Does Anxiety cause blurry vision? What I learned
*Please note, I am not a therapist. Everything I discuss on this blog is from my own experience and my own research. If you are struggling with symptoms of dissociation, please see a licensed therapist ASAP.
Since my late teens, I’ve had this problem. It started around the time my mom’s terrible health broke. Like many mentally ill people, self-care was not her strong suit. Neither was personal hygiene. At the intersection of poor attention to these things, she developed an acute and severe case of cellulitis, which is “a deep infection of the skin that is caused by bacteria” (John’s Hopkins Medicine). Her legs just suddenly started oozing puss one night! Freaked us both out.
I took her to the ER, where they found so many health concerns that she was admitted. I was still in my teens. It was a very stressful time.
I’ve mentioned before that Mama was a packrat. She refused to throw practically anything away, or even let me move things to clean under them. Besides the hospital stay that lasted weeks and unearthed such serious diagnoses as congestive heart failure, COPD and morbid obesity, I had to clean out years of filth and debris from a house that we were told had to pass inspection by a hospital social worker so that she could be cared for at home instead of being sent to a nursing home.
Someone brought me one of those giant dumpsters you see on construction sites that looks like a train car. I hauled and scrubbed, and hauled some more. I rented a machine to deep-clean the carpets, scrubbed mold off the walls. During this time, I also had to take over all bill pay & finances while holding down my full time-plus job. I was getting up at 5 or 6 AM, working in the house, then going to work until midnight or 1 AM. A supposed friend of the family also started more-or-less stalking me.
It was around this time of insane stress that I noticed my vision blurring. At first, I thought maybe something was wrong with my eyes, but then I noticed something else.
I had started sitting down midday when I felt I couldn’t push myself any further (because of course, I still had a long way to go!) and having a cup of coffee. It was warm, soothing. I would hold the cup in both hands absorbing its warmth. I’d close my eyes, take deep breaths, inhale the rich aroma. As I described this activity to my therapist on my last visit, she said it was a mindfulness exercise – no wonder it was so helpful!
Anyway, I noticed that after I finished my coffee, not only was my mind clearer, but my vision had cleared as well. From this, I inferred that “the fog” must be an anxiety side effect.
Some of my PTSD symptoms have faded significantly with treatment. For instance, I rarely have the kind of intense flashbacks I used to. But for all these years, that blurry fog has not faded. In fact if anything it worsened; became more frequent. In my adult life, it really bothers me. It is often very disorienting and can make regular anxiety much worse!
If I had to describe it, I know it sounds insane, but it’s like a literal white haze or film over what I am looking at that makes it less clear. Think of white noise, but for your eyes. I notice it most when I am driving because that’s when it raises my anxiety the most, but it also tends to happen in crowds or under florescent lights. And of course, any time the pressure is on. So I started Googling around just to see if anyone had found a correlation between blurry vision and anxiety. I knocked into some vague hypotheses, but the real eye-opener was when my therapist recommended the book Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele & Onno Van Der Hart, all pioneers in the largely uncharted world of researching how dissociation works, especially in the less conventional sense.
Many of us know the term “dissociation” from the condition “Dissociative Identity Disorder” or DID, also known as Multiple Personalities. Contrary to pop culture stereotyping, however, those who suffer this disorder are not evil, possessed or “crazy.” DID is a fragmentation of the psyche resulting from extreme trauma, often experienced at an age when its subject’s brain and personality were not yet fully formed enough to process it. It is a coping mechanism that kicks in to help one survive the unthinkable.
The really important thing I learned from the book was that one does not have to have a fully fragmented psyche in order to experience dissociative symptoms. Dissociation, at least in the form that I have experienced it, is a way of “checking out” when overwhelmed. It happens to me when I am extremely stressed. But – and here is the thing that may surprise you – I do not choose to dissociate. It simply happens, like the snap of a finger. One minute I’m here, the next I’m in an alternate dimension. The episodes arrive with no warning and usually last all day. Often I find that when I wake up, I am already in the episode. I haven’t figured out why yet.
The two symptoms of dissociation I tend to experience are depersonalization and derealization. Depersonalization is where you feel disconnected from yourself, as if you are not part of your own body or are watching yourself from afar instead of living in your experiences. You can also be desensitized to pain and/or other physical sensations. I have been there as well – topic for another post. Derealization is where you feel like you are walking through a dream and the things or people around you are not real. According to Boon et. al., it is possible to experience this as a literal visual fog (p. 17), which is what I seem to be doing. I have no “fix” for this, but it makes it a lot less scary to know what it is and be able to understand it in some context.
According to Boon et. al., as we practice mindfulness and grounding (and as we are in a safe environment and can remind ourselves that we are not in danger), it is possible to dissociate less and less. Regeneration. It is an inherent part of the circle of life. I believe one day I’ll get there. So will you. Don’t lose heart.
If you are experiencing symptoms of dissociation, find a therapist you can trust to talk to about it. And if you don’t trust the first one you try, try another, and another. You deserve to feel better. You are worth it.
I welcome your thoughts, experiences and questions. Lets share, grow, and break stigma! Please share comments below. ❤️
