasmin,
It was the same for me too. Glasses-phobia turning to Glasses-fetish.
Yasmin 25 Jul 2010, 17:19
I think have a glasses-phobia, which somehow turned into a fetisch - for whatever reason.
Perhaps I can find the reason when I think about how it started. (sorry for english mistakes, I no native speaker)
I think I first noticed problems to see the board or especially the overhead projector in fourth year at school. I was not to happy at thinking that I might need glasses. So I did not tell anybody and I was able to manage school with just minor problems.
Then, still in fourth year, we had our school eye-examination. I thought about how to cheat in the test, mayby I just try to remember all letters just when I get into the room before I sit down for testing.
But there was no chance. I was caught. I remember that one of the examinating persons said to the other one something like: OMG - that girl can't see anything. It sounded like I was the kid with the worsed uncurrected vision. Ok, I knew that my vision was not the best one, but I didn't expected it to be like that bad.
Some days later my mother and me went to an eyedoctor and I think my first prescription was like R -2.5 L -2 or so. We chose a pink frame and a few days later I got it.
My memory on this is not that good - getting the first glasses was definitely not the reason for my phobia. Of course I was afraid to go to school with them on the first day. But in the end it was not so bad. I remember the question "oh? since when you need glasses?" and the answer was "since today" - of course.
I don't remember who noticed it, but from wearing the glasses my eyes got red. My mother was very worried about it and we decided that I will stop to wear them, what I did, because still I did not liked the idea to have glasses.
My hope was that my vision will soon get better again, and then I dont need glasses anyway. The reason for this hope was my father. In his teen to twen years he wore glasses but when he was 27 y.o. his vision was perfect and the glasses-note was even erased from his drivers licence. I am not sure about his vision problem - I think it was astigmatism and how the change was possible. My father was the only one (exept grandparents and a distant aunt) in our family who wore glasses. So I would have been the only one, what I hated.
Later struggeling more and more to read the board (the overhead projector was already completeley blurred), I realised that all my hopes were hopeless.
Obsessed 07 Jul 2010, 16:30
I mean, I can't wait to read what's next!!
Obsessed 07 Jul 2010, 16:29
OMG! So intrigued! ~swoon~
Life in a Blur 07 Jul 2010, 12:08
Even though I got glasses, I couldn't bring myself to wear them. The blackboard was a blur, but hiding in my locker was the cure for my sickness. Part of me felt like admitting I needed glasses would put a stigma on me that I must have been playing with myself a lot since that was something people used to say. I did not want to admit it because that was true. Not only that, but I was wearing strong glasses in private that were probably blowing away my eyesight.
The only place I wore my glasses was in Driver Education class because I felt too dizzy and unfocused behind the wheel without them. I was so shocked at how clear everything was during that class, but immediately I took off my glasses as soon as the bell rang.
It was in English class that I was discovered. They asked me to read something in the blur that was on the board and I simply could not see it. One of the students who was also in my Driver Education class called out that I can't see it because I only wear glasses in Driver's Ed. My heartbeat went crazy and I was told to go to my locker and come back with my glasses and read the board. That was like a death walk to me. I thought about going anywhere but back to class, but I did it. When I walked in from the back of the classroom, the teacher told me to stop there, take off my glasses and read the board. I told him I couldn't see it, so then he said to put on my glasses and try again. The board went from a blurry mess to a clear sharp image I could even read from the back of the room! After I read the board, my teacher told me to sit down and he expected to see me wearing my glasses in every class.
So all year there were only two classes where I wore my glasses. Driver's Education because I needed to see, and English class because I was forced to do so. I would still wander the halls in a blur, not recognizing people but the transition from blur to clear to blur to clear to blur each day was making me have headaches and eyestrain so much, and the blur seemed to be getting much worse.
I had to make a decision.
Jim 30 Jun 2010, 04:25
Faine. Are still at school and wearing glasses? Or are you living in a life of blur and trying to manage without out of either shyness or vanity? Glasses can be very attractive on girls who choose th appropriate frames.
Flaine 30 Jun 2010, 02:48
All4eyes
nope so ur marie too? I was refering to wantweargl..
All4Eyes 29 Jun 2010, 17:30
Life In A Blur: You sound a lot like me (I didn't give in to glasses till I was -4), so I'd love to read more of your story. What was that first moment of clear corrected vision after all that time in a blur like?
Flaine: Do you mean me or another Marie? If you mean me, things are going OK, still hoping for new glasses soon. I must pop into Lenschat more often.
Flaine 29 Jun 2010, 09:43
Life in a blur...
Yes pls carry on its nice!!!
Marie:
hows ur glasses going? Havent seen u in lenschat for a while
4iiii 29 Jun 2010, 04:22
LIFE IN A BLUR. would love to hear more, when you can, please!
wantweargl 28 Jun 2010, 16:39
interesting life in a blur, i`d like to read more stories about you, are you a boy? what`s your age and your current rx now? thx...
Soundmanpt 28 Jun 2010, 08:23
Life in a Blur
Please continue. I do have a couple of questions, when you were 12 whose glasses did you get hold of that you wore in private? Were you able to force your eyes to see much with those glasses at the time?
Life in a Blur 28 Jun 2010, 05:37
I spent alot of my junior high school years in a blur. My eyes started getting bad around 12 or so, and because I had been wearing strong glasses as a fetish in private, I didn't want to admit what I thought was ruining my eyesight. Year after year, things got blurrier. When I discovered I couldn't read the overhead projector, I was suprised. It literally looked like just a blank white screen but people were taking notes from it. I used to look at a couple of pretty girls across the room and I remember at the beginning of one school year I could see them but they were blurry. By the end of that school year, the whole side of the room was blurry.
I kept hiding my "blurry secret" from others and went to the extent of intercepting mail from the school nurse when I couldn't read anything on the charts. The clock across the cafeteria had melted into a complete blur by the time I finished junior high so I started wearing watches alot.
But my jig was up when I had Driver Education class. I knew I couldn't pass the eye test and was very scared. I rode my bicycle to the DMV on the day I was going to get my permit, and could not see anything clearly in the machine. They asked me to read an eye chart across the room after that and had to keep pointing where it was because it was just a blur to me.
I ended up giving in to glasses at that point, and my first prescription was around -3.75. So you can imagine how fuzzy and unclear my world had become. School dances were so unbelievably blurry to me the people, the band. It was like no matter how hard I tried to see, it didn't help much.
The glasses changed all that. If anyone is interested, I'll write more about that.
antonio 26 Jun 2010, 09:23
Interesting, Astra,
did you wear glasses yourself that time already ?
Did you need some already that time and if so, how strong ?
thanks and best regards, antonio
Jim 26 Jun 2010, 06:53
Astra. I take it you like wearing glasses and enjoyed being gwg at school. I first met my eventual wife when I was at school, as she was the sister of one of my friends. She was three years below us and very shy and wore some plain red and white plastic framed glasses with an rx of about -5.00. I sometimes went to my friends house for tea and his sister would be hanging around us but I didn't pay much attention to her as she was only 13 at the time. I met up with her again six years later when she was 19 and and I was totally bowled over by how she had grown and developed. But her glasses were something to die for! They had large brown platic frames and lenses that reflected the light and were edged with lots of power rings. She smiled at me and said "Do you recognize me?" I found out later that by then her rx had crept up to -9.00. We started dating and then she decided to get contact lenses! I have to admit she looked very pretty when she was wearing them and her eyes were sharp and alert compared with when she wore her glasses. Luckily she never wore them much at home and now after many years of marriage she has gone back to glasses fulltime. The bonus is giving up wearing contacts has helped to push her rx up to -12.00!! Now our younger son is taking out a girl who wears glasses of around -5.00 and also wears contacts, so I love her to bits!!
ehpc 30 May 2010, 12:43
Interesting :) Pete
Astra 30 May 2010, 12:37
I just have been dreamt about my sixth form days.
Back then the classmates are very close each other. We went to each other's home at some holidays. That was true in reality.
I just dreamt about being in a female classmate's home with other classmates present. the female classmate (host girl) is a gwg (indeed she is in reality). At first I had some chat with some males. Then the males start teasing me not study well on the material of exam.
Then I came next to the host girl. In reality, I rarely get close to the host girl. So in my dream I was hesitated to take that seat. She just took her glasses off (about -4.00 I guess...), being a bit tired, rubbed her eyes then looked around and saw me.
But it turned out the host girl was very nice to me. Telling me I should really sit next to her. I felt surprised and happy. Her eyes without glasses is drawing my attention... (In reality she was a fulltime wearer, rarely saw her without glasses... maybe I saw her college photos that she used to wear contact lenses so I could think of her look without glasses)
Charles 06 Mar 2010, 10:07
I, also, had glasses before starting school. I think I got them at about 4 and, to this day, I remember being surprised and delighted at how well I could see. No concessions were ever made by any of the schools I went to about fact that I was very myopic and would be lost wothout my glasses. I was never prevented from doing anything the the other boys did and I am very glad of that. I cannot remember any of the many prescriptions I had during my school career except that in my early teens my prescription, in one eye, matched my age. Nobody made unkind remarks to my face except one boy who used to say my lenses reminded him of double glazing.
Like Lenses 05 Mar 2010, 19:17
Sandy
What age are you now, and what is your present prescription?
Sandy 05 Mar 2010, 10:54
I'm one of those who got glasses before going to school. Did that happen to any others of you? Actually I was found to be very myopic at three. This was before I could talk properly, and I didn't have the usual eye test. My first definite memory was getting glasses, and I recall this as something happy. I liked seeing clearly of course, but also both my parents and my older sister wore glasses, so I was no longer the odd one out. I don't know my first prescription, but it must have been pretty high. I still have the glasses I got when I was four, by when I knew the alphabet, and they are about -5. I can't remember being given a hard time by kids at my nursery school or at my infant school. In my infant class there were about 25 children, and four of us wore glasses - me and three girls (one of whom was long-sighted). My teachers were very protective, too protective perhaps. They stopped me from doing anything a bit rough, even from running around and playing in the sand; and jumping in the paddling pool was out. In practice, I tended to play with the girls, and my best friend was one of the girls with glasses. Unlike my early school years, Junior school was unpleasant.
Dan 01 Mar 2010, 06:23
James2,
That is quite a strong/rapid increase for someone who got -1.00 glasses at 20 years of age. I have roughly the same prescription at 20 so we'll see if I end up getting up to -7.5!
All three people I've dated in college have worn glasses but unfortunately they all liked contacts better.
James2 01 Mar 2010, 04:55
I know the feeling about people you've gone out with whose eyesight changes - after you split up.
When I was at university I went out for more than a year with a lovely woman, Amanda, until we qualified and went our separate ways. She was 20 or 21 at the time and in the final six months or so we were together she was prescribed some glasses for myopia, probably no more than -1.00 or -1.5, which she wore all the time right from the off, claiming she was blind without them.
About three years later, we bumped into each other at a rock concer and she was still wearing glasses, this time -3.5s. She told me her eyesight had got much worse.
Three or four years after that we met again, this time at a work-related conference. This time they were -7.5s, which amazed me as her eyesight seemed to have become much worse in a fairly short space of time. Amanda was quite willing to talk about her eye problems, maybe because I'd been there seven or eight years earlier when she first got glasses. She thought her eyesight was likely to get even worse as the glasses she was wearing were a year old and she cleady felt they weren't as pin-sharp as before.
She looked gorgeous and I told her so. Unfortunately, we were both in other relationshps and I didn't dare ask to see her again. Shortly after that I moved away from the town where we both lived and I've not been back or seen Amanda again in more than 12 years. She'd be about 40 now. I wonder what became of her - and her glasses.
Mister Roberts 24 Feb 2010, 21:25
My first girlfriend in high school, 1971 Was very myopic, guessing about -10. Her glasses did not look as strong as they were, kind of smallish plastic octo frames. In 1975 a year or so after we broke up, I made an arrangement to see her at her house. I found she was wearing new glasses as she greeted me at the door. My heart sank when upon the opening of the front door I saw the blaze of light flashing off the plano fronts of her large glasses. I thought that these were the perfect glasses, large and very thick on MY girlfriend. Except for the fact she was no longer MY girlfriend and hadn't been for over a year. That has really stuck in my mind over the years. The sting of what could have been, what should have been and what might have been still haunt me.
Obsessed 24 Feb 2010, 09:31
When I was a schoolboy, I wanted glasses badly but my eyes were always perfect. I used to envy kids who were prescribed glasses. That was the beginning of this crazy fascination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnBuB6ykwPw ---> this was my fave episode ever :D
mick 22 Feb 2010, 10:08
I got the glasses but I hated them and I hardly ever wore them. I think it was because I didn't want to become dependant upon them. My Dad was very short sighted, -15 I think, I was terrified that if I wore the glasses my eyes would start getting worse and worse and I'd eventually get as short sighted as he was so I never wore them. A bit later after I left school and started to drive I realised that I needed them, I got an eye test, now they were -2 both eyes. I got some glasses that I had to wear for driving and for my test but again I hardly ever wore them as I still was worried about becoming dependant and getting more short sighted. I figured that by not wearing correction I'd delay the progression.
mick 22 Feb 2010, 09:46
I remeber when I first realised that I was becoming short sighted, I was about 10 years old. I remember my Dad giving me a list of places and road numbers for the planned route when we were going on our holidays. I used to watch for the road signs, road numbers and mileages and tell him how far we had to go to each place on the route. I realised that I couldn't see the signs very well until we were on top of them! Somehow I got away with it, my parents never twigged, I pretended I'd lost interest in doing the navigation! At school I knew I couldn't see the blackboard without squinting but somehow I managed to fudge my way through the eyetest with squinting. It wasn't until I was about 15 that the school eyetest caught me out and I had to go and get my eyes tested at an opticians. The optician confirmed that I was short sighted and had to wear glasses. I think the prescription was about -1.5 in both eyes at that time.
Melyssa 10 Feb 2010, 11:59
And,
Back then my prescription was around -3.00 or so. I was able to function all right sans glasses, especially without any blackboards to read, whether I was playing volleyball, field hockey, or futzing around on the various items in the gym (horse, mats, rings, parallel bars, etc.).
And 10 Feb 2010, 08:56
Melyssa, how difficult was that ?
Melyssa 10 Feb 2010, 07:32
Guest,
That reminds me of when I was in high school a few years before you. Those of us who wore glasses (mostly metal frames then) either took chances wearing them in gym class (volleyballs can be hard), or like I did, kept them in our lockers.
guest 10 Feb 2010, 02:41
When I was at school in the late seventies, contacts were hardly worn and the glasses used to be really huge. Many of us used to complain of the weight or the slipping, especially those with stronger prescriptions (most lenses were made from glass back then).
I remember the worst being sports lessons, when the glasses wearers had to deposit their glasses in a box for safety reasons, having to go through the lessons in squinting agony. I wonder if that would be accepted nowadays.
SimonC 16 Nov 2009, 08:07
When I was in my school years (13-17) I did a newspaper round in my village. It was quite a spread out and long round and from about 15 years of age I kept a record of my customers who wore glasses, what sort + or - and a strength guide (I didnt know about diops etc so I think it was weak, medium, strong, mega etc) and how often and age guess. I only had about 80 houses on the round but there were parents/children etc and as I collected money for their papers I got to see a lot of them.
It occupied some boring time and helped me get through the round, especially in the cold winter months.
I am going to see if I still have this book I kept next time I visit my parents house, a bit of a hoarder I am so its probably been kept.
Dieter 11 Nov 2009, 14:15
My most memorable experience was at age sixteen when I drove to an out of town event with my best friend on a Friday night. On the way home he slept in the passenger seat while I entertained myself with late night radio (most likely I was listening to “Wolfman Jack”). After delivering him home, I continued the several-mile trip to my house. When gathering things from the glove box, I discovered my friend’s glasses and suddenly remembered he had placed them there before napping. Neither of us thought of that when we had been in front of his house. I took the black horn rimmed glasses inside and wore them behind locked doors in my bedroom and the bathroom studying my look in a mirror. They had a moderate minus RX and I really liked what I saw. Since I had never allowed myself to be included in “glasses exchanges”, I’d never seen how I looked in glasses for a guy. The next morning, we connected by phone and my friend said he would get them when we planned to meet up on Sunday.
So on Saturday evening; using his glasses, I drove for hours after dark on the opposite side of town where there was little chance of meeting acquaintances. That was the first time I wore glasses in public and it felt marvelous. However, I would not have had the courage to be seen if I had been in places where I was known. In a short time, I became acclimated to being a wearer to where vision and using them seemed natural as I drove. At one point, I stopped at a fast food restaurant and walked inside to order and eat. I had no problem wearing glasses in front of strangers. It felt as though I had discovered myself and I didn’t want that magical night to end.
SimonC 10 Sep 2009, 01:38
Hi Clare.
When I got my 'first' glasses I had to get them from a nearby town. I remember when I first put them on in the opticians and looked around across the street. I am not very good with find the right words but it was an amazing experience to see clearly. I got very excited having them. I wore them out of the opticians but took them off pretty quickly. I think I was worried or conscious of someone seeing me who knew me.
At the bus stop I remember they were in were in my jacket pocket and I kept sneeking a look at them. Cant recall if I took the day off school or had free day but it was term time again and the bus was pretty empty and I went upstairs where I was the only passenger for a good 20 minutes of the journey. I put them on on the bus, looked around at things, in the far distance, realised just how bad my eyesight was. I took the glasses off as soon as someone got on the bus upstairs. They were worn at home by me in secret and I remember being fascinated by them, what the lenses were like, how they looked on me, cut in etc etc.
I got my contacts about 2 or 3 days after the glasses.
Clare 09 Sep 2009, 12:49
SimonC - of course I mean the pair you got at 17 rather than at 8!
Clare 09 Sep 2009, 12:48
SimonC - thanks for sharing your story. How much did you wear your first pair of glasses?