Confessions of a Macular Degeneration Diagnosis: Finding Gratitude

I don’t know about you, but my blindness plays a part in every single feeling I have, in every small and large decision I make, and in every single thing I do in life.

An important venture

That means that working with others as they battle similar experiences is my most important venture. This carries more weight than any of my other hardships, and it influences my emotional health and healing work the most.

If you have been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration versus myopic macular degeneration, you may be wondering if all of this has much to do with you. Rest assured that even though we may not have the exact same disease, we are experiencing the same things.

Similarities and differences of our diagnoses

Myopic macular degeneration, or MMD, mimics age-related macular degeneration, AMD or ARMD. They all have the same signs and symptoms, and either can be ‘dry’ or ‘wet.’

The difference is that MMD is caused by extreme myopia, or nearsightedness, and is generally diagnosed much sooner in life than its age-related cousin. Basically, people with MMD have issues with the retinas in their eyes, more specifically their maculas, because their eyes are shaped like footballs.

This causes them to be nearsighted, or myopic, but not all nearsighted people have MMD. People with MMD have extreme myopia that is severe enough that it causes some serious problems.

Most people have spherically shaped eyeballs. For anyone diagnosed with MMD, our retinas are stretched too thin because of the elongation of our eyeballs.

How our vision changes

You may also be wondering if people with MMD get these things like people with AMD do:

Scotomas, or blind spots? Yes. Too many floaters to see through? Mmhmm... How about wavy lines, visual distortion, flashing lights, pepper speckled vision, blurred vision, and injections when their MMD is ‘wet’? Yep. Retinal tears and laser repair surgery? That too.

Difficult feelings upon diagnosis

Besides those visual changes, those diagnosed with both MMD and AMD deal with sudden and intense emotions. For me, it was a feeling of impending doom.

I have to tell you something that may be hard for you to hear, dear readers. My diagnosis gave me some pretty intense martyr victim tendencies at first.

Are you ready for the hard news? You most likely have/have had martyr victim tendencies, too. (I mean that in the most loving and supportive way possible). Take a few moments to let that really sink in if you need to. I know it’s not easy to come to terms with.

Honestly, how could you not have these tendencies? Life can be so brutal. We humans simply aren’t born with the right tools to know how to grieve in a healthy way. Sadly, it takes the practice of experiencing grief to be able to do it healthily.

Grief

Grief, you might ask? Yep, grief.

All of these complicated emotions we experience while trying to navigate such a complicated diagnosis: Anger, hopelessness, anxiety, depression, fear, sadness, and worry... You know, all the feels? They rear their ugly heads when we grieve the loss of the life we had originally planned for ourselves.

Martyrdom is an unhealthy, learned habit portrayed when doing this thing called playing the victim role. I did this a lot when I was young. I was grieving, and everything was exaggerated. But, all that negative mentality did was hold me down.

A loss of vision and independence

When you’re told that you will permanently lose your vision, and (let's not forget the most important thing) your independence... It’s painful. And that’s an extreme understatement.

Andrea Junge