Confessions of a Macular Degeneration Diagnosis; Part 3: Grief and Mental Health

Unfortunately for all of us, a macular degeneration diagnosis isn’t the only difficult thing in life.

Hardships other than failing eyes

Personally, I was married to an abusive narcissist who was cheating on me when I was first diagnosed.

After that, I got remarried to an alcoholic who eventually died from complications of his own disease a decade later. I spent the better part of our marriage suffering through his disease instead of paying attention to my own.

Going through loss and grief

While living with macular degeneration and slowly losing my central vision, I have been through two tumultuous marriages, two pregnancies, the death of my husband, becoming a single parent, and so much more. A super difficult life is something that many people experience. Things like having to work two (or three) jobs just to stay afloat, fighting an ex-husband in court for child support, and helping with college tuition.

Dealing with emotional pain

The truth is, it's not very easy to compartmentalize pain, and consequently, feelings like anger and sadness become elevated when they start piling up on top of each other.

You see, when painful feelings start stacking up, we feel overwhelmed. The harsh reality of it is those big emotions are like sparkling golden gates that open to a bridge headed straight toward martyr town. That's how I describe it in my memoir titled, I Did Not Kill My Husband: But I Almost Killed Myself.

Changing my mindset to stay mentally healthy

Here’s the deal, fellow victim healers. When we feel consumed by the complicated and painful things in life, it becomes really easy to ask the not-so-healthy, but warranted rhetorical question, “why me?” We’ve all done it and that’s okay.

The reason I label this as an unhealthy question is that it has a bad habit of facilitating a mindset focused on what’s going wrong rather than what we can do in order to make it right.

Martyrdom keeps us in our ‘stinkin thinking,’ as I like to call it. It can keep us stuck in a bad place if we aren’t careful.

Why me?

Sometimes I forget life’s unwritten rules and start to feel sorry for myself when things get tough. Like, HELLO! Whoever is watching me from above, can’t you see how much I’m struggling already? I don’t need more really hard stuff right now. Come back another time, or, not at all. Please and thank you.

Is anyone else feeling me on this? Have you ever felt this way too?

A diagnosis that threatens central vision blindness is life-altering for anyone, but for me it was a life-altering diagnosis that threatened central vision blindness about forty years sooner than most.

Turning my tough times into gratitude

I had my whole life ahead of me when I was diagnosed and was soon to be a new mommy. It was completely incomprehensible how I’d make it through something like that. In the beginning, myopic macular degeneration took away all of my hopes and dreams, and then it literally almost took my life by means of suicide.

I absolutely needed to find a way to stop my diagnosis from stealing my joy. What I realized over time was that I only get one life. I was simply not going to allow this (or anything else) to stop me from living my best life. I just needed to figure out how.

I cannot be the only person to feel that way upon diagnosis. This is why I’m here telling my story.

Stay tuned for Part 4 where I discuss where to find help if you or anyone you know is struggling with a difficult diagnosis.

Andrea Junge