I was born without vision in my right eye. It occurred at birth, it is something that I’ve lived with my whole life. There are physical challenges that come with it. I have no depth perception so I often walk into things. Balancing is a struggle. Sometimes when I read for too long my eyes start to hurt and I have to take a break. I am the world’s worst driver. But these are things I have grown to live with and accept. In fact, I don’t even think of these as challenges anymore.
No. The biggest challenge for me has been the appearance. My right eye is a little smaller than my left. Life’s already hard enough for a teenage girl, so that added insecurity made me that much more self-conscious. When people would stare at me, I knew they were staring at my eye. I would look in the mirror and cover my right eye with my hand and think about how much prettier I would be if they were the same size. There were days I was just so mad. The outward appearance of my eye was something that I struggled with my whole life.
Over Christmas Break, my best friends mom took me out to lunch. She gave this crystal plastic diamond thing. She told me that whenever I feel like I’m not worth anything, to look at this and remember that I’m worth more than I could ever imagine. I realized that my eye isn’t something I should hate. It isn’t something I should be ashamed of. It isn’t something I should be self-conscious about. I shouldn’t be scared that people are going to judge me because of it. My eye is a part of who I am. My eye makes me who I am.
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