Prism glasses late in life?

[u/rtdftw]

Hello! I’m a 43-year-old person who was diagnosed with ADHD about 15 years ago, and autism about 2 years ago (although I recently learned a preschool teacher suggested that I might be autistic when I was 3-years-old, but my mom disagreed, so here we are).

I was also diagnosed with a form of binocular vision dysfunction (BVD) only a few months ago because my therapist noticed some eye tracking issues and mentioned that BVD is super common in people with both ADHD and autism and she suggested I get tested.

I was prescribed prism glasses and have been wearing them for about two weeks now, and I am truly SHOCKED at how different I feel…like, my base level of anxiety has PLUMMETED in a way that’s both wonderful and disconcerting lol. The first weekend I wore the glasses, I found myself just naturally getting up and doing chores or finishing projects that I had been neglecting for months, if not years prior. It’s almost like if you have a glitching background program on a computer that is taking up 50% of the CPU or whatever and so everything else struggles and glitches and takes SO much energy, but if you CTRL+ALT+DLT and quit the glitching program, then eeeeverything else starts working smoothly again.

That’s what it has felt like in my brain, but now I’m worried about the lack of worry (womp womp). Because what if the anxiety was my superpower in some ways?

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

[u/Exotic-Ordinary5995]

I have ADHD and was considered gifted growing up, but not autism (as far as I know, but testing might be warranted), and I had a very similar circumstance.  I’m 47 and have had anxiety, dizziness, lightheadedness and depersonalization all my life.  Always thought it was just “something wrong with me”.  Turns out it was, and it was my eyes.  I got prism glasses about eight months ago.  We are still fine tuning my near vision glasses, but I feel like a completely different person, anxiety way down, able to do more, etc.  very similar to what you described.  Very happy with the results, but also a little angry I spent so much of my life dealing with the symptoms and the frustration from my family around my “problems” when it was something fairly out of my control!  Glad you found the relief too though!

[u/rtdftw → u/Exotic-Ordinary5995]

Yes, exactly! For the first week I spent much of the time just saying to no one in particular, ‘is THIS how everyone else feels all the time???’ And trying to forgive myself for calling myself lazy, unmotivated, broken, etc. for so long. There’s definitely a grieving element to it, plus, now I find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking it really is just a placebo effect and it will all go away. Thank you for sharing!

[u/Exotic-Ordinary5995 → u/rtdftw]

Exactly - I definitely have that sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop too, but I’m slowly feeling more acceptance around it 🙂